Backing up Evolution e-mail messages

[Les Mikesell]

Robin Laing wrote:

>>>>
>>>> Could someone please tell me how to backup / copy all my e-mail 
>>>> messages
>>>> to an external USB hard drive?
>>>>
>>>> I'm running Evolution 2.8.3 on FC6.
>>>>
>>>> No doubt it's probably really easy to do if I spent a bit of time doing
>>>> some research, I just don't have the luxury of time right now so would
>>>> some kind FC user please oblige?
>>
>> The same problem for thunderbird!
>>
> 
> For Thunderbird.
> 
> cp -r ~/.thunderbird/{user directory}/Mail /media/{usb drive}
> 
> This will copy all the directories, all the mail boxes and all the rest 
> of the information.
> 
> I have done this various times.  I have even transfered mail between 
> Linux and Windows and back but with permission headaches.

A slow but simple way to way to copy mail around without worrying about 
conversions is to set up an IMAP server (like dovecot) on a linux box 
somewhere, then set up an account pointing to it on any imap-aware 
client, select the messages you want to move or copy and drop them in 
their new destination folder.  This doesn't get them on an external 
drive (without some extra contortions) but if you can arrange access to 
the server it might be even more portable.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com