Gmail or Thunderbird problem?

[Bart Silverstrim]

CLIFFORD ILKAY wrote:
> Bart Silverstrim wrote:
>> Karl F. Larsen wrote:
>>
>>>     Yes that may be correct. I am still learning how IMAP works. There 
>>> is not very much information on IMAP that I can find.
>> What about IMAP is confusing?
>>
>> Primarily IMAP is a way of keeping email on the mail server instead of 
>> your computer so you can access it from a number of systems without 
>> losing your mail, and as long as the provider does decent backups of 
>> their data you won't lose data.
> 
> It's not "their" data. It's their client's data.

I'll remember that if the ISP is served with a warrant for data so 
officials get the data but the client is never told of this being 
served...courtesy of some of the wonderful laws our soon to be ex 
president had passed for domestic spying.

> In our hosting
> operation, we don't back up client data unless they expressly want us to
> do it and then we bill for it accordingly. Even if your hosting provider
> says they back up your data, what would you do if their machine died and
> their backup turned out to be not restorable, or if they went bankrupt
> as the first hosting provider we used did about 13 years ago(*)? You can
> scream, you can vent fury at them and you can even threaten to sue (but
> not prevail if you did) but you'll still be without your data. The
> prudent thing is to make sure that you always have a local copy of any
> remote data that is valuable to you.

*shrug* the ISP's I've worked with here make backups of their email 
server because they can be driven out of business if they have a crash 
and lose services their clients use. *shrug* up to them how they want to 
serve their customers.

Hosting is a little different since it means the client is taking 
responsibility for management. I was just talking about ISP email, 
though, as I didn't think most users would be administrating their own 
hosted email service.