this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2023
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How to keep all email locally in a useful format that can be searched across devices? (beehaw.org)
submitted 1 year ago by crank@beehaw.org to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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I have an account on an SMTP server. The server has a storage quota. I'd like the delete stuff from the server but keep it locally in case I need it. Just in case.

I'd like to be able to access the mail somehow on other computers and hopefully mobile devices on my network so that it can be searched when needed. I'm not sure what the best interface for that would be. A webmail client?

One option would be to use Thunderbird or another client to download the mail once in a while but disable deleting local messages when they are removed from the server. Would Thunderbird store the messages in a format I can use readily with other applications? Or should I use something else to download the mail?

What about situations where messages are moved from one folder to another on the server? Would I get a duplicate locally of the message appearing in both locations? Not sure how the storage and metadata actually are.

Also, is it possible in such a situation to put a message back on the server if I realize it was deleted in error?

Any idea would be welcome. I am a bit stuck.

I can use the command line comfortably but ideally I'd have a solution that doesn't rely on the terminal to find find messages and such. I don't really like terminal mail clients.

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[–] bizdelnick@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It is the POP3 workflow, not IMAP. Maybe setup your client to use POP3 and remove mails from server after receiving? However I don't recommend Thunderbird, its POP3 support was very buggy when I used it (many years ago). Try Sylpheed or Claws Mail, for example.

[–] Pantherina@feddit.de 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thunderbird has actual funding now, so please test before advising against software

[–] bizdelnick@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

It is not the question of funding. Thunderbird has always had a number of long standing bugs. Speaking about such rare use cases, I don't think someone care about them. Anyway, I recommend using software that I know it worked correctly, not that worked incorrectly and could be fixed but requires further testing.

[–] crank@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I want to keep mail on the server at about 80-90% of quota. Because when I am outside of my home, that will continue to be what I have access to. So the local copy will only be as a backup in case I delete something that I later realize I need to refer to. Since most emails are very small individually I should be able to keep the majority of them on the server. I will selectively delete either very large emails, or emails which there are so, so many of like notifications, which I will probably never need to look at.

I have used Sylpheed a bit in the past. I prefer it and a very similar project called Interlink to tbird. I just said tbird because I figured everyone would know it. But also I thought all of those were forks of tbird and wouldn't differ much in how they work. Do they have much different internals?

[–] bizdelnick@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You are wrong, there are no widely used forks of Thunderbird AFAIK. Thunderbird is based on Mozilla and has a huge codebase that is very hard to maintain. All other popular email clients have totally different code and based on other libraries. They can be similar in how they appear, but not in what bugs they have.

[–] crank@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

Now that I look, I see I am wrong.

A while ago I was trying out betterbird which actually is a TB fork and I guess I kinda just generalized from that. But looking through a list of linux email clients it is clear that only a couple are related to TB.