I have a bunch of old mail spread variously across dovecot maildirs and mbox format files on several machines that are headed for the trash. Is there anything considered to be a portable archive format for mail messages, and if so are there tools to copy into it - or do I have to pick a client and copy to its local storage? -- Les Mikesell lesmikesell at gmail.com
>> I have a bunch of old mail spread variously across dovecot maildirs and mbox format files on several machines that are headed for the trash. Is there anything considered to be a portable archive format for mail messages, and if so are there tools to copy into it - or do I have to pick a client and copy to its local storage?<< >> >>-- >> Les Mikesell >> lesmikesell at gmail.comThe mbox format and mail messages in the dovecot maildirs can be copied as is to another server (or directory). The only thing that you don't need (or probably don't want) to copy would be the index files that live in the directory above the maildirs. The index files are in the form: dovecot-* and dovecot.index* and usually live above the actual directory where the messages are stored. Also, most of the sub-folders have a leading '.' so would be "hidden" unless you use 'ls -la' to view the directory contents. Cheers! Simba Engineering
From: Les Mikesell <lesmikesell at gmail.com>> I have a bunch of old mail spread variously across dovecot maildirs > and mbox format files on several machines that are headed for the > trash.? Is there anything considered to be a portable archive format > for mail messages, and if so are there tools to copy into it - or do I > have to pick a client and copy to its local storage?Maybe as .eml files? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-mail#Filename_extensions JD
Les Mikesell wrote:> I have a bunch of old mail spread variously across dovecot maildirs > and mbox format files on several machines that are headed for the > trash. Is there anything considered to be a portable archive format > for mail messages, and if so are there tools to copy into it - or do I > have to pick a client and copy to its local storage?I have a much more naive question along the same lines. Apologies if it is too far from the original query. I'm running an IMAP (dovecot) server, with my mail stored in ~/maildir . I'm using KMail on my laptop to access the server (on another machine). I'd like to archive some of my older email, ie transfer it to another disk on the server, but I don't understand exactly what will happen if I run Folder=>Archive Folder on my laptop, and don't like to try it without more knowledge. Will the folder disappear from the list I see in KMail? Will the archive be saved on my laptop or on the server? In what format? Will I be able to "un-archive" it if I wish? Will the various dovecot index files be updated appropriately? I suppose my problem basically is that I don't know how kmail on my laptop and dovecot on my server interact. -- Timothy Murphy e-mail: gayleard /at/ eircom.net tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366 s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland