I would like to REALLY archive some older e-mail-folders. Archive seems not to be the right word, because i work with empty inboxes, so every completed or answered e-mail is still archived in a folder (with the name of the year), but i use IMAP so all archived emails are still on the server.

Now i want to EXPORT the years 2018-2019 to my selfhosted-backup-server so that i can delete the emails on the mail-server.

a) Which format make most sense? EML? mbox? Another one? Would be nice if i can search the archived stuff without too many effort. b) Should i export directly from the UI of my mailprovider (if possible) or is exporting from thunderbird-client ok.

  • @calzone8915
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    211 months ago

    It doesn’t really matter, you should do it however the mail archive software wants it. Apparently there is a pretty big difference between eml and maildir, so you possibly need to try both ways to see what works with your software and workflow.

    • Shertson
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      111 months ago

      What email archive software do you use? I’ve often thought about spinning up an IMAP server locally that doesn’t send/receive but allows me to copy all my old mail to it. I have a dozen or more email accounts across different providers and would want each kept separate in the archive. They also span 15+ years.