How does everyone back up his/her emails??

lux · 4 Apr 2002, 12:22 PM

How does everyone back up their emails?

Does Fastmail provide a option where we can package all the emails into a zip file?

I realized that we can copy all the emails from IMAP folder to a local folder but that's a kind of pain...

Jeremy Howard · 4 Apr 2002, 12:33 PM

You can package all your emails into a zip file by clicking Folders->Purge->Archive on the web interface.

Personally, I synchonize by important folders each day, and backup my local IMAP mail store.

With Outlook Express, you can find your local mail store with Tools->Options->Maintenence->Store Folder.

I'm not sure on the details of restoring from this backup, since I figured I'd learn to do it when I needed too, and I haven't need to yet... I guess I should try it on a test account sometime. I think it would be just a case of recreating an account with the same name in OE, doing a sync, and then copying back the new mailbox file, and doing a sync again to get the server to notice the 'new' messages.

mikemee · 4 Apr 2002, 01:10 PM

A good guide for backup restore for Outlook Express can be found at:

http://www.tomsterdam.com/insideOE/backup/index.htm

Be very careful with imap and OE, though. My brother once had the very sad experience of the following (approx) when trying to move from one imap provider to another:

1) made sure all messages were downloaded to OE (not just headers)
2) changed his account settings to point to the new provider
3) connected

He expected to connect and then drag his messages down to the new imap server. What actually happened (obvious in hindsight) was that OE synced up perfectly to the imap server -- by deleting all his saved messages and leaving him with a pristine empty folder.

Jeremy Howard · 4 Apr 2002, 01:13 PM

Thanks Mikemee. Your point about IMAP is a good one--that's why in my post above I suggest syncing your account before bringing in your backed up messages. I would expect in the case OE would treat them as new messages since they weren't in the last sync.

I'll have to try this out soon and get it all documented. We should do this for Mozilla too.

Boom · 4 Apr 2002, 04:56 PM

I alwash did that by copying the dbx files into a zip file if you ever have to reinstall your OS you can extract it and import it in OE

lukask · 4 Apr 2002, 05:58 PM

What I do is this: I use my own domain name for email addresses. With the free DNS-services ZoneEdit or MyDomain I forward all my emails to more than one mailbox, of which my main mailbox is FastMail since a week now.
I use Yahoo

for backup, among others.
In this way I always have online access to my important emails, if one or more of my mailboxes temporarily suffer down time.

What you can do too is: use forwarding form FastMail to any other account you may have, just for online backup purposes.

And of course it's a good idea to make "offline" backups too, in the ways described in other post to this thread.

Boom · 4 Apr 2002, 06:32 PM

Actually that will set the date on all posts and all messages will be marked as unread so if you have a hunderds of email you have to mark them as read.But that wouldn't be a problem.If you ever wan't to see a message on a specific date you have to open all messages to see the date

Spell · 11 Jun 2002, 04:00 AM

There exists a shareware-tool at www.priotecs.com.
It's designed explicitely for backing up outlook express accounts and at first glance it looks useful. The downside is that it is only available in german...

injinuity · 11 Jun 2002, 04:19 AM

The easiest way is like what Jeremey suggested.. but make sure that you change the location to somewhere more easily seeable like in the a c:\letters or d:\letters etc.. and then back up from there...

If you are talking about other tools that do this.. then there is something called "ABF outlook backup" ...its the best software when it comes to backing up you emails... or if you just want to extract all your mails to another folder quickly then you can use a program called "DbXtract"..but unfortuntely there is no "Dbimport" ..so you have to import them manually.. but seriosly speaking if you want to use the best tool for abcking up then Id suggest "ABF outlook backup"

Jinu Johnson

kchess79 · 11 Jun 2002, 07:12 AM

This may sound a bit complicated, but I IMAP all my mail to Outlook Express, and once a week, I go in and save all new important messages to a ZIP disk. Works for me.

**Shelded** · 11 Jun 2002, 02:06 PM

Quote:

Posted by Jeremy Howard on 3rd April 2002 07:33 PM:
You can package all your emails into a zip file by clicking Folders->Purge->Archive on the web interface.

I've used this and it's great for archival. One drawback is that if messages are named the same the files will be given number suffixes. If you want to merge several of these Zip archives you will have filename conflicts.

Quote:

Personally, I synchonize by important folders each day, and backup my local IMAP mail store.

Do you use webmail throughout the day, and only start up OE at the end of day archive time? That's the only way it makes sense because synching aaaaaallll those folders every 5 minutes all day long is awful.

Quote:

With Outlook Express, you can find your local mail store with Tools->Options->Maintenence->Store Folder.

When you find the awful path MicroSoft used you will want to relocate this folder to a reasonable place like c:\data\mail so you can collect it with your routine backup.

Quote:

I'm not sure on the details of restoring from this backup, since I figured I'd learn to do it when I needed too, and I haven't need to yet... I guess I should try it on a test account sometime. I think it would be just a case of recreating an account with the same name in OE, doing a sync, and then copying back the new mailbox file, and doing a sync again to get the server to notice the 'new' messages.

Uh, sure.

===================================================

Quote:

Posted by mikemee on 3rd April 2002 08:10 PM:
OE guide to backup/restore

A good guide for backup restore for Outlook Express can be found at:

http://www.tomsterdam.com/insideOE/backup/index.htm

The archive process indicated in this link is more complicated than doing it the less-dangerous way. This may have been written for a prior version of Outlook Express that wasn't so easy? See my following post.

Quote:

Posted by Boom on 3rd April 2002 11:56 PM:

I alwash did that by copying the dbx files into a zip file if you ever have to reinstall your OS you can extract it and import it in OE.

Posted by injinuity on 10th June 2002 12:19 PM:

The easiest way is like what Jeremey suggested.. but make sure that you change the location to somewhere more easily seeable like in the a c:\letters or d:\letters etc.. and then back up from there...

Exactly the correct way. These guys are right.

**Shelded** · 11 Jun 2002, 02:09 PM

On Friday this past week I felt the need to back up my Outlook Express folders, I thought I might be disappointed to lose my 320MB mail file. So I wanted to back it up. I had backed up the data folders before but never the IMAP folders because I had nothing but headers.

1. I turned synchronization to "all messages" for ALL my IMAP folders and waited until the messages all downloaded. Normally I keep them "do not synchronize" so it won't slow the system.
2. I burned a CD containing the entire mail folder, which contains a bunch of .dbx files and some .iaf files (my exported mail account settings).

Sunday night I noticed that a message rule hadn't triggered -- because the mail folder it tried to move to was GONE!! ? The folder contained ALL my long term mail storage, about 60MB of important data. I still have no idea why it was deleted. I decided to restore the missing data.

1. I copied the CD data to a new folder on the hard drive and checked that the readonly bit was clear.
2. In OE5 I chose File | Import | Messages | OE5 | "Import messages from a OE5 store directory" and gave the directory containing the stuff from the CD.
3. The tedious part was clicking on EACH folder I wished to restore. My main folder contains perhaps 100 subfolders. There appeared no other way, so I clicked and clicked. The import process ran in just a few seconds, adding all the missing messages to my current OE folder!!

Notes and unresolved issues:
* Copying .dbx files back directly did not work for me because I had a huge number of subfolders I would have to have recreated by hand. Using the built-in process was easier.
* Although I copied the IMAP folders to the CD they do not appear in the list so this method won't restore IMAP folders. The process Jeremy guesses at above sounds good to me.

Jeremy Howard · 11 Jun 2002, 02:23 PM

Rob ran a new maintenance script the other day and used his own account as the guinea pig (err... nice one Rob!

...I think he'll be using the official "test" account from now now for this!). The maintenance didn't entirely work correctly, unless the planned outcome was to delete all folder on the IMAP server!

Rob followed pretty much the process Shelded described to restore his IMAP folders. I'm not sure why they appeared in his case, but not in Shelded's case...

SanjaySheth · 11 Jun 2002, 02:35 PM

Would it be possible for to provide an option to zip up ALL emails in ALL folders (obviously put the emails in folders in subfolders) and allow us to download the overall zip file?

I know for some people this could be a very large download so perhaps allow us to pick and choose folders as well?

For bonus points, allow us to enter a date range. That way, we can do regular incremental backups (say once a month) of all the emails that came in the last month or something.

lux · 11 Jun 2002, 11:41 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Jeremy Howard
You can package all your emails into a zip file by clicking (Options) Folders->Purge->Archive on the web interface.

4 Apr 2002, 12:22 PM	#1
lux The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 2,274	How does everyone back up his/her emails?? How does everyone back up their emails? Does Fastmail provide a option where we can package all the emails into a zip file? I realized that we can copy all the emails from IMAP folder to a local folder but that's a kind of pain...

4 Apr 2002, 01:10 PM	#3
mikemee Member Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 77	OE guide to backup/restore A good guide for backup restore for Outlook Express can be found at: http://www.tomsterdam.com/insideOE/backup/index.htm Be very careful with imap and OE, though. My brother once had the very sad experience of the following (approx) when trying to move from one imap provider to another: 1) made sure all messages were downloaded to OE (not just headers) 2) changed his account settings to point to the new provider 3) connected He expected to connect and then drag his messages down to the new imap server. What actually happened (obvious in hindsight) was that OE synced up perfectly to the imap server -- by deleting all his saved messages and leaving him with a pristine empty folder.

4 Apr 2002, 05:58 PM	#6
lukask Essential Contributor Join Date: Dec 1999 Location: Haarlem, Netherlands Posts: 311	Forward to Multiple mailboxes What I do is this: I use my own domain name for email addresses. With the free DNS-services ZoneEdit or MyDomain I forward all my emails to more than one mailbox, of which my main mailbox is FastMail since a week now. I use Yahoo for backup, among others. In this way I always have online access to my important emails, if one or more of my mailboxes temporarily suffer down time. What you can do too is: use forwarding form FastMail to any other account you may have, just for online backup purposes. And of course it's a good idea to make "offline" backups too, in the ways described in other post to this thread.

4 Apr 2002, 12:33 PM	#2
Jeremy Howard Ultimate Contributor Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Australia Posts: 11,501	You can package all your emails into a zip file by clicking Folders->Purge->Archive on the web interface. Personally, I synchonize by important folders each day, and backup my local IMAP mail store. With Outlook Express, you can find your local mail store with Tools->Options->Maintenence->Store Folder. I'm not sure on the details of restoring from this backup, since I figured I'd learn to do it when I needed too, and I haven't need to yet... I guess I should try it on a test account sometime. I think it would be just a case of recreating an account with the same name in OE, doing a sync, and then copying back the new mailbox file, and doing a sync again to get the server to notice the 'new' messages.

4 Apr 2002, 01:13 PM	#4
Jeremy Howard Ultimate Contributor Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Australia Posts: 11,501	Thanks Mikemee. Your point about IMAP is a good one--that's why in my post above I suggest syncing your account before bringing in your backed up messages. I would expect in the case OE would treat them as new messages since they weren't in the last sync. I'll have to try this out soon and get it all documented. We should do this for Mozilla too.

4 Apr 2002, 04:56 PM	#5
Boom Essential Contributor Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Belgium Posts: 202	I alwash did that by copying the dbx files into a zip file if you ever have to reinstall your OS you can extract it and import it in OE

4 Apr 2002, 06:32 PM	#7
Boom Essential Contributor Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Belgium Posts: 202	Actually that will set the date on all posts and all messages will be marked as unread so if you have a hunderds of email you have to mark them as read.But that wouldn't be a problem.If you ever wan't to see a message on a specific date you have to open all messages to see the date

11 Jun 2002, 04:00 AM	#8
Spell Junior Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Posts: 29	There exists a shareware-tool at www.priotecs.com. It's designed explicitely for backing up outlook express accounts and at first glance it looks useful. The downside is that it is only available in german...

11 Jun 2002, 04:19 AM	#9
injinuity Cornerstone of the Community Join Date: Apr 2002 Posts: 803	The easiest way is like what Jeremey suggested.. but make sure that you change the location to somewhere more easily seeable like in the a c:\letters or d:\letters etc.. and then back up from there... If you are talking about other tools that do this.. then there is something called "ABF outlook backup" ...its the best software when it comes to backing up you emails... or if you just want to extract all your mails to another folder quickly then you can use a program called "DbXtract"..but unfortuntely there is no "Dbimport" ..so you have to import them manually.. but seriosly speaking if you want to use the best tool for abcking up then Id suggest "ABF outlook backup" Jinu Johnson

11 Jun 2002, 07:12 AM	#10
kchess79 Master of the @ Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Chicagoland Posts: 1,142	This may sound a bit complicated, but I IMAP all my mail to Outlook Express, and once a week, I go in and save all new important messages to a ZIP disk. Works for me.

11 Jun 2002, 02:09 PM	#12
Shelded Moderator Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: USA Northwest Posts: 3,849	On Friday this past week I felt the need to back up my Outlook Express folders, I thought I might be disappointed to lose my 320MB mail file. So I wanted to back it up. I had backed up the data folders before but never the IMAP folders because I had nothing but headers. 1. I turned synchronization to "all messages" for ALL my IMAP folders and waited until the messages all downloaded. Normally I keep them "do not synchronize" so it won't slow the system. 2. I burned a CD containing the entire mail folder, which contains a bunch of .dbx files and some .iaf files (my exported mail account settings). Sunday night I noticed that a message rule hadn't triggered -- because the mail folder it tried to move to was GONE!! ? The folder contained ALL my long term mail storage, about 60MB of important data. I still have no idea why it was deleted. I decided to restore the missing data. 1. I copied the CD data to a new folder on the hard drive and checked that the readonly bit was clear. 2. In OE5 I chose File \| Import \| Messages \| OE5 \| "Import messages from a OE5 store directory" and gave the directory containing the stuff from the CD. 3. The tedious part was clicking on EACH folder I wished to restore. My main folder contains perhaps 100 subfolders. There appeared no other way, so I clicked and clicked. The import process ran in just a few seconds, adding all the missing messages to my current OE folder!! Notes and unresolved issues: * Copying .dbx files back directly did not work for me because I had a huge number of subfolders I would have to have recreated by hand. Using the built-in process was easier. * Although I copied the IMAP folders to the CD they do not appear in the list so this method won't restore IMAP folders. The process Jeremy guesses at above sounds good to me.

11 Jun 2002, 02:23 PM	#13
Jeremy Howard Ultimate Contributor Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Australia Posts: 11,501	Rob ran a new maintenance script the other day and used his own account as the guinea pig (err... nice one Rob! ...I think he'll be using the official "test" account from now now for this!). The maintenance didn't entirely work correctly, unless the planned outcome was to delete all folder on the IMAP server! Rob followed pretty much the process Shelded described to restore his IMAP folders. I'm not sure why they appeared in his case, but not in Shelded's case...

11 Jun 2002, 02:35 PM	#14
SanjaySheth Master of the @ Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Chicago Posts: 1,079	Would it be possible for to provide an option to zip up ALL emails in ALL folders (obviously put the emails in folders in subfolders) and allow us to download the overall zip file? I know for some people this could be a very large download so perhaps allow us to pick and choose folders as well? For bonus points, allow us to enter a date range. That way, we can do regular incremental backups (say once a month) of all the emails that came in the last month or something.