Backup email?

[Knute Johnson]

On 9/6/2011 12:38 PM, Preston Hagar wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 4, 2011 at 11:41 AM, Knute Johnson<ubuntu at knutejohnson.com>  wrote:
>> Is there a way to backup emails?  My mail server has about 6GB of emails
>> stored in IMAP accounts that could be kept somewhere else if I had a way to
>> get at them occasionally.  Is there a simple offline storage system that
>> would work with Thunderbird?
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> --
>>
>> Knute Johnson
>>
>
> In Thunderbird 3 or later, go to Account Settings, then
> Synchronization&  Storage under the account you want to back up.
> Check the "keep messages for this account on this computer" and then
> make sure the other settings are setup to include all messages.
>
> Once it syncs it all (may take a while depending on your connection),
> you have a couple of options.  For just a backup, backup your
> ~/.thunderbird directory.  A few directories in that one are all your
> emails in mbox format.
>
> If you want them easily accessible, but not on your server, make sure
> your Thunderbird is on "All folders in the left menu pane"  then just
> drag the folders/emails you want to back up from their current
> location on your account under Local Folders.   This will store them
> locally, make the searchable from within Thunderbird, and should
> remove them from the email server (if not, you can then delete them
> from the email server).  No extra software needed.
>
> Preston
>

Thanks, I did try it with one of the biggest folders and it didn't 
successfully copy the files.  It lost the headers and data of about a 
1000 emails.

I'm going to have to try something else.

-- 

Knute Johnson