What's a good way to back up Gmail when you've reached the size limit?

[ultred ragnusen]

What's a good way to back up Gmail when you've reached the size limit?
http://wetakepic.com/images/2018/03/03/gmail_bck_01.jpg

Last week I asked this question on the Windows newsgroups, where in that
week, the only suggestion that was doable was to use Thunderbird to create
a huge monolithic mbox file.
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/microsoft.public.windowsxp.general/U_BW79dG3xE

Maybe I'm too romantic, but I would think tools for this basic need of
every human being would already exist, where there seem to me to be two
basic (romantic?) approaches:

1. Create a huge mbox file that is importable into any MUA, or, better,
2. Create a huge hierarchy of folders & files & attachments

I like the hierarchy-of-folders-and-attachments idea, but I don't know if
any tool to do that exists.

My very first thought is that a "folder tree" type of archival would have
no trouble putting the detached attachment into the same folder as the
message it relates to.

It's hard to draw but it would be something like this folder tree:
.......................Mail
........................|
........Thread A...........Thread B.........Thread C
...........|
........Message 1...........Message 2.........Message 3
...........|
........Attachment x........Attachment y......Attachment z

Maybe I'm too romantic, but this seems so obvious as the first choice of
mail archival, that I simply /assume/ a tool to do this already exists.

Does it?

[ultred ragnusen]

ultred ragnusen <ult...@ragnusen.com> wrote:

> What's a good way to back up Gmail when you've reached the size limit?
> http://wetakepic.com/images/2018/03/03/gmail_bck_01.jpg

BTW, the archival of the contacts isn't the problem.

The question is about one-click archival to the local HDD of all the mail
(threads + messages) and their associated attachments.

For the contacts, I've already archived them into a file, as shown here.
https://support.google.com/contacts/answer/1069522 (assumes older gmail!)

0. Create a folder hierarchy, e.g.,
"mkdir -p ./backup/gmail/{attach,contact,mbox}/"
1. Using a web browser, log in to your Google mail account
2. Click the down arrow to the right of the "Gmail" at the top left
3. Select "Contacts" from that short pulldown menu
4. Select the "hamburger' icon at top left in the blue bar
5. Click the "More" entry to expand the available options
6. Click the "Export" selection
7. Select the "GO TO OLD VERSION" option (it's your only choice)
8. Your browser may ask you to allow popups, which you'll have to allow
9. Click on the "More" button in the middle top of the web page
10. Select "Export contacts"
11. Change the default to "All contacts"
12. Select "Which export format" of Google or Outlook CSV or vCard format.
13. Click the blue "Export" button
14. The resulting file names will be, by default,
google.csv, contacts.csv, and contacts.vcf
which you'll likely wish to rename to an archival context such as
20180305youremailaddress_{format}.{ext}

The remaining question is about one-click archival to the local HDD of all
the mail (threads + messages) and their associated attachments.

[ultred ragnusen]

ultred ragnusen <ult...@ragnusen.com> wrote:

> The remaining question is about one-click archival to the local HDD of all
> the mail (threads + messages) and their associated attachments.

Given my mail is stopped, at 15GB, I am forced to try /something/.

Hence, I will try this approach which archives mail in MBOX format:
https://www.wikihow.com/Back-Up-Your-Gmail-Account

As tutorials often go stale, here's my writeup of the steps taken.

1. Using a web browser, log in to your Google mail account

2. Click your picture (or the circle with your email address first letter)
3. Click the button labeled "My Account"
4. Click "Personal info & privacy"
5. Scroll down to "Control your content" and "Download your data"
6. Click "CREATE ARCHIVE"
7. Click the "SELECT NONE" button (because all archives are on by default)
8. Turn on "all mail" or you can choose to archive mail by their labels.
9. Common labels are: all, inbox, sent, archived, drafts, starred, etc.
10. Press Next once you've selected "all mail"
11. Choose an archive format of either "zip" or "tgz"
12. Choose an archive size of (1, 2, 4, 10, or 50GB per file)
13. Note that Zip files larger than 2GB will be compressed in zip64 format
14. Choose a delivery method of "Send download link via email"
15. Click on the blue CREATE ARCHIVE button
16. A message will report:
"An archive of your Mail data is currently being prepared
Please note that archives may take a long time (hours or possibly days)
to create. You will receive an email when your archive is complete."

I'll let you know how it turns out, where the result should be a single
15GB file in "MBOX" format, or a set of smaller MBOX files depending on
what you decided to archive (e.g., sent versus inbox versus important,
etc.).

[Carlos E.R.]

On 2018-03-05 09:36, ultred ragnusen wrote:
> What's a good way to back up Gmail when you've reached the size limit?
> http://wetakepic.com/images/2018/03/03/gmail_bck_01.jpg
>
> Last week I asked this question on the Windows newsgroups, where in that
> week, the only suggestion that was doable was to use Thunderbird to create
> a huge monolithic mbox file.
> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/microsoft.public.windowsxp.general/U_BW79dG3xE

The first post I read doesn't say one huge file, but rather several. It
is up to you to decide how many by sorting the mail in folders.

I have not read the entire forum thread.

Yes, the mbox file from Thunderbird is readable on other programs.

> Maybe I'm too romantic, but I would think tools for this basic need of
> every human being would already exist, where there seem to me to be two
> basic (romantic?) approaches:
>
> 1. Create a huge mbox file that is importable into any MUA, or, better,
> 2. Create a huge hierarchy of folders & files & attachments
>
> I like the hierarchy-of-folders-and-attachments idea, but I don't know if
> any tool to do that exists.

It is up to you to do the sorting. One folder, one file, that is it.
Unless you use a client that understands Maildir.

> My very first thought is that a "folder tree" type of archival would have
> no trouble putting the detached attachment into the same folder as the
> message it relates to.

I'm not aware of a good tool to separate attachments from mails, and
that it also allows for finding the exact file that is mentioned in a
particular post, having in mind that a file could have been sent with
the same name several times, with the same or different versions of the
file.


As I understand that you are using Linux - why then post here - why
don't you create an imap server on your computer, using an storage of
your choosing, then use a tool to sync gmail imap to your imap? This
would do no sorting, initially. I use "imapsync". Very slow, but does
the thing. You have to do the deletion manually, I understand.

With Dovecot you can choose how to store the mail: one file or several
or huge number.

You can also use Thunderbird with a local imap server. This is what I
probably would do.

You can of course do the download with a tool such as "fetchmail", but
this will not keep the read flags or other flags.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

[Richard Kettlewell]

ultred ragnusen <ult...@ragnusen.com> writes:
> What's a good way to back up Gmail when you've reached the size limit?
> http://wetakepic.com/images/2018/03/03/gmail_bck_01.jpg

It’s not really a backup if you only do it when you run out of space...

> Last week I asked this question on the Windows newsgroups, where in that
> week, the only suggestion that was doable was to use Thunderbird to create
> a huge monolithic mbox file.
> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/microsoft.public.windowsxp.general/U_BW79dG3xE

You can use multiple mailbox files if you want. I break my archives up
by year. I use own IMAP server, but TB can write to local folders as
well.

--
https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

[ultred ragnusen]

Richard Kettlewell <inv...@invalid.invalid> wrote:

>> What's a good way to back up Gmail when you've reached the size limit?
>> http://wetakepic.com/images/2018/03/03/gmail_bck_01.jpg
>

> It┬ not really a backup if you only do it when you run out of space...

Thank you for that interesting philosophical point, which I agree with.
It's an emergency measure that my 15GB of space filled up (almost
completely by the email itself and not anything else in the Google
ecosystem) so that I can get the mail back.

Hours after requesting Google create a downloadable archive for me, I
finally received the email link from Google where they save the 10GB file
in a decently named filename of the format takeout-20180305xxxxxxxx-001.tgz

>
>> Last week I asked this question on the Windows newsgroups, where in that
>> week, the only suggestion that was doable was to use Thunderbird to create
>> a huge monolithic mbox file.
>> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/microsoft.public.windowsxp.general/U_BW79dG3xE
>
> You can use multiple mailbox files if you want. I break my archives up
> by year. I use own IMAP server, but TB can write to local folders as
> well.

In hindsight, that's EXACTLY what I should have done.

I should have created a 20160101 archive, a 20170101 archive, and a
20180101 archive, etc., even as they would overlap, and then I could feel
more free to /delete/ some of the older stuff from, say, five years ago.

Would you consider /that/ a backup strategy? :)

Anyway, for the tribal knowledge, here's Google's help on contacts:

https://support.google.com/contacts/answer/1069522 (assumes older gmail!)

And here is Google's suggestion for archiving the email to an MBOX file.
https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3024190

[Mike Easter]

ultred ragnusen wrote:
> And here is Google's suggestion for archiving the email to an MBOX file.

There's nothing about mbox in that link:

> https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3024190

That part of google help is about downloading from one's google
'account' (which includes gmail) using google's archiving strategy.
That strategy chops up (could chop up) archives into 2G pieces if the
user chooses .zip or allows up to 50G if the archive is .tgz. Fine.

But, if the user were to work from gmail's webmail interface (instead of
the account archival one) for their mail and simply employed such as Tb
(or other) to pop or imap the storage into the client, then the download
would be in the same format as the client such as Tb. The client is
making the .moz mbox format.

The concept of mbox is not 'monolithic' in terms of important fine
points of the format, but instead is a generic 'idea' as described by
the wp article on the idea* which mentions the .moz mboxrd variant.

In terms of the organization of the mail, it is important to remember
that gmail has its own strategy/concept of what a 'folder' is.** The
compatibility between gmail and Tb, with Tb structuring its folders as
'folder-files' and gmail structuring its folders as labels which allows
multiple label-folders for any given item is not exactly perfect.

Your idea which you mentioned in the multi-windows-groups of the
'format' of your download being very generic so that the mails could be
handled any whichaway - by any sort of client - will be imperfect. It
will work in the sense that mbox is a 'more-or-less' generic text file
structure and mime compliant, but the reality is that the use of a mail
storage system is going to be most conveniently handled by a mail client
such as Tb, while you might be able to *find* something in the stores
with a tool such as grep.


* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mbox
** https://support.google.com/mail/forum/AAAAK7un8RUE0ndjgOfvRE?hl=en
What's difference between a label and a folder? - Gmail doesn't have
folders.
--
Mike Easter

[ultred ragnusen]

"Carlos E.R." <robin_...@es.invalid> wrote:

> I'm not aware of a good tool to separate attachments from mails, and
> that it also allows for finding the exact file that is mentioned in a
> particular post, having in mind that a file could have been sent with
> the same name several times, with the same or different versions of the
> file.

Once I have the mail archived from Google in a standard MBOX format, I can
delete en masse and then start using my email again, which is the most
important thing temporally.

Longer term it behooves us to find a program that can run on a 10GB to 15GB
monolithic mbox file to strip out the attachments (perhaps duplicating
them, so that they remain in mime-encoded format within the mbox file
itself).

Even longer term it would be nice to find a program that turns a mbox file
into a set of folder hierarchies ... but ... maybe that's not all that
useful because, as noted, if Thunderbird or some other common MUA can
handle the huge mbox file, then that might be good enough to run the
necessary searches in the future on the backed up mbox file.

> As I understand that you are using Linux - why then post here - why
> don't you create an imap server on your computer, using an storage of
> your choosing, then use a tool to sync gmail imap to your imap? This
> would do no sorting, initially. I use "imapsync". Very slow, but does
> the thing. You have to do the deletion manually, I understand.

Um.... that's a neat idea, but I've done the sendmail thing, and, well, um,
er, I don't want to set up an IMAP server. At least not unless I have to.

I think downloading the MBOX archive from Google once a year is good enough
to give me the freedom to delete anything in the mail at the time of the
download.

> You can of course do the download with a tool such as "fetchmail", but
> this will not keep the read flags or other flags.

It will be interesting to see if the resulting 10GB "takeout" MBOX file
from Google has those read flags set when opened in another MUA.
https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout/

[Steve Carroll]

Just moronic trolling. And I am rewarding that trolling. THAT is what the "Adam LeMond circus" is. On and on. You're again trying to bolster yourself beyond your grade. You're the court jester and your many idiotic challenges show this. Why do you keep repeating yourself? Where did you find your scripts? Do not get too egotistical, Adam LeMond, sometimes "your unquotable lies" are just that. Adam LeMond must understand Audra Moore knows he is just trolling! It is simple to twist facts by bragging about hardly any outliers clashing from what's more general. What is more important from an honest advocates vantage point are the expected operations.



--
This broke the Internet
http://www.5z8.info/hackwebcam_e9z2tw_friendster-of-sex
http://bit.ly/2oNYRgv
Jonas Eklundh Communication AB

[ultred ragnusen]

Mike Easter <Mi...@ster.invalid> wrote:

> ultred ragnusen wrote:
>> And here is Google's suggestion for archiving the email to an MBOX file.
>
> There's nothing about mbox in that link:

That's interesting because at some point, Gmail gave a message saying that
it was in MBOX format.

>> https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3024190
>
> That part of google help is about downloading from one's google
> 'account' (which includes gmail) using google's archiving strategy.

This is perhaps a closer link to the action:
https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout/

(It also explains why the file has the word "takeout" in it!)

> That strategy chops up (could chop up) archives into 2G pieces if the
> user chooses .zip or allows up to 50G if the archive is .tgz. Fine.

Yeah. I chose to keep it monolithic, so my 15GB of mail space turned into
what appears to be a 10 (closer to 11) GB download, which took hours to
create and is taking /hours/ to download where for more than an hour it has
been saying that it had about a minute to go (so it's screwing with the way
the web browser determines time-to-completion I guess).

> But, if the user were to work from gmail's webmail interface (instead of
> the account archival one) for their mail and simply employed such as Tb
> (or other) to pop or imap the storage into the client, then the download
> would be in the same format as the client such as Tb. The client is
> making the .moz mbox format.

You bring up an excellent point, Mike, which only one with experience can
weigh, which is that we know that using TB and POP, the download will be in
a 'standard' format - while we have no idea (yet) what MUAs respect
whatever format the Google archive MBOX format is going to be in.

> The concept of mbox is not 'monolithic' in terms of important fine
> points of the format, but instead is a generic 'idea' as described by
> the wp article on the idea* which mentions the .moz mboxrd variant.

I kind of meant that the MBOX, I expect, when the download is done, will be
a single file. Dunno. I probably should have run a test (classic mistake to
do the whole shebang first).

As a test, I probably should have created a "test" label, and then told the
Google takeout site listed above to just archive the "test" mail, which
would have allowed me to test that in another MUA quickly.

> In terms of the organization of the mail, it is important to remember
> that gmail has its own strategy/concept of what a 'folder' is.** The
> compatibility between gmail and Tb, with Tb structuring its folders as
> 'folder-files' and gmail structuring its folders as labels which allows
> multiple label-folders for any given item is not exactly perfect.

I can't tell if you know that because you tried it, or if you know that
because others tried it, or if you assume that - but I'll find out the
compatibility with other MUAs when it finishes.

Size itself could be a compatibility issue (it's more than 10GB) for all I
know. :)

> Your idea which you mentioned in the multi-windows-groups of the
> 'format' of your download being very generic so that the mails could be
> handled any whichaway - by any sort of client - will be imperfect. It
> will work in the sense that mbox is a 'more-or-less' generic text file
> structure and mime compliant, but the reality is that the use of a mail
> storage system is going to be most conveniently handled by a mail client
> such as Tb, while you might be able to *find* something in the stores
> with a tool such as grep.

What you say is wise, Mike, in that it's a MBOX file and not a
folder-storage structure, so, probably a tool designed for MBOX files will
handle it best, especially as there are particulars like threads, and
authors, and attachments, and replies, etc., all entangled and intertwined
together.

I'll take a look at the structure of the MBOX file in vi when it finishes.
(Note to self to make a small test case first next time.)

[Steve Carroll]

But why the need to debug JavaScript via email in a desktop system? As always, Satan didn't list this as part of his, what would undoubtedly be, continually changing 'needs' <eyeroll>. Marketing is a wonderful thing and consumer ignorance is even better.

Not only did Kevin S Jervik's request not allude to the "desktop", it has not a thing to do with Mint. Satan should go lock the medicine chest ;)



--
Best CMS Solution of 2017!
http://www.5z8.info/racist-raps_r6r3wf_best-russian-sites-for-bootleg-everything
https://youtu.be/UkAyrfOZaXc
Jonas Eklundh Communication AB

[Mike Easter]

ultred ragnusen wrote:
> I'll take a look at the structure of the MBOX file in vi when it finishes.

Since your entire premise is based on the condition that you don't want
to buy additional storage from gmail and that your current preferred
email addy mailbox is full; and with the consideration that gmail
accounts are free, to accomplish your remedy without using the Tb
imap/pop 'download-all-the-gmail' strategy, you could simply create
another gmail account.

Then, you would use the gmail archival function you have found, create
another gmail account, import the old mail into the new account, and
clear out the original.

Gmail's AllMail item contains all of the gmail.

This article* talks about importing allmail back into a gmail webmail,
but it goes the circuitous route through Tb and the pwowerful Kaosmos
3rd party ImportExportTool. Your employment of the gmail archival
function can bypass that stage.

I have not personally employed either method. It seems to me that NOT
using Tb would prevent the glitches of unpredictable incompatibilities
of gmail mbox vs Tb mboxrd and gmail label-folders vs Tb file-folders.


*https://kb.datto.com/hc/en-us/articles/204324940-How-do-I-import-Gmail-MBOX-exports-back-to-my-Gmail-account-
How do I import Gmail MBOX exports back to my Gmail account?


--
Mike Easter

[Mike Easter]

ultred ragnusen wrote:
> This is perhaps a closer link to the action:
> https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout/

Ah, there is gmail mbox.

> (It also explains why the file has the word "takeout" in it!)

This article uses the Kaosmos ImportExport tool in conjunction with
google's archival mbox file to integrate the takeout archive (in your
case .tgz instead of .zip) with such as Tb:

https://it.stonybrook.edu/help/kb/reading-mbox-files-from-google-takeout-take-your-email-messages-with-you
Accessing Google Takeout MBOX Files in Thunderbird

The Kaosmos tool solves the problem of importing the google takeout mbox
into Tb.

The specifics of the article are about Stony Brook U. which uses gmail
and other google apps for its online resources.


--
Mike Easter

[Steve Carroll]

Do not get too arrogant, The Underground Marshmallow Person, sometimes "cigars" are just that. Yup. Sadly this is what we have to face. Cretins who have no reason for being here other than to upset me. He pisses off multiple groups of people who are like the grass when elephants fight, but that's a stuck up jerk for you. What others care about isn't a factor.

I still remain unpersuaded that these posts are unequivocally from a bot. What is your evidence?

BTW, I've already proved that his use of "herd" to describe true advocates is denigrating, since he's likening them to lower life forms.

--
Get Rich Slow!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OffkiSAsYo8
http://prescottcomputerguy.com
Jonas Eklundh Communication AB

[ultred ragnusen]

Mike Easter <Mi...@ster.invalid> wrote:

> Since your entire premise is based on the condition that you don't want
> to buy additional storage from gmail and that your current preferred
> email addy mailbox is full; and with the consideration that gmail
> accounts are free, to accomplish your remedy without using the Tb
> imap/pop 'download-all-the-gmail' strategy, you could simply create
> another gmail account.

Yes, Mike, I have /plenty/ of Gmail addresses, as you and Marek and others
helped me hone my VPN-based system so that I'm on VPN 100% of the time,
which, as you know, makes Gmail madder than anyone can imagine.

Gmail _hates_ VPN, where I've "trained" Gmail to handle my main Gmail
account, but where it takes a very long time (months, to years) to get to
the point where they /stop/ locking me out just because I logged in from
China five minutes ago and Singapore now.

> Then, you would use the gmail archival function you have found, create
> another gmail account, import the old mail into the new account, and
> clear out the original.

Actually ... wait ... I think you have a /great/ idea Mike!
Scratch what I just said about it being a bad idea.

What's a bad idea is:
a. Set up a new Gmail account,
b. Forward all new mail to the new Gmail account
c. Use the old account only when you need to search for messages.

What is a GREAT idea (that I didn't even think of) is:
a. Set up a new Gmail account
b. Load the old archive MBOX into the new Gmail account
c. Use the new account only when you need to search for messages.

Wow. It's GREAT when great minds work together!
I /like/ this idea!

Pros:
- You /know/ the mail will fit because it came from Gmail
- You know it's compatible because it came from Gmail
- You know it's searchable because it came from Gmail

Cons:
- Not many. You have to remember a new email address & passwd
- But more importantly, if rarely used, you have to save the challenges
- As Gmail makes your life a living hell with those challenges

> Gmail's AllMail item contains all of the gmail.

In hindsight, I made the dumb rookie mistake of my first testcase being the
whole shebang, so it has been taking /hours/ for the 10GB file to download,
even though it says 2-seconds to complete for hours (where the percentage
is marching forward so I know it's working).

http://wetakepic.com/images/2018/03/05/gmail_bck_03.jpg

> This article* talks about importing allmail back into a gmail webmail,
> but it goes the circuitous route through Tb and the pwowerful Kaosmos
> 3rd party ImportExportTool. Your employment of the gmail archival
> function can bypass that stage.

Yep. I /like/ your idea! Why didn't anyone else suggest it!
I love it. It all makes sense. It really does.

A. You archive out of mail account 1.
B. You load that archive back in, into mail account 2.
C. You search using mail account 2.
http://wetakepic.com/images/2018/03/05/gmail_bck_02.jpg

> I have not personally employed either method. It seems to me that NOT
> using Tb would prevent the glitches of unpredictable incompatibilities
> of gmail mbox vs Tb mboxrd and gmail label-folders vs Tb file-folders.

Almost everyone suggested TB so there must be /something/ to TB that is
useful. Of course, being an old guy, I've used lots of MUAs, one of which
was TB in the days of old, but I never found it all too much likeable.

It worked, of course, and it replaced ZMail, but ZMail was so much better
than TB that it's not funny. Even Eudora, which was older than that, was
better than TB. And don't even /think/ of using TB for Usenet news.

TB, as I recall from years ago, was a browser posing as a MUA, as I recall,
so, I won't have any love lost if I /don't/ use TB - but we have to admit,
almost all the suggestions to day (except yours) involved TB.

[Carlos E.R.]

On 2018-03-05 17:35, ultred ragnusen wrote:
> "Carlos E.R." <robin_...@es.invalid> wrote:
>
>> I'm not aware of a good tool to separate attachments from mails, and
>> that it also allows for finding the exact file that is mentioned in a
>> particular post, having in mind that a file could have been sent with
>> the same name several times, with the same or different versions of the
>> file.
>
> Once I have the mail archived from Google in a standard MBOX format, I can
> delete en masse and then start using my email again, which is the most
> important thing temporally.

Yes.

> Longer term it behooves us to find a program that can run on a 10GB to 15GB
> monolithic mbox file to strip out the attachments (perhaps duplicating
> them, so that they remain in mime-encoded format within the mbox file
> itself).

If you strip the attachments they are no longer in the mbox file.

>
> Even longer term it would be nice to find a program that turns a mbox file
> into a set of folder hierarchies ...

This is trivial. It is just run a filter, manual or automatic.

It can be as simple as, using any MUA, marking a number of posts, then
move only the marked posts to any local folder you decide.

> but ... maybe that's not all that
> useful because, as noted, if Thunderbird or some other common MUA can
> handle the huge mbox file, then that might be good enough to run the
> necessary searches in the future on the backed up mbox file.

Handle it, perhaps. Do it safely and fast, maybe not.

>
>> As I understand that you are using Linux - why then post here - why
>> don't you create an imap server on your computer, using an storage of
>> your choosing, then use a tool to sync gmail imap to your imap? This
>> would do no sorting, initially. I use "imapsync". Very slow, but does
>> the thing. You have to do the deletion manually, I understand.
>
> Um.... that's a neat idea, but I've done the sendmail thing, and, well, um,
> er, I don't want to set up an IMAP server. At least not unless I have to.

Creating a local imap server is quite simple. I use dovecot.

>
> I think downloading the MBOX archive from Google once a year is good enough
> to give me the freedom to delete anything in the mail at the time of the
> download.
>
>> You can of course do the download with a tool such as "fetchmail", but
>> this will not keep the read flags or other flags.
>
> It will be interesting to see if the resulting 10GB "takeout" MBOX file
> from Google has those read flags set when opened in another MUA.
> https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout/

That link demands login and password.

If you do the transfer from imap server (google) to local imap server
using some imap client (thunderbird), then the answer is yes. Absolutely
so. Of course, any other MUA has to use the local imap server,
renouncing to access the files directly.

Imap is a protocol for networked access of mail boxes. Any MUA that
complies will be able to read and write, and render all the flags and
texts correctly, irrelevant of how they are actually stored on disk.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

[Steven Petruzzellis]

[Mike Easter]

ultred ragnusen wrote:
> Almost everyone suggested TB so there must be/something/ to TB that is

> useful. Of course, being an old guy, I've used lots of MUAs, one of which
> was TB in the days of old, but I never found it all too much likeable.

My main experiences with mail/news clients have mostly been Outlook
Express and Thunderbird and having only dabbled with MS Outlook as a
mail agent, and numerous linux clients as mail or news ranging from
Alpine to Claws/Sylpheed and KNode.

Tb's advantages vs OE is that it is much more robust in terms of being a
decent free database which can take much more (but not unlimited) strain
of 'sizeable' file-folders than OE without breaking.

Tb has some features that many/most news agents don't, such as decent
handling of format=flowed (which for years has been significantly
non-compliant in terms of the most important element of managing f=f
replies to f=f messages) and Tb's ability to reformat/rewrap, which also
isn't perfect.

Tb can integrate satisfactorily with gmail, which gmail has very
important strengths, namely robust, excellent spam filtering, great free
storage volume, integration with other gmail apps. The gmail feature of
targeted ads based on email content scanning does its thing most
egregiously to people who like to log into a google account and surf
around. That business doesn't happen with gmail + mail client.

When I first began to use Tb instead of OE, another advantage was its
cross-platform capability - nowadays I'm almost always in linux rather
than win. In my OE wrangling days, one had to kiss a lot of toads and
use plenty of 3rd party tools to make OE work reasonably well, such as
OE Quote-Fix, Nfilter/Newsproxy, YProxy, and SpamPal; maybe some other I
forget.

Newsgroup handling features are more important to me than mail handling.

--
Mike Easter

[Steven Petruzzellis]

Who doesn't know that this kind of hogwash is Kevin S Jervik's MO, not the approach of kushal bhattacharya? It's all just projection... the flooding, the posting with kushal bhattacharya's name, the writing of word-twisted nonsense, the tantrums... the panties in a twist and willingness to show how flustered he is over being booted from the sandbox for pissing in it again... Kevin S Jervik can not help himself.

Only what Kevin S Jervik wants matters to Kevin S Jervik. There is nothing you or I can do to change that. It's a trolling addiction and it is what it is. You are as clever as a gibber monkey. It was Kevin S Jervik who stated that he and his hired winos used to shoplift all the time and it was arousing.



--
Eight things to never feed your cat
https://youtu.be/E3m_i-x92D0
Jonas Eklundh Communication

[ultred ragnusen]

"Carlos E.R." <robin_...@es.invalid> wrote:

> If you strip the attachments they are no longer in the mbox file.

Yes and no.
Yes if the program used to strip them, en masse, doesn't have the option to
just "copy" them instead of removing them after the mime decoding process.

>> Even longer term it would be nice to find a program that turns a mbox file
>> into a set of folder hierarchies ...
>
> This is trivial. It is just run a filter, manual or automatic.

I do agree. I could even write it, as it's just a program that parses the
headers, and then decides if there are mime-encoded attachments, and then
it grabs the beginning and end of each attachment, and then it saves that
into folders that are titled the same as the thread title which is another
header, with each message getting a sequential number with ... hey! Wait a
minute. That's what MUA's do! :)

> It can be as simple as, using any MUA, marking a number of posts, then
> move only the marked posts to any local folder you decide.

Yup. I agree. I think this idea of using a MUA to handle a MBOX file is a
perfectly solid idea.

The only real question, in light of the FUD that Mike Easter kindly brought
up, is finding a MUA that handles Gmail MBOX files well.

> Handle it, perhaps. Do it safely and fast, maybe not.

Well, the Google MBOX file is a /copy/ after all. :)

>> It will be interesting to see if the resulting 10GB "takeout" MBOX file
>> from Google has those read flags set when opened in another MUA.
>> https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout/
>
> That link demands login and password.

Yes. This link does not require a passwd (but eventually it goes to that
link that does require a Gmail account in order for the process to
proceed).
https://www.wikihow.com/Back-Up-Your-Gmail-Account
https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3024190

> Imap is a protocol for networked access of mail boxes. Any MUA that
> complies will be able to read and write, and render all the flags and
> texts correctly, irrelevant of how they are actually stored on disk.

I'm not saying an IMAP server won't work, mind you, as it might be a great
idea overall. What I'm just saying is that an IMAP server /is/ work. :)

[Carlos E.R.]

On 2018-03-05 17:46, ultred ragnusen wrote:
> Mike Easter <Mi...@ster.invalid> wrote:


>

>> But, if the user were to work from gmail's webmail interface (instead of
>> the account archival one) for their mail and simply employed such as Tb
>> (or other) to pop or imap the storage into the client, then the download
>> would be in the same format as the client such as Tb. The client is
>> making the .moz mbox format.
>
> You bring up an excellent point, Mike, which only one with experience can
> weigh, which is that we know that using TB and POP, the download will be in
> a 'standard' format - while we have no idea (yet) what MUAs respect
> whatever format the Google archive MBOX format is going to be in.
>
>> The concept of mbox is not 'monolithic' in terms of important fine
>> points of the format, but instead is a generic 'idea' as described by
>> the wp article on the idea* which mentions the .moz mboxrd variant.
>
> I kind of meant that the MBOX, I expect, when the download is done, will be
> a single file. Dunno. I probably should have run a test (classic mistake to
> do the whole shebang first).

No, Mike is not saying the file will be a single file or several, that
is irrelevant. What he says, and I'll say as well because it is true, is
that *there is no single definition of "mbox file"*.

Thunderbird does it one way, and another client that also uses mbox does
it differently. Some are compatible. The mails will be there for
reading, but specifically the index, all do it differently. Maybe you
will not know which post are read or replied to, maybe all will show as
"new".

So you are downloading *gmail interpretation of mbox archive*.

Which is why many people say: download the mail using a MUA via IMAP to
wherever you want!

And I'll add: let the destination be a local imap server, not your MUA
local storage.



It is also possible that the takeout file will not separate the folders,
if they exist.


--
Cheers, Carlos.

[Carlos E.R.]

On 2018-03-05 19:47, ultred ragnusen wrote:
> Mike Easter <Mi...@ster.invalid> wrote:

> Almost everyone suggested TB so there must be /something/ to TB that is
> useful. Of course, being an old guy, I've used lots of MUAs, one of which
> was TB in the days of old, but I never found it all too much likeable.

Because TB is feature rich, and does things respecting the standards.
Also, bugs are corrected.

>
> It worked, of course, and it replaced ZMail, but ZMail was so much better
> than TB that it's not funny. Even Eudora, which was older than that, was
> better than TB. And don't even /think/ of using TB for Usenet news.

I use TB for Usenet, the best one I have seen.

> TB, as I recall from years ago, was a browser posing as a MUA, as I recall,
> so, I won't have any love lost if I /don't/ use TB - but we have to admit,
> almost all the suggestions to day (except yours) involved TB.

I have never seen TB as a browser; it has always been a MUA.

What happened was that there was a program that was both browser and
mail client, and then both parts were separated. The joint program still
exists, it is called "Seamonkey". And way before that it was called
Netscape.


--
Cheers, Carlos.

[Steven Petruzzellis]

You installed and took it for a test drive and your "diagnostic abilities" lead you to that opinion, did they? Who knows Perl, is an IT "master", has forged Tatiana Spearman Kister's ID, has an obsession and is a gigantic tantrum throwing redneck who, when he is called out, posts lie after lie after lie even when he's *not* flooding... AND... who endeavors to blame everything _he_ is doing on "advocates" and has for years?

I shall not ask Adam LeMond how any part of Tatiana Spearman Kister's rear tastes no matter how many times Adam LeMond smooches it. Of course I quoted examples of Adam LeMond showing off insecurity -- lying, etc. His response: to beg your herd to come rescue you.

That's what Adam LeMond does when he gets upset. He creates a flood, starts a stupid thread so he can claim it was Tatiana Spearman Kister. Don't blame me it was my left hand... and then Adam LeMond responds to his own post with his right hand.

Tatiana Spearman Kister just wiped his ass with Adam LeMond.

The guy is as loved as a drunken karaoke singer -- and with good cause.

--
"You'll notice how quickly he loses interest when everything is about him. He clearly wants the attention"
Steven Petruzzellis, making the dumbest comment ever uttered.

[ultred ragnusen]

Mike Easter <Mi...@ster.invalid> wrote:

> Tb can integrate satisfactorily with gmail, which gmail has very
> important strengths, namely robust, excellent spam filtering, great free
> storage volume, integration with other gmail apps. The gmail feature of
> targeted ads based on email content scanning does its thing most
> egregiously to people who like to log into a google account and surf
> around. That business doesn't happen with gmail + mail client.

Hi Mike,

I just want to report that the Gmail "Takeout" archive finally finished:
https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3024190

Where the "Takeout" mbox file is monolithic (as expected) and where there
is an "Index" file (which was not expected) as shown in this screenshot
taken just now.
http://wetakepic.com/images/2018/03/05/gmail_bck_04.jpg

The downloaded file unpacks to:
Takeout > Mail, index.html > All mail Including Spam and Trash.mbox

Unfortunately, vi is taking its sweet time trying to open that mbox so I
can take a look at it in more detail...

[Steven Petruzzellis]

Habits change. I think the idea of a usenet group is getting ridiculous.

Can you get Paul F. Riddle to agree?

The fabricator AKA Jesus does it every time. Then the deluge begins. Because the mama's boy just has to run to other groups. Obviously, the sole thing that concerns Jesus is thinking he is "better", and if he can't have that he will flood to actively slap "others" down, which is idiotic as hell. Bravo, Paul F. Riddle, you are now living rent-free inside Jesus's beady little brain.

No no. Jesus never agreed to stop accusing good people of being like him. He lied about his trolling which surprised nobody.

--
Eight things to never feed your cat

https://redd.it/6sfkup
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU_evUKollmjeuJy5V5UMotPUs65Q7YM6
Jonas Eklundh

[Carlos E.R.]

On 2018-03-05 20:21, ultred ragnusen wrote:
> "Carlos E.R." <robin_...@es.invalid> wrote:
>
>> If you strip the attachments they are no longer in the mbox file.
>
> Yes and no.
> Yes if the program used to strip them, en masse, doesn't have the option to
> just "copy" them instead of removing them after the mime decoding process.

I once used a filter that would generate the separate files in a
directory, and remove them from the mbox, leaving just a note that the
file was removed, I think. But later I decided against.

>>> Even longer term it would be nice to find a program that turns a mbox file
>>> into a set of folder hierarchies ...
>>
>> This is trivial. It is just run a filter, manual or automatic.
>
> I do agree. I could even write it, as it's just a program that parses the
> headers, and then decides if there are mime-encoded attachments, and then
> it grabs the beginning and end of each attachment, and then it saves that
> into folders that are titled the same as the thread title which is another
> header, with each message getting a sequential number with ... hey! Wait a
> minute. That's what MUA's do! :)

Exactly. You don't need any special software, just use the filtering
facilities of your MUA. Or separately, there are options.

>
>> It can be as simple as, using any MUA, marking a number of posts, then
>> move only the marked posts to any local folder you decide.
>
> Yup. I agree. I think this idea of using a MUA to handle a MBOX file is a
> perfectly solid idea.

See? Many people are telling you that.

> The only real question, in light of the FUD that Mike Easter kindly brought
> up, is finding a MUA that handles Gmail MBOX files well.

Don't.

Let the mail client get the emails from Gmail IMAP server.

>> Imap is a protocol for networked access of mail boxes. Any MUA that
>> complies will be able to read and write, and render all the flags and
>> texts correctly, irrelevant of how they are actually stored on disk.
>
> I'm not saying an IMAP server won't work, mind you, as it might be a great
> idea overall. What I'm just saying is that an IMAP server /is/ work. :)

It works better at transferring emails than any file transport.
Remember: MBOX is not a single standard that can be followed. Details
will be lost.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

[ultred ragnusen]

"Carlos E.R." <robin_...@es.invalid> wrote:

> No, Mike is not saying the file will be a single file or several, that
> is irrelevant. What he says, and I'll say as well because it is true, is
> that *there is no single definition of "mbox file"*.

Oh. Alright. I get it (belatedly) that the mbox format is slightly
different between MUAs, so it behooves us to either pick an MUA that
handles the Google Takeout mbox, or, download all the mail using any given
MUA such that the mbox is created by the MUA itself.
http://wetakepic.com/images/2018/03/05/gmail_bck_0296fcc.jpg

So I am trying to get Thunderbird settings to find the Index & 15GB mbox
files now patiently sitting on my HDD as a result of the Google takeout
download.
http://wetakepic.com/images/2018/03/05/gmail_bck_04591f9.jpg

> Thunderbird does it one way, and another client that also uses mbox does
> it differently. Some are compatible. The mails will be there for
> reading, but specifically the index, all do it differently. Maybe you
> will not know which post are read or replied to, maybe all will show as
> "new".

I'm on Windows as the original problem was how to archive the Gmail, so I
might have to boot to Ubuntu 17.10 but at the moment, I'm trying to get the
Windows Thunderbird to find the Google Takeout mbox file and index.

TB has a "Local directory" setting, which defaults to:
C:\Users\ultred\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxx.default\Mail\Local Folders

I should have experimented with a /smaller/ testcase as I'm not sure if the
Local Directory should be
C:\data\backup\gmail\ultred\mbox\Takeout\ (where index.html lies)
or C:\data\backup\gmail\ultred\mbox\Takeout\Mail (where the mbox lies)

Trial and error is a wonderful thing (on a smaller file!), but Takeout
didn't work so it's Mail that Thunderbird needs as its local folder.
Local Folder = C:\data\backup\gmail\ultred\mbox\Takeout\Mail
aka Local Directory = C:\data\backup\gmail\ultred\mbox\Takeout\Mail
http://wetakepic.com/images/2018/03/05/gmail_bck_05.jpg

And where the message at the bottom of TB is:
"Building summary file for All mail Including Spam and Trash.mbox..."
And where the "mailbox" seems to be this:
mailbox:///C:/data/backup/gmail/ultred/mbox/Takeout/Mail/All mail Including Spam and Trash.mbox

Which seems to have worked on this nonsensical test message:
http://wetakepic.com/images/2018/03/05/gmail_bck_06.jpg

[Mike Easter]

ultred ragnusen wrote:
> The downloaded file unpacks to:
> Takeout > Mail, index.html > All mail Including Spam and Trash.mbox

Ah, so. The gmail archive system provides the whole enchilada of the
gmail. Gmail's webmail system has an AllMail function, which is
everything *except* Trash and Spam.

Normally if you were planning a backup or archiving of your mail, you
would make sure that there was no goodmail in the spam or trash for that
matter and the allmail would have all of the gmail labels on it in
addition to allmail. Most people don't want spam or trash. However,
once upon a time I used OE + SpamPal to package my spam to feed to
spamcop's QuickReport system. That spamcop blocklist which 'improved'
from spamfeeds was one of the spampal blocklists. Gmail's spam filters
pretty much eliminates any kind of 'attention' to or participation in
spam-fighting camaraderie.

You would hope that your MUA would be able to recognize/handle gmail's
labels to aid it in displaying it as if the labels were conventional mua
folders ie folder-files.

Whatever that index thing is is just 370 kB, insignificant from a mua's
perspective, but it might be instructive about what (else) google has to
say about the mbox. Spam + trash + allmail pretty much says it all.

--
Mike Easter

[Mike Easter]

ultred ragnusen wrote:
> So I am trying to get Thunderbird settings to find the Index & 15GB mbox
> files now patiently sitting on my HDD as a result of the Google takeout
> download.

Use Kaosmos ImportExportTool addon for Tb and point it at the mbox.
That would be expected to work with a reasonable sized mbox.

That will be an interesting test of Tb's db handling to see if it can
handle such a chunk without gagging. My first impulse/guess would be
that there might be trouble.

--
Mike Easter

[Steven Petruzzellis]

Mac's update system failed over and over again. What does it take to end this? What I do is certainly more productive.

He is as incompetent as Jesus Christ. Just absurd trolling. And I am responding to that trolling. THAT is what the "Jesus Christ circus" is. Richard Stallman is a false advocate's hero.

--
Best CMS Solution of 2017!

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.os.linux.advocacy/tzMH39QmAmU
Jonas Eklundh

[Mike Easter]

Carlos E.R. wrote:
> And I'll add: let the destination be a local imap server, not your MUA
> local storage.

And, such a 'well-developed' imap server such as dovecot would surely be
a more robust database manager than Tb. People seem to expect a great
deal of 'power' from 'little' free MUA clients such as Tb (or OE/OL or
whichever).

The business about the gmail label handling is the topic of this item in
the dovecot mailing list. The short version is that comprehensive
handling is not (yet) implemented as of 14 months ago
https://dovecot.org/list/dovecot/2017-January/106655.html GMail-like
user labels in IMAP/dovecot, situation in 2017?

--
Mike Easter

[Steven Petruzzellis]

You guys can only speculate from the perspective of a psychopath. I've worked in or with the VAR field for more than 20 years. I have worked with top corporations selling to the robotics industry and the insurance industry. Never, with even a hint, was I on any account told not to load any version of Linux. We sold OS/2, DUnix, HP-UX, and more as well as MS OSs.

I have known toddlers who argue better than Kevin S Jervik does. The Mac has better color selection options. I reported him years ago. As expected, it did naught to slow the dunce.

-
This Trick Gets Women Hot For You
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.os.linux.advocacy/smzXrBhsWf4
https://youtu.be/D_so1dvjeyI
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.os.linux.advocacy/tzMH39QmAmU
Jonas Eklundh Communication

[Richard Kettlewell]

ultred ragnusen <ult...@ragnusen.com> writes:
> Almost everyone suggested TB so there must be /something/ to TB that is
> useful. Of course, being an old guy, I've used lots of MUAs, one of which
> was TB in the days of old, but I never found it all too much likeable.
>
> It worked, of course, and it replaced ZMail, but ZMail was so much better
> than TB that it's not funny. Even Eudora, which was older than that, was
> better than TB. And don't even /think/ of using TB for Usenet news.
>
> TB, as I recall from years ago, was a browser posing as a MUA, as I recall,
> so, I won't have any love lost if I /don't/ use TB - but we have to admit,
> almost all the suggestions to day (except yours) involved TB.

In principle I think any MUA capable of IMAP and Oauth2 will do.
But that might be a set of size 1...

--
https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

[ultred ragnusen]

"Carlos E.R." <robin_...@es.invalid> wrote:

>> Yup. I agree. I think this idea of using a MUA to handle a MBOX file is a
>> perfectly solid idea.
>
>
> See? Many people are telling you that.

I agree.

I also admit I had different ideas going into this quest than I do now that
it has been resolved.

I think, in the end, since I had to load Thunderbird anyway, that I might
as well have skipped the Google Archive step (for now) and just downloaded
all my mail into Thunderbird ... and then ... ARCHIVE THAT.

How do I archive Thunderbird mailboxes?
Hell if I know.

But that's probably what I would have done, in hind sight, and that was
essentially what people were saying (only they skipped the step of how to
archive Thunderbird mailboxes which I presume is a simple file copy).

The idea I had was of something that created folders, but that idea has
been shot through and through with holes.

The idea of archiving Gmail via the Takeout mechanism every year is still a
good idea though, as you can download and save the file and then you don't
have to worry if you accidentally delete old mail.

I'm not sure what's a good interval for the Google takeout archival process
but every January 1st doesn't seem too often.

[ultred ragnusen]

Mike Easter <Mi...@ster.invalid> wrote:

> Whatever that index thing is is just 370 kB, insignificant from a mua's
> perspective, but it might be instructive about what (else) google has to
> say about the mbox. Spam + trash + allmail pretty much says it all.

I remember Eudora had to rebuild its indexes every once in a while when
they got too big, which, as I recall, contained all the deleted messages
that you /thought/ you had deleted (or maybe just references to them).

Anyway, it seems that Thunderbird created its own index, only it called it
a Mail.msf file and Mail.sbd folders.

So, I'm going to have to learn two things:
a. What files to archive to archive Thunderbird mail, and,
b. How to get TB to spit out all the attachments to a directory tree.

Once those two steps are figured out, I think this quest is pretty much
wrapped up.

[Richard Kettlewell]

Mike Easter <Mi...@ster.invalid> writes:
> Carlos E.R. wrote:
>> And I'll add: let the destination be a local imap server, not your
>> MUA local storage.
>
> And, such a 'well-developed' imap server such as dovecot would surely
> be a more robust database manager than Tb. People seem to expect a
> great deal of 'power' from 'little' free MUA clients such as Tb (or
> OE/OL or whichever).

TB is not really ‘little’ (it is considerably larger than dovecot, for
instance...). The insistence on cramming an IMAP server into the
solution to the OP’s problem is a bit strange, there are reasons it can
be convenient but it’s certainly not an essentialy part of the solution
here.

--
https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

[ultred ragnusen]

Mike Easter <Mi...@ster.invalid> wrote:

> Use Kaosmos ImportExportTool addon for Tb and point it at the mbox.
> That would be expected to work with a reasonable sized mbox.

Thanks for that advice Mike, and thanks for sticking with the problem,
where I don't think that tool will be needed because Thunderbird seems to
have built its own "index" file in its own format.

All I have left is the minor task of learning how to archive whatever needs
to be archived in Thunderbird, and, to learn how to get Thunderbird to spit
out the attachments to a directory tree (there will be tens of thousands of
attachments because there are over 30K email messages).

So here are some statistics:
a. Roughly 30K email messages
b. Roughly about 5 years time
c. Roughly about 15GB in storage (zipped archive is 10GB)

Also, Google let me go to about 15.1GB before it cut me off, and it didn't
cut me off for small text messages but it did cut off messages with
attachments (where who knows what incoming messages are cut off).

[ultred ragnusen]

Mike Easter <Mi...@ster.invalid> wrote:

> The business about the gmail label handling is the topic of this item in
> the dovecot mailing list

Luckily for me, I never use labels.

I simply generate them, in algorithmic pairs of five, so that I can handle
the inevitable Gmail challenge questions I was getting almost daily, where
Gmail would constantly shut me down simply for logging in via VPN using
Marek's scripts.

Same thing with 5 contacts. I keep sending test mails to five bogus
contacts just so that I can easily algorithmically answer the challenge
questions (which they seem to rotate but loop back to).

Of course, I don't have a real email second address or any phone number,
so, that makes the challenge text only.

It takes a while to come to terms with Gmail when you use VPN all the time
(because Gmail hates VPN).

[Steven Petruzzellis]

You insisting a lie is real does not make it true. All that matters is that Tatiana Spearman Kister gets to impart his crank call and then hang up and giggle about it. The fact that Kevin S Jervik is an unwitting victim on the other end of the phone is his motivation. Tatiana Spearman Kister's posts are fully dishonest. There's no question that as soon as any forgiven 'plonkee' does anything to wound the feeble milksop's feelings that they will be ignored again.I'm getting more posts hidden then show. I'm guessing the nonsense is proving the advocates right again. Yawn. Same old brain-dead trolls. What did you expect from the lying imbecile? That Tatiana Spearman Kister lamebrain has nothing to waste but time. He has nothing else. Especially not a girlfriend. Being an open format as it is, low-level programming will never go away but it'll never be what your grandmother would use.

It was Tatiana Spearman Kister who flooded Kevin S Jervik's site thousands of times and pretended he did not do it.



-
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Jonas Eklundh Communication AB

[Steven Petruzzellis]

Who are you even speaking to? Jesus Christ can't get anything else to work, either. After the latest update I no longer have to issue 'xdotool windowfocus 0x1a00ad2' every time I login ;)

My view is that we should ALL report the flooding and then it will stop. Sandman blames Jesus Christ for what others do. Here is a list of names Jonas Eklundh has admitted he attributes to Jesus Christ "Cactus Pete", "Donald", "Donald Miller", "Horace McSwain", "Hymen", "meat", "Mike Weaver", "Modena IV Drid", "Omar Murad Asfour", "Rhino Plastee", "Soapy", "SopwithCamel", "Sunny Day", "Takuya Saitoh", "The Letter Q", "tmelmosfire", "zevon". And the herd is stupid enough to believe him.

Right now there are too many "Jesus Christ is our hero" people in this group and not enough programers with the time to help the people with old computers.

--
Get Rich Slow
https://youtu.be/0ZNxaaKD7-c
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Jonas Eklundh

[Carlos E.R.]

On 2018-03-05 22:05, Mike Easter wrote:
> Carlos E.R. wrote:
>> And I'll add: let the destination be a local imap server, not your MUA
>> local storage.
>
> And, such a 'well-developed' imap server such as dovecot would surely be
> a more robust database manager than Tb.  People seem to expect a great
> deal of 'power' from 'little' free MUA clients such as Tb (or OE/OL or
> whichever).

Dovecot is also free ;-)

But it has several storage methods, not only mbox.

> The business about the gmail label handling is the topic of this item in
> the dovecot mailing list.  The short version is that comprehensive
> handling is not (yet) implemented as of 14 months ago
> https://dovecot.org/list/dovecot/2017-January/106655.html GMail-like
> user labels in IMAP/dovecot, situation in 2017?

One way would be to display a Gmail "Folder" that is a label in fact,
and download it to a local folder. Of course, doing this may end in
duplicated mails that appears on more than one folder.


--
Cheers, Carlos.

[Carlos E.R.]

Well, it has more robust storage than Thunderbird itself at storing
large amounts of email.

As we are on a Linux usenet group, installing an imap server is a
possibility, and depending on the distribution, may be trivial. With the
advantage of being able to use the emails from any Windows or Linux
machine and client.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

[Carlos E.R.]

It hates people moving about. I have problems with my laptop connecting
at different sites with software they don't like, as fetchmail. It works
well with Thunderbird using Oauth2.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

[Carlos E.R.]

On 2018-03-05 22:55, ultred ragnusen wrote:
> "Carlos E.R." <robin_...@es.invalid> wrote:
>
>>> Yup. I agree. I think this idea of using a MUA to handle a MBOX file is a
>>> perfectly solid idea.
>>
>>
>> See? Many people are telling you that.
>
> I agree.
>
> I also admit I had different ideas going into this quest than I do now that
> it has been resolved.
>
> I think, in the end, since I had to load Thunderbird anyway, that I might
> as well have skipped the Google Archive step (for now) and just downloaded
> all my mail into Thunderbird ... and then ... ARCHIVE THAT.
>
> How do I archive Thunderbird mailboxes?
> Hell if I know.

It is just files. Trivial stuff.

In Linux, just backup the entire ".thunderbird/" directory to be
entirely safe.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

[Steven Petruzzellis]

With no evidence at all, as is expected for Kevin S Jervik. Oppenheimer and Kevin S Jervik had their omissions and their discomfort. One presented it off and didn't do anything too publicly that could not be tricking people until it was too late.

Was that meant to be your best shot? This is something you merely pretend to understand.

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Jonas Eklundh

[ultred ragnusen]

"Carlos E.R." <robin_...@es.invalid> wrote:

>> How do I archive Thunderbird mailboxes?
>> Hell if I know.
>
> It is just files. Trivial stuff.
>
> In Linux, just backup the entire ".thunderbird/" directory to be
> entirely safe.

It's not only the backup. It's the re-use.
And the inevitable merging...

But I figured it was just a mbox file and some sort of index file, where it
seems Thunderbird builds its own index on the fly anyway, as it didn't use
the Google-provided index (AFAIK).

[ultred ragnusen]

"Carlos E.R." <robin_...@es.invalid> wrote:

> One way would be to display a Gmail "Folder" that is a label in fact,
> and download it to a local folder. Of course, doing this may end in
> duplicated mails that appears on more than one folder.

I have one more test to run before we can close this saga as solved, which
is to try the originally suggested approach of downloading with TB all the
Google mails.

I'll do that from Linux so that I won't screw up the setup I have on
Windows.

What I want to ascertain is which is the "better" approach:
a. Asking Google to provide an archive & then pointing to it
b. Downloading all mail and then archiving the results.

[ultred ragnusen]

"Carlos E.R." <robin_...@es.invalid> wrote:

> It hates people moving about. I have problems with my laptop connecting
> at different sites with software they don't like, as fetchmail. It works
> well with Thunderbird using Oauth2.

The Gmail algorithm is, after dealing with it for years, amazingly dumb.

They're amazingly good at killing spam, but they use the draconian approach
which is to kill all criminals so that they can't commit the crime later.

As just one example, recently we had a power outage, where I needed to
respond to a group email (which I converse with a lot) and I have a new
phone so I loaded a new MUA and downloaded the mail over cellular (which I
never do normally) and then simply responded to all, and Google shut me
down for 24 hours.

IMHO, Gmail is amazingly good at killing spam, but they do it with the most
ham-fisted dumb algorithms you can imagine.

[Steven Petruzzellis]

He is as incompetent as Adam LeMond.

These morons get their kicks out of eliciting replies to their flooding, which is the very definition of a troll.

He insists that he uses ChromeOS, while of course he never used it on the fly and fully played with it. Promotion is a wonderful thing and consumer ignorance is even better.

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Jonas Eklundh

[ultred ragnusen]

ultred ragnusen <ult...@ragnusen.com> wrote:

> I have one more test to run before we can close this saga as solved, which
> is to try the originally suggested approach of downloading with TB all the
> Google mails.

One procedural faux pas I just learned the hard way, which nobody mentioned
explicitly, I don't think (or maybe I missed it), is that you can't just
use Thunderbird to download mail by setting POP in the Thunderbird
settings.

Gmail won't tell you that is the problem, and, in fact, Gmail from
Thunderbird will insist the login/password is wrong, but the real problem
is that you, apparently, have to change from IMAP to POP on the server
first, and /then/ you can download the mail via POP.

I wonder though, for safety, if you can download the mail on IMAP and
accomplish the same thing as downloading the mail with POP?

Seems to me both are equivalent on the desktop side of things if it's a
brand new installation of Thunderbird.

Can anyone concur?
Q: From the desktop archival standpoint, doesn't downloading all messages
to the desktop via IMAP or POP end up with exactly the same result on the
desktop file system?

[Steven Petruzzellis]

It's easy to essentially lie by bragging about a handful of outliers differing from what is mainstream. What is more important from an honest advocates way of thinking are the expected values. No-one gets it, only Tatiana Spearman Kister gets it.

Right now there are too many "lowest common denominator is fine" MATE users and not enough programers with the patience to help the people with Linux gear. Lines of text containing blips and bloops.

--
"You'll notice how quickly he loses interest when everything is about him. He clearly wants the attention"
Steven Petruzzellis, making the dumbest comment ever uttered.

[ultred ragnusen]

ultred ragnusen <ult...@ragnusen.com> wrote:

> What's a good way to back up Gmail when you've reached the size limit?

I've been using Thunderbird for only a few hours, but it is one of the
/worst/ user interfaces I've ever seen for a MUA in my life (and it's not
my first rodeo with Thunderbird).

As just one example, there's absolutely no need to put your precious mail
10 (yes ten!) folders deep in the hierarchy. That's just insane. Yes, I
know you can change it - but the defaults are just insane.
C:\Users\ultred\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\83ujpegn.default\Mail\Local Folders

The user interface is ten times more UI than you need for a MUA, where I
have to argue with the damn thing to turn off the newsreader and I /still/
had to put in bogus settings for something that I don't want and will never
use, where worse, I don't know if those settings pollute my mail, which is
what I care about.

A kindergarten kid designed the UI where he didn't realize that "Tools >
Options" can handle "Tools > Account Settings" (they don't need to be
separate entities).

You have to turn off Chat crap, and even cookies, for heaven's sake, in a
MUA of all things, in addition to that forced nntp setting. It's just
horrid.

It can be tamed, I have no doubt. Files can be placed in sane locations,
I'm sure. The GUI can be turned off, for the most part, I hope. All that
can be done.

But if someone has never used Thunderbird, then I'd say it's the /last/
program I'd recommend for that person to archive important email just prior
to deleting it on the server. There's just too many chance for a
catastrophic mistake in the huge overloaded ten-X complexity of
Thunderbird.

Again, I'm sure it can be tamed. And I'm sure, for an expert in the tool,
it's a lot less confusing and less prone to error. But for someone who just
wants to archive their mail, it's the /last/ tool on this planet that I
would recommend.

Better to use the far simpler Google Takeout method, no doubt whatsoever.

[Carlos E.R.]

On 2018-03-06 00:34, ultred ragnusen wrote:
> "Carlos E.R." <robin_...@es.invalid> wrote:
>
>>> How do I archive Thunderbird mailboxes?
>>> Hell if I know.
>>
>> It is just files. Trivial stuff.
>>
>> In Linux, just backup the entire ".thunderbird/" directory to be
>> entirely safe.
>
> It's not only the backup. It's the re-use.
> And the inevitable merging...

I don't understand.

>
> But I figured it was just a mbox file and some sort of index file, where it
> seems Thunderbird builds its own index on the fly anyway, as it didn't use
> the Google-provided index (AFAIK).

Yes, I told you that it would not use the index. Every client does the
indexing differently. That is why transferring via imap ensures that
everything is the same way as in the original. Imap is standardized,
mbox is not. Not fully, only the contents, not the flags, nor the index.
Some MUAs understand how some other MUAs do things, partially, and not
always in both directions.


Yes, each folder in Thunderbird is made of a large mbox file, an msf
index file that can be rebuilt. If the folder contains subfolders, then
there is a directory with the .sbd extension. To transfer from one
Thunderbird to another, just copy all the folder.* files and restart
Thunderbird. Plain simple.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

[Carlos E.R.]

On 2018-03-06 01:12, ultred ragnusen wrote:
> ultred ragnusen <ult...@ragnusen.com> wrote:
>
>> I have one more test to run before we can close this saga as solved, which
>> is to try the originally suggested approach of downloading with TB all the
>> Google mails.
>
> One procedural faux pas I just learned the hard way, which nobody mentioned
> explicitly, I don't think (or maybe I missed it), is that you can't just
> use Thunderbird to download mail by setting POP in the Thunderbird
> settings.

Never ever use POP if IMAP is provided.

>
> Gmail won't tell you that is the problem, and, in fact, Gmail from
> Thunderbird will insist the login/password is wrong, but the real problem
> is that you, apparently, have to change from IMAP to POP on the server
> first, and /then/ you can download the mail via POP.
>
> I wonder though, for safety, if you can download the mail on IMAP and
> accomplish the same thing as downloading the mail with POP?
>
> Seems to me both are equivalent on the desktop side of things if it's a
> brand new installation of Thunderbird.
>
> Can anyone concur?

No.

I refuse to even think about how to do things with POP. I will not read it.

> Q: From the desktop archival standpoint, doesn't downloading all messages
> to the desktop via IMAP or POP end up with exactly the same result on the
> desktop file system?
>

--
Cheers, Carlos.

[Carlos E.R.]

On 2018-03-06 04:24, ultred ragnusen wrote:
> ultred ragnusen <ult...@ragnusen.com> wrote:
>
>> What's a good way to back up Gmail when you've reached the size limit?
>
> I've been using Thunderbird for only a few hours, but it is one of the
> /worst/ user interfaces I've ever seen for a MUA in my life (and it's not
> my first rodeo with Thunderbird).
>
> As just one example, there's absolutely no need to put your precious mail
> 10 (yes ten!) folders deep in the hierarchy. That's just insane. Yes, I
> know you can change it - but the defaults are just insane.
> C:\Users\ultred\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\83ujpegn.default\Mail\Local Folders

This is a Linux group, so I will not answer that.

However, several of your directories above are Windows imposed. They do
not exist in the Linux version.

> The user interface is ten times more UI than you need for a MUA, where I
> have to argue with the damn thing to turn off the newsreader and I /still/
> had to put in bogus settings for something that I don't want and will never
> use, where worse, I don't know if those settings pollute my mail, which is
> what I care about.

I have no problem at all in not using the news reader part. Use it or
not, it is your choice. In fact, I don't remember Th even asking me to
set up the news part.

> A kindergarten kid designed the UI where he didn't realize that "Tools >
> Options" can handle "Tools > Account Settings" (they don't need to be
> separate entities).
>
> You have to turn off Chat crap, and even cookies, for heaven's sake, in a
> MUA of all things, in addition to that forced nntp setting. It's just
> horrid.
>
> It can be tamed, I have no doubt. Files can be placed in sane locations,
> I'm sure. The GUI can be turned off, for the most part, I hope. All that
> can be done.
>
> But if someone has never used Thunderbird, then I'd say it's the /last/
> program I'd recommend for that person to archive important email just prior
> to deleting it on the server. There's just too many chance for a
> catastrophic mistake in the huge overloaded ten-X complexity of
> Thunderbird.
>
> Again, I'm sure it can be tamed. And I'm sure, for an expert in the tool,
> it's a lot less confusing and less prone to error. But for someone who just
> wants to archive their mail, it's the /last/ tool on this planet that I
> would recommend.
>
> Better to use the far simpler Google Takeout method, no doubt whatsoever.

I think that you are trying to tame Thunderbird, instead of just using
it directly... Huge mistake.


If you want help on how to set up Th from scratch in Linux, I'll write
it up. In Windows, I refuse, I don't have a Windows in which to try and
I'm not familiar with it.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

[Steven Petruzzellis]

The Mac has better media tools. Who are you even blubbering to? After deleting all the nyms from David Bowden's Wife, Vennie, it's basically just two trolls posting the preponderance of the trolling. No doubt. And both fully unstable maniacs.

Honestly, what lie? The top thought that concerns David Bowden's Wife, Vennie is seeming "the winner", and if he can't have that he will post more evidence to successfully kick Autumn Nissen (https://www.facebook.com/anissen7) down, which is dumb as hell.

David Bowden's Wife, Vennie does not know if there is a no-cost open sores program to handle such tasks.

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[Steven Petruzzellis]

Requesting Pascal 'Super Troll' Hambourg to admit guilt is distinct from quoting his double-dealing. My meaning was that advocates arrive here _to_ attack aberrant behavior. It is not like honest people do not quickly figure out what this place is, Vennie Bowden especially. Pascal 'Super Troll' Hambourg can not help but know everyone knows he is just being a moron!

That lame duck update system failed over and over again.

Do you even believe the crap Pascal 'Super Troll' Hambourg is pushing? You're like a bowling pin in a needle-stack. We all see you there and wonder how you can be so stupid. And you're so dumb you keep repeating it.

-
"You'll notice how quickly he loses interest when everything is about him. He clearly wants the attention"

Steve Carroll, making the dumbest comment ever uttered.

[Steven Petruzzellis]

Why do you keep quoting yourself? Tatiana Spearman Kister doesn't have any concept of what he is babbling about.

Now that Kevin S Jervik realized how convincing Tatiana Spearman Kister is at portraying himself as the 'injured party' he realizes this isn't as bizarre as it appeared. I shan't ask Tatiana Spearman Kister how any part of Kevin S Jervik's body tastes no matter how regularly Tatiana Spearman Kister smooches it. Linux offers the least of everything to the average user.

From what I've seen (which is none of it lately), it looks like the flood script got more sophisticated.

Lots of posters keep replying to Tatiana Spearman Kister. In truth I do not indict Kevin S Jervik for his conniption but I can not fathom why he comes here with Tatiana Spearman Kister here. Kevin S Jervik is pushing discussions as found in a serious forum and unmoderated environments bother him too much.

It was Tatiana Spearman Kister who was openly asking how better to improve his forgeries.



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[Jasen Betts]

On 2018-03-05, ultred ragnusen <ult...@ragnusen.com> wrote:
> "Carlos E.R." <robin_...@es.invalid> wrote:
>

>> I'm not aware of a good tool to separate attachments from mails, and
>> that it also allows for finding the exact file that is mentioned in a
>> particular post, having in mind that a file could have been sent with
>> the same name several times, with the same or different versions of the
>> file.
>
> Once I have the mail archived from Google in a standard MBOX format, I can
> delete en masse and then start using my email again, which is the most
> important thing temporally.
>
> Longer term it behooves us to find a program that can run on a 10GB to 15GB
> monolithic mbox file to strip out the attachments (perhaps duplicating
> them, so that they remain in mime-encoded format within the mbox file
> itself).
>
> Even longer term it would be nice to find a program that turns a mbox file
> into a set of folder hierarchies ... but ... maybe that's not all that
> useful because, as noted, if Thunderbird or some other common MUA can
> handle the huge mbox file, then that might be good enough to run the
> necessary searches in the future on the backed up mbox file.

I use mutt on large mbox files, I've not tested how much RAM it uses.
(the large files are on large servers)

> Um.... that's a neat idea, but I've done the sendmail thing, and, well, um,
> er, I don't want to set up an IMAP server. At least not unless I have to.

IMAP server setup piss-easy. (apt-get install cyrus-imapd, done)
it's more effort to configure your email client

> I think downloading the MBOX archive from Google once a year is good enough
> to give me the freedom to delete anything in the mail at the time of the
> download.

personally I auto-forward all my gmail to my PC's dynamic domain name
and catch it with exim.

--
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[Steven Petruzzellis]

On Monday, March 5, 2018 at 9:28:09 PM UTC-7, Carlos E.R. wrote:

The guy is as well liked as bacon buttie at a Bar Mitzvah -- and with good reason. My first statement stands true and correct. I have worked in the technology field for nearly 30 years. I have worked for multibillion dollar corporations selling to the military and police forces. Never, with even a hint, were we at any point directed not to install any version of Linux. We sold Linux, Sun, Red Hat, etc. in addition to MS OSs very successfully.

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[ultred ragnusen]

"Carlos E.R." <robin_...@es.invalid> wrote:

> Never ever use POP if IMAP is provided.

> I refuse to even think about how to do things with POP. I will not read it.

Thanks for being sensible, in that POP is just out of the question for the
purpose of archival, which is what this thread is all about.

I've calmed down a lot since yesterday.

Thunderbird is as bad (actually worse) than I remember it when I had
concluded that it's just a web browser trying to do too many things as a
Swiss Army Knife, but, the point is that any MUA would have similar
problems as does Thunderbird for the purpose of archival on Linux of 15 GB
of stored Gmail.

My assessment, after only a few hours of trying to date, is that if you
/already/ know Thunderbird well, then it's a fine way (on IMAP) to set up a
new profile where you can download all your Gmail prior to manually
deleting it separately, and then you can archive the downloaded emails for
future use within Thunderbird (or some other MUA that respects TB
mailboxes).

You can also follow this step-by-step tutorial for Gmail backup with TB:
https://www.tutorialspoint.com/articles/gmail-account-backup-in-ubuntu-linux-pc

Having said that, for a Thunderbird noob, I would state, for the tribal
knowledge record, that using Thunderbird for the first time to do something
as important and unforgiving as archiving huge amounts of Gmail prior to
deleting it, is, in a word, fraught with risk.

With TB kicked out of the mix, there are still plenty of Linux tools left
to try to back up all 15GB of Gmail safely, that we can all benefit from.

For example, this Linux "GMVault" tool seems made to order for the task:
https://linoxide.com/linux-how-to/setup-gmvault-gmail-backup-ubuntu-centos/

As does this Linux command-line tool called "Backup Gmail":
http://www.webupd8.org/2011/04/tool-to-backup-restore-gmail-emails-in.html

There's also this Linux "Getmail" program for backing up Gmail:
https://www.howtogeek.com/138713/how-to-backup-your-gmail-account-using-your-ubuntu-pc/

And this article gives plenty of other ideas, of which some are similar:
https://linuxaria.com/howto/gmail-backup-with-linux

[ultred ragnusen]

"Carlos E.R." <robin_...@es.invalid> wrote:

> I think that you are trying to tame Thunderbird, instead of just using
> it directly... Huge mistake.

I agree I made a huge mistake in how I used Thunderbird.
First off, I took all the defaults.

More importantly, TB is probably too risky of an approach for a noob to
just hack away, because one mistake and your data is dead.

To ameliorate the risk, there seems to be tutorials out there specifically
geared to the topic of how to set up Thunderbird on Ubuntu expressly for
the purpose of backing up Gmail.

https://www.tutorialspoint.com/articles/gmail-account-backup-in-ubuntu-linux-pc
https://www.howtogeek.com/138713/how-to-backup-your-gmail-account-using-your-ubuntu-pc/
etc.

Although, the command "Getmail" is compatible with all Linux versions:
https://itsitrc.blogspot.jp/2013/07/gmail-account-backup-in-ubuntu.html

I'll try some of those methods on Ubuntu 17.10 and report back if
successful so that others benefit, as always, from every action.

[Steven Petruzzellis]

What I do is certainly more productive. Given how regularly it seems that Audra 'The Fool' Moore's post is some skew of a remark Vennie Bowden shared which had been a beating on Audra 'The Fool' Moore for something he did which was senseless/wrong/etc... its undoubtedly a daily expression of Audra 'The Fool' Moore's lingering butthurt for having been so often humiliated. From the way Audra 'The Fool' Moore asked - by getting wrong fundamentals of the Red Hat and suchlike - he's not worked on a graphically complex program. Otherwise he would've understood the requirements of using real vs. integer types!

Usenet is a world-wide protocol based on mutual trust with strangers that Audra 'The Fool' Moore lacks. Only what Audra 'The Fool' Moore wants matters to Audra 'The Fool' Moore. There is nothing you or I can do to change that. It's a chance to cause harm and it is what it is.

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[ultred ragnusen]

On Mon, 05 Mar 2018 08:36:46 +0000, ultred ragnusen wrote:

> What's a good way to back up Gmail when you've reached the size limit?

> http://wetakepic.com/images/2018/03/03/gmail_bck_01.jpg

Posting from Ubuntu this time, where I tested this only once and then
wrote up this Getmail method for folks to benefit from, use, and improve.

Any suggestions for improvement are welcome.
****************************************************************************
Begin:
How to back up Gmail using Linux getmail (20180306)
****************************************************************************
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Obtain getmail
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade --show-upgraded
$ sudo apt install getmail4
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Create the expected directory structure to store your backed up email
$ mkdir -p $HOME/data/gmail_backup/maildir/{tmp,new,cur}/

Note: Individual new messages go into the "new" folder by default.
Note: File naming conventions are horrid, so this is only for grepping.
1520396141.M145874P16035Q3833R12cacf4d693f5e01.a
1520396142.M419693P16037Q3834Rc180fe3eea7ba34d.a
1520396143.M470613P16039Q3835Rd7678c2a01a32bf4.a
1520396144.M374454P16041Q3836R6312b258b4a6a8f2.a
etc.
Note: I'm not sure what tmp and current are actually for, but
examples of creating them abound on the net, so I made them.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. Define the mbox file (this file must exist prior to running getmail)
$ touch $HOME/data/gmail_backup/backup.mbox
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. Link an empty (for now) config file where getmail expects it
$ mkdir $HOME/.getmail/
$ touch $HOME/data/gmail_backup/backupgmail.getmailrc
$ ln -s $HOME/data/gmail_backup/backupgmail.getmailrc \
$HOME/.getmail/backupgmail.getmailrc

Note: I'm not sure if this is really necessary, but people did it.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
5. Create the getmail configuration file [retriever] section:
$ vi $HOME/data/gmail_backup/backupgmail.getmailrc

#########################################################################
[retriever]
#########################################################################
# Note: Getmail syntax doesn't allow inline comments unfortunately.
# Note: Getmail syntax doesn't allow leading spaces unfortunately.
# Note: Getmail syntax supports $HOME despite no examples on the net.
# Note: If you want pop, you must first enable it on the Gmail servers.
# type = SimplePOP3SSLRetriever # POP with SSL (throttled & just inbox)
# type = SimpleIMAPRetriever # IMAP without SSL
# type = SimpleIMAPSSLRetriever # IMAP with SSL (use this)
type = SimpleIMAPSSLRetriever
# server = pop.gmail.com # the pop server
# server = imap.gmail.com # the imap server
server = imap.gmail.com
port = 993
# username = your...@gmail.com # your gmail username
username = yourus...@gmail.com
# password = yourpasswd # your gmail password
password = abcdefg
# If you comment out mailboxes, the default is just the inbox
# mailboxes = ("[Gmail]/Sent Mail",) # special label for sent mail
# mailboxes = ("Inbox", "[Gmail]/Sent Mail") # special label for inbox &
sent
# mailboxes = ("[Gmail]/All Mail",) # special label for all mail
mailboxes = ("[Gmail]/All Mail",)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
6. Create the getmail configuration file [destination] section:
$ vi $HOME/data/gmail_backup/backupgmail.getmailrc

#########################################################################
[destination]
#########################################################################
# type = MultiDestination # allow backup to more than one place
type = MultiDestination
destinations = ('[mboxrd-destination]', '[maildir-destination]')
[mboxrd-destination]
# type = Mboxrd # this tells it to get the monolithic mbox file
type = Mboxrd
# path = $HOME/data/gmail_backup/backup.mbox # the flie must exist prior
path = $HOME/data/gmail_backup/backup.mbox
[maildir-destination]
# type = Maildir # this tells it to also get individual mail messages
type = Maildir
# path = $HOME/data/gmail_backup/maildir/ # note the trailing slash
path = $HOME/data/gmail_backup/maildir/
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
7. Create the getmail configuration file [options] section:
$ vi $HOME/data/gmail_backup/backupgmail.getmailrc
#########################################################################
[options]
#########################################################################
# delete = true # delete mail on server
# delete = false # keep mail on server
delete = false
# verbose = 0 # no log messages
# verbose = 2 # minimum log messages
verbose = 2
message_log = $HOME/.getmail/getmail.log
# read_all = false # download only new messages
# read_all = true # download all messages each time
read_all = true
# delivered_to = false # do not alter messages
delivered_to = false
# received = false # do not alter messages
received = false
#########################################################################
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
8. Make sure the mbox file exists prior to running getmail
$ ls -l $HOME/data/gmail_backup/backup.mbox
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
9. Run Getmail
$ getmail -v -r $HOME/data/gmail_backup/backupgmail.getmailrc &
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
10. Explore the results
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
11. Optionally, add the command to your crontab.
$ crontab -e
# add this line and save
0 23 * * * getmail -r $HOME/data/gmail_backup/backupgmail.getmailrc &

NOTE: I'm not sure if the crontab can handle the $HOME shell variable.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
12. Read your mail with Thunderbird
a. Start Thunderbird
b. Copy the "Local directory" location in Thunderbird:
Thunderbird: Tools > Account Settings > Local Folders
c. Close Thunderbird
d. Copy the mbox file to the location you copied above.
If there is a .mbox extension on the file, remove it.
so backup.mbox should just be backup.
e. Open Thunderbird
f. Local Folders should show a folder called backup with your mail.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
References:
http://pyropus.ca/software/getmail/configuration.html
http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/xenial/man1/getmail.1.html
https://balau82.wordpress.com/2011/07/17/using-getmail-to-backup-gmail-
on-linux https://earldouglas.com/posts/getgmail.html
https://itsitrc.blogspot.jp/2013/07/gmail-account-backup-in-ubuntu.html
https://scottlinux.com/2011/02/28/backup-gmail-account-in-linux/
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Backup_Gmail_with_getmail
****************************************************************************
End of:
How to back up Gmail using Linux getmail (20180306)
****************************************************************************

[Steven Petruzzellis]

Do not get too bigheaded, Bill Cunningham, sometimes "seemingly intelligent people" are just that. If you have 'b.doc' open in an application such as sc and you want to change its name to 'windows.pdf' via a hot key, Tatiana Spearman Kister's suggestion might be OK.

Bill Cunningham only thinks about Tatiana Spearman Kister, Tatiana Spearman Kister, Tatiana Spearman Kister!

You're clueless!



-
Puppy Videos!
http://www.5z8.info/boobs_j0v3qo_dont-just-drizzle
Jonas Eklundh Communication AB

[ultred ragnusen]

On Wed, 07 Mar 2018 05:05:47 +0000, ultred ragnusen wrote:

> Posting from Ubuntu this time, where I tested this only once and then
> wrote up this Getmail method for folks to benefit from, use, and
> improve.
>
> Any suggestions for improvement are welcome.

FYI...

The problem with /testing/ mail-archival is the time to test out the fire
extinguisher isn't when there is an actual fire... so it behooves us to
come up with a /reliable/ step-by-step method for archiving Gmail on
Linux.

Sadly to say, this new approach of the Getmail method fails a lot, for
reasons not yet known to me.

I've run it four times, each time it fails.
Here's an error at verbose level 2 for example.
http://i.cubeupload.com/ymRhFC.jpg

Since downloading all the mail in one fell swoop just isn't going to
work, I changed one setting, which I hope will /incrementally/ download
the mail, but as I said with the fire extingushier, now's not the time to
experiment with settings.

There should just be a set of settings that actually work.
If you have experience with GetMail on Linux, please advise. Thanks.

[Steven Petruzzellis]

HA! Autumn Nissen (https://www.facebook.com/anissen7) is a false advocate's biggest fear. How Vennie Bowden determines when to use the flood script for maximum impact http://usenet.sandman.net/misc/snit_flood. Think about it, who knows C++, is a programmer, has forged Autumn Nissen (https://www.facebook.com/anissen7)'s ID, has passion for this shit and is a gigantic tantrum throwing toddler who, when he is quoted lying, posts demands he be "trusted" even when he's not flooding... AND... who struggles to pin everything *he* is doing on "Autumn Nissen (https://www.facebook.com/anissen7)" and has for years? I suspect we have two different notions entirely.

Vennie Bowden's posts are nothing but an indecipherable rambling. Unity is clearly my second favorite DE and the only one I recommend to computer morons. Primary interface is KDE, though. Lots of desktop effects is all you want after you get used to it.

Nobody who isn't just using you for erotic advantage sees you as anything remotely close to respectable. You have nobody but me to point to for that.

--
What Every Entrepreneur Must Know
https://youtu.be/u4xD43Khhkw
http://jeff-relf.me/Cola_Regs.HTM
https://youtu.be/HMx0RyzbPgQ
Jonas Eklundh Communication AB

[Steven Petruzzellis]

Calls it "obsessing" over him, even though he continues to set in motion that precise reaction.

But why the added requirement to edit the DOM via direct input in a mobile system? As always, he didn't list this as part of his never ending expansion of 'criteria'. Right, Autumn Nissen is wanting to market a DOM reference, which anyone can get from torrent sites, that anyone can learn from a video. If he could stop being so dumb he would realize how lost he appears ;)



--
This Trick Gets Women Hot For You
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZNxaaKD7-c
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.os.linux.advocacy/smzXrBhsWf4
Jonas Eklundh

[Steven Petruzzellis]

Who are you even speaking to?

I bet Bit Twister does not even know what is wrong with Trump. Bit Twister is often seen posting "THERE IS NO" when it comes to information on the web where information is easy to find... but Bit Twister is just too ignorant and lazy to interpret any info. Just look at Bit Twister's posts and look at Audra Moore's, there is nothing for us to learn from an idiot like Bit Twister. But hey, let him keep making a cretin of himself. I am sure one of his stooges will come to the rescue.

Obviously, the top undertaking that matters to Bit Twister is thinking he is "honest", and if he can not have that he will create socks to beat Audra Moore down... there is no stopping him. You never take blame for your own words. Actions that are easily found in a search. What were you hoping for?

--
Curious how these posts are made? Email: fretw...@gmail.com

[Carlos E.R.]

On 2018-03-06 23:32, ultred ragnusen wrote:
> "Carlos E.R." <robin_...@es.invalid> wrote:
>
>> I think that you are trying to tame Thunderbird, instead of just using
>> it directly... Huge mistake.
>
> I agree I made a huge mistake in how I used Thunderbird.
> First off, I took all the defaults.

I use most of the defaults :-)

I have been using Thunderbird since I migrated to Linux around 1999. In
fact, I was using it earlier in Windows, but back them it was the
Netscape suite.

Previously, I used Outlook or Exchange.

I never had great difficulties with Netscape / Thunderbird way of doing
things, I found them logical and well done. I find some other programs
way of doing things absurd or incomplete.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

[Carlos E.R.]

On 2018-03-06 23:26, ultred ragnusen wrote:
> "Carlos E.R." <robin_...@es.invalid> wrote:
>
>> Never ever use POP if IMAP is provided.
>> I refuse to even think about how to do things with POP. I will not read it.
>
> Thanks for being sensible, in that POP is just out of the question for the
> purpose of archival, which is what this thread is all about.
>
> I've calmed down a lot since yesterday.
>
> Thunderbird is as bad (actually worse) than I remember it when I had
> concluded that it's just a web browser trying to do too many things as a
> Swiss Army Knife, but, the point is that any MUA would have similar
> problems as does Thunderbird for the purpose of archival on Linux of 15 GB
> of stored Gmail.

No, Thunderbird is not a web browser at all.

It does have code to display html correctly, that's different. And
supports javascript, which is needed to support Gmail preferred auth
method, called Oauth2.


I completely fail to understand how you could find Thunderbird difficult
or awkward.


If you prefer, you can in Linux use clients like Mutt or Alpine. I use
the later. No graphics whatsoever. No hand holding at all. Steep
learning curve.


--
Cheers, Carlos.

[Carlos E.R.]

On 2018-03-07 18:33, ultred ragnusen wrote:
> On Wed, 07 Mar 2018 05:05:47 +0000, ultred ragnusen wrote:
>
>> Posting from Ubuntu this time, where I tested this only once and then
>> wrote up this Getmail method for folks to benefit from, use, and
>> improve.
>>
>> Any suggestions for improvement are welcome.
>
> FYI...
>
> The problem with /testing/ mail-archival is the time to test out the fire
> extinguisher isn't when there is an actual fire... so it behooves us to
> come up with a /reliable/ step-by-step method for archiving Gmail on
> Linux.
>
> Sadly to say, this new approach of the Getmail method fails a lot, for
> reasons not yet known to me.
>
> I've run it four times, each time it fails.
> Here's an error at verbose level 2 for example.
> http://i.cubeupload.com/ymRhFC.jpg

It seems a network error.

Maybe restarting it would continue on the next message.

> Since downloading all the mail in one fell swoop just isn't going to
> work, I changed one setting, which I hope will /incrementally/ download
> the mail, but as I said with the fire extingushier, now's not the time to
> experiment with settings.
>
> There should just be a set of settings that actually work.
> If you have experience with GetMail on Linux, please advise. Thanks.

I have never used that tool.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

[ultred ragnusen]

"Carlos E.R." <robin_...@es.invalid> wrote:

> No, Thunderbird is not a web browser at all.

That's a fair enough assessment, where my frustration was in the fact that
I don't consider that idiotically-named (by default) "profiles" directory,
nor "cookies" and "javascript" being needed in a "MUA", but where you
explain why Mozilla-browser-like carryovers exist below.

> It does have code to display html correctly, that's different. And
> supports javascript, which is needed to support Gmail preferred auth
> method, called Oauth2.

Fair enough defense of why a MUA has cookies and javascript.

> I completely fail to understand how you could find Thunderbird difficult
> or awkward.

My reasons are logical and rational but I agree the weight on whether
Thunderbird is a good mail-archival tool depends a lot on how comfortable
you are with the tool.

To me, Thunderbird is a Swiss Army Knife when all you want is a pair of
scissors. It's not the right tool for Gmail archival unless you already
know how to use the tool so that you don't fall into the trap of losing
your data simply due to the complexity of what Thunderbird is trying to do
with it.

> If you prefer, you can in Linux use clients like Mutt or Alpine. I use
> the later. No graphics whatsoever. No hand holding at all. Steep
> learning curve.

I just finished, successfully I think, downloading all the mail in two
different formats, both as individual messages and as a huge mbox file,
using getMail, as explained in gory detail in another part of the thread.
http://i.cubeupload.com/t5pSer.jpg

The only conundrum using the GetMail method was that it died the first
three times, inexplicably, but it finally worked on the last try - and -
the mbox - which was 15GB from Gmail and about that from Thunderbird - grew
to almost 19GB with the GetMail method.

Why is a GetMail mbox 133% as large as a Gmail or TB mbox file?
I don't know why.

[ultred ragnusen]

"Carlos E.R." <robin_...@es.invalid> wrote:

> I use most of the defaults :-)

I almost never use defaults, except when I'm unfamilar with a tool, and
then I usually do use the defaults. :)

> I have been using Thunderbird since I migrated to Linux around 1999. In
> fact, I was using it earlier in Windows, but back them it was the
> Netscape suite.

Like you, I used Thunderbird on Linux when it was the logical successor to
Zmail, but in comparison to Zmail, there was none. Maybe my dislike for
Thunderbird stemmed from that demotion from Zmail to Thunderbird
functionality, but more likely, my dislike is that Thunderbird is trying to
be too much.

In general, single-purpose tools are "cleaner" in use model than Swiss Army
Knife tools, which Thunderbird clearly attempts to be.

> Previously, I used Outlook or Exchange.

I did also, as did most of us, where Outlook calendaring was phenomenally
effective in a business environment where everyone used Outlook
calendaring. :)

Outlook was integrated nicely as email + calendaring, which only came
later to Linux, as I recall.

> I never had great difficulties with Netscape / Thunderbird way of doing
> things, I found them logical and well done. I find some other programs
> way of doing things absurd or incomplete.

I used Thunderbird as a Usenet news client years ago, as a test of
functionality, where I've never found a Usenet client that I liked, so I
mostly use a mixmash of scripts, which were temporarily screwed up by the
recent operating system crash.

I'm slowly getting them back up to speed as my GUI then becomes Marek's
scripts again, which have the beauty of showing me only what I care about
to respond to.

Thanks. BTW, the GetMail method, while it failed a few times, worked after
about 24 hours of downloading the mail, where the mbox turned out to be
appreciably larger than the Thunderbird or Gmail mbox (dunno why).
http://i.cubeupload.com/t5pSer.jpg

I have a few more methods to test, but I did test the Gmail method again,
trying out all the choices, until Gmail locked me out, saying I was asking
for too many separate archives. :)

[ultred ragnusen]

"Carlos E.R." <robin_...@es.invalid> wrote:

> It seems a network error.
>
> Maybe restarting it would continue on the next message.

I agree with you that it was likely a network error, where the trick is in
figuring out /how/ to gracefully restart the tool.

I wasn't sure if the one-line change I made to skip previously downloaded
messages provided the same mbox as the original approach did, and I didn't
think ahead to save the old (failed) mbox file, so it may be impossible to
tell... but ...

The restart with that one changed setting allowed GetMail to complete.
http://i.cubeupload.com/t5pSer.jpg

One advantage of this GetMail method is that it works for /all/ mail
servers, and that you can crontab it nightly or weekly or monthly or
yearly, etc., and that you can fine tune things with the getmail
configuration file.

[William Unruh]

I use Alpine. Agreed no graphics, which can be a pain (you can usually have
some external program do the graphics but it is certainly in the "do one thing
well" category. Steep learning curve? Not sure what that means. It is
trivially easy for a beginner to start using. And since there are few bells
and whistles, there are few things to learn. It farms out editing so you can
use you favourite command line editor to compose emails. Or you can use their
builtin editor, which is a bit weird (but not quite as weird as vim which I
use).

It works almost anywhere that you can log in to your home machine from. Ie,
the terminal can be on anything, and can be some very simple text terminal.


>
>

[Mike Easter]

ultred ragnusen wrote:
> To me, Thunderbird is a Swiss Army Knife when all you want is a pair of
> scissors.

I don't think that analogy is as useful or applicable as it might seem
at first glance.

I also have a love/hate relationship with Tb, which I use all the time,
which love/hate resembles (in different ways) that relationship with the
multi-flawed now-deceased Outlook Express, which I once used all the time.

My two principle dislikes of Tb are its bloat, which bloat is secondary
to its development and the philosophy of its development which I
surmise, as opposed to actually being intimate with its development.

At the heart of Tb's development is its intense integration with the
.moz html display engine. Right next to that heart is the concept that
Tb is supposed to be an html mail agent which has tacked on - because
such tacking on is felt by some to be 'trivial' - the features of nntp
for news groups.

Since my primary interest in Tb is as a plaintext news agent and
absolutely not an html mail agent, the vast majority of 'blades' on the
army knife are completely useless, making for completely unnecessary
bloat for my purposes. In addition, I strongly disagree that a good
nntp agent can simply be tacked onto any old mail user agent, because
many features of a good news agent are very different from those of a MUA.

My likes of Tb compared to other news agents mentioned in an earlier
post are related to f=f and rewrapping.

My philosophy about accomplishing some goal which you described in the
earlier parts of this thread are different than how you go about such
goals. My approach would be to do it the easiest way if that produced a
satisfactory result. Your approach is to spend more time investigating
alternatives whether they are very easy or not. While there are
advantages to your method, there is an imperfect convenience to mine.

I would have done the job with Tb as a MUA imap and been done.

--
Mike Easter

[William Unruh]

On 2018-03-08, Mike Easter <Mi...@ster.inalid> wrote:
> ultred ragnusen wrote:
...

> Since my primary interest in Tb is as a plaintext news agent and
> absolutely not an html mail agent, the vast majority of 'blades' on the
> army knife are completely useless, making for completely unnecessary
> bloat for my purposes. In addition, I strongly disagree that a good
> nntp agent can simply be tacked onto any old mail user agent, because
> many features of a good news agent are very different from those of a MUA.
>
> My likes of Tb compared to other news agents mentioned in an earlier
> post are related to f=f and rewrapping.

So why do you not use a news agent-- eg slrn. No bloat, fast and it just
delivers news.

I have no idea what f=f means not what rewrapping is supposed to mean.

[Michael Bäuerle]

William Unruh wrote:
> On 2018-03-08, Mike Easter <Mi...@ster.inalid> wrote:
> >

> > [...]

"f=f" normally refers to the "format" Parameter of the "Content-Type"
headerfield with the value "flowed". This is defined in RFC 3676:
<https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3676>

With this parameter the author of an article can allow recepients to
rewrap specifically marked lines/paragraphs of the body.

[Carlos E.R.]

Maybe getmail does similarly to what fetchmail does. I'm familiar with
the later, I use it daily.

For the purpose of backing up mail I don't like it, because every mail
ends up as "new", meaning it does not save any flags the mail might have.

For that reason I proposed a MUA, and to my knowledge, TB is the best.
Yes, it has lots of features, and possibly you may not like many of
them. One of them is that it talks "gmailesse".

And I proposed having a local imap server as destination of the email,
because that way you can use your preferred mail client with the
archive, regardless of having downloaded it with TB.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

[Mike Easter]

William Unruh wrote:
> Mike Easter

>> My likes of Tb compared to other news agents mentioned in an earlier
>> post are related to f=f and rewrapping.
>
> So why do you not use a news agent-- eg slrn. No bloat, fast and it just
> delivers news.
>
> I have no idea what f=f means not what rewrapping is supposed to mean.
>

slrn can rewrap; slrn cannot format=flowed.

The fully compatible f=f agent can handle -1- non-f=f of course -2-
create f=f properly in a write message -3- handle existing f=f in
replies -4- handle mixed non- and f=f in replies.

And for rewrap, can handle 'demanding' rewrap requirements.

In the beginning Tb could compliantly handle f=f, then it lost its
ability to handle compliantly existing f=f in replies/followups, then it
mostly regained that ability.

Tb can handle some reformatting tasks, but I wouldn't call it robust.
Some linux editors or editors with macros can handle reformatting more
robustly.

Alpine can do f=f and I also like the way its help and configuration
function is designed to help the new user who is unfamiliar with using a
console based app instead of graphical.

--
Mike Easter

[Mike Easter]

Mike Easter wrote:
> Alpine can do f=f and I also like the way its help and configuration
> function is designed to help the new user who is unfamiliar with using a
> console based app instead of graphical.

As regards alpine maintenance and development, which alpine was
initially released as a fork of pine over 10 years ago: "The latest
stable released version, 2.21.9, was released on September 19, 2017[13]
while the most recent developmental version, 2.21.999, was released on
February 26, 2018.[14]" - [wp]

--
Mike Easter

[Carlos E.R.]

I use Alpine for mail, but not for news. It does not cache articles,
does not keep an index in file, thus it can not keep track of which
articles have been read and which replied to.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

[Mike Easter]

Carlos E.R. wrote:
> I use Alpine for mail, but not for news. It does not cache articles,
> does not keep an index in file, thus it can not keep track of which
> articles have been read and which replied to.

I found an old thread in which you participated a few years ago which
was about alpine + leafnode, but part of the thread was missing from the
archive I accessed and I wasn't able to read if a local instance of
leafnode could solve or help that problem for alpine.

I also looked at the recent release comments from Chappa, but there was
no mention of any nntp cache behavior changes in that.

--
Mike Easter

[ultred ragnusen]

Mike Easter <Mi...@ster.inalid> wrote:

> Since my primary interest in Tb is as a plaintext news agent and
> absolutely not an html mail agent, the vast majority of 'blades' on the
> army knife are completely useless, making for completely unnecessary
> bloat for my purposes. In addition, I strongly disagree that a good
> nntp agent can simply be tacked onto any old mail user agent, because
> many features of a good news agent are very different from those of a MUA.

I agree with you on the sage, but not obvious observation that, while
they're superficially similar, a NNTP newsreader and a MUA are completely
different beasts. They just are.

> My likes of Tb compared to other news agents mentioned in an earlier
> post are related to f=f and rewrapping.

Again, your observations are wise as I've been on nntp-related ngs for so
long that I can't count the number of newsreaders I've tried, /none/ of
which are satisfactory for my needs.

For example, Pan is a great platform-independent newsreader, but it suffers
on a bad connection due to lack of an outbox and Dialog, with its outbox
being very nicely done, isn't ported to Linux.
http://tinyurl.com/news-software-readers

> My philosophy about accomplishing some goal which you described in the
> earlier parts of this thread are different than how you go about such
> goals.

I accomplished the archival goal days ago.
My approach now is to find the /best/ solution on Windows & Linux so as to
add to the overall tribal knowledge, and so that the next person always has
an easier time of it than I did.

> My approach would be to do it the easiest way if that produced a
> satisfactory result.

Easiest way, bar none, is to make use of the Google Takeout mechanism,
although I experimented with this similar third-party method which failed a
few times, but I'm not sure why yet.
https://www.upsafe.com/free-gmail-backup/

> Your approach is to spend more time investigating
> alternatives whether they are very easy or not.

It's what you do when you're seeking the /best/ method.
Evolution only takes the /first/ method that works.
That's the difference between evolution and engineering. :)

> While there are
> advantages to your method, there is an imperfect convenience to mine.

There's nothing, I think, easier than the Google Takeout method, although I
note that Google locked me out of that method after I tried it too much,
so, there's a limit on experiments you can run... :)

>
> I would have done the job with Tb as a MUA imap and been done.

On the topic of TB as an archival tool, I nix it for a noob, but it's fine
for someone who is already familiar with it as a MUA.

Remember, TB failed a whole bunch of times to download my mail, where it
took /days/ for TB to collect a 15GB mbox file, where TB failed so many
times that I have low confidence that the mbox file is what I wanted it to
be.

It might be.
It might not be.

It's much safer, quicker, easier, and, did I mention much safer to use the
Google Takeout method.

[ultred ragnusen]

Michael Bäuerle <michael....@gmx.net> wrote:

>> I have no idea what f=f means not what rewrapping is supposed to mean.
>
> "f=f" normally refers to the "format" Parameter of the "Content-Type"
> headerfield with the value "flowed". This is defined in RFC 3676:
> <https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3676>
>
> With this parameter the author of an article can allow recepients to
> rewrap specifically marked lines/paragraphs of the body.

I should note, as an aside, that Michael is an expert who has helped me
/hundreds/ of times on the nntp-related newsgroups where I wish there was a
/great/ newsreader, but great news readers just don't exist (IMHO).
- servers http://tinyurl.com/news-software-readers
- readers http://tinyurl.com/alt-free-newsservers

The best I have founds, admittedly not as good as I'd like them to be, are
Pan and Dialog, but there are plenty (as you all know).

What's /never/ going to work is a Swiss Army Knife newsreader, IMHO, which
TB tries to be - simply because what you do with a MUA is only
superficially related to what you do with a news reader (IMHO).

[Mike Easter]

ultred ragnusen wrote:
> There's nothing, I think, easier than the Google Takeout method,

That method is only easy/satisfactory to get *some kind of* archive of
the google mail.

The Tb (or other mua) or such as fetchmail should provide a genuinely
USABLE archive by the same kind of agent which fetched it. If the
recovery of the store (google archive) is not as usable as it was when
it was on the google servers, it isn't the same thing as what you want.

--
Mike Easter

[Carlos E.R.]

On 2018-03-08 23:44, Mike Easter wrote:
> Carlos E.R. wrote:
>> I use Alpine for mail, but not for news. It does not cache articles,
>> does not keep an index in file, thus it can not keep track of which
>> articles have been read and which replied to.
>
> I found an old thread in which you participated a few years ago which
> was about alpine + leafnode, but part of the thread was missing from the
> archive I accessed and I wasn't able to read if a local instance of
> leafnode could solve or help that problem for alpine.

No, it has no effect.

>
> I also looked at the recent release comments from Chappa, but there was
> no mention of any nntp cache behavior changes in that.

Alpine doesn't cache an index of posts, that's intentional. It
intentionally doesn't have that feature: not for news, nor for email.

Heh, another program that does both mail and news ;-)

With email, working with a remote networked mail server, an imap server,
each person gets an account on the server, and the server stores the
current mail status with all flags needed. The client doesn't need to
store locally anything, and thus, Alpine stores nothing.

With nntp there is no account at the server, so Alpine working in the
same way can't store the status at the server. So it doesn't. Nor does
it do locally.


Thunderbird has a different way of working. It stores locally a copy of
the contents of the messages and its headers, and an index to them. And
it does the same thing for email and nntp. Thus, on nntp, it can track
across sessions what has been read or not, what has been replied to or not.

Some news clients do it one way, others the other. I think all the GUI
nntp clients I have tried have some local caching or indexing.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

[ultred ragnusen]

In article <news:fge4jv...@mid.individual.net>, Mike Easter wrote:

> The Tb (or other mua) or such as fetchmail should provide a genuinely
> USABLE archive by the same kind of agent which fetched it. If the
> recovery of the store (google archive) is not as usable as it was when
> it was on the google servers, it isn't the same thing as what you want.

Fair enough.

That's one reason why I'm saving /multiple/ archives, but, of course, at
15GB (Thunderbird) to 20GB (GetMail) per mbox, it's expensive in terms of
archival space on DVD.

[Mike Easter]

Carlos E.R. wrote:
> Thunderbird has a different way of working. It stores locally a copy of
> the contents of the messages and its headers, and an index to them. And
> it does the same thing for email and nntp. Thus, on nntp, it can track
> across sessions what has been read or not, what has been replied to or not.

For nntp, in the default mode, Tb only stores locally the headers and
their index, not the messages themselves. It handles the messages
themselves by cache.

Tb can be configured alternatively to store the messages themselves by
selecting which newsgroups to be handled for offline.

--
Mike Easter

[Carlos E.R.]

If you download with any IMAP MUA and store in your own local IMAP
server, it will be *correctly* readable in any other MUA and operating
system.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

[Carlos E.R.]

You are right.

I created a new profile under another user, and I saw that it created:

alt.os.linux.dat 25 bytes
alt.os.linux.msf 8710986

The first file is some configuration, and the second is the index with
headers.

If messages are locally stored they can also be expired.

It also keeps a newsrc file. The contents are:

alt.os.linux: 1,12605,16538,17405,19244,20801
alt.os.linux.opensuse: 1
alt.os.linux.suse: 1-2


I only opened a single message, and in the headers I see:

Xref: Telcontar.valinor alt.os.linux:20801

The 20801 number is the one used to mark a read message. This file might
be used perhaps by other readers.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

[Daniel60]

ultred ragnusen wrote on 06/03/18 08:55:
> "Carlos E.R." <robin_...@es.invalid> wrote:
>
>>> Yup. I agree. I think this idea of using a MUA to handle a MBOX file is a
>>> perfectly solid idea.
>>
>>
>> See? Many people are telling you that.
>
> I agree.
>
> I also admit I had different ideas going into this quest than I do now that
> it has been resolved.
>
> I think, in the end, since I had to load Thunderbird anyway, that I might
> as well have skipped the Google Archive step (for now) and just downloaded
> all my mail into Thunderbird ... and then ... ARCHIVE THAT.
>
> How do I archive Thunderbird mailboxes?
> Hell if I know.

As others have suggested, just coping the files somewhere safe should do
the job. This could either be by coping your entire profile in one go,
or copying just the inbox and sent files (without the extensions)

In my SeaMonkey Suite (think Firefox and Thunderbird in one package), I
divide my mail up into several folders, e.g. inbox, sent, family,
friends, work, etc. Then, at the end of each year, I copy these files
into an archive, changing the name of each to include the year, e.g.
2017_inbox, 2017_sent, etc, etc.

> But that's probably what I would have done, in hind sight, and that was
> essentially what people were saying (only they skipped the step of how to
> archive Thunderbird mailboxes which I presume is a simple file copy).

Yes, simple file copy.

> The idea I had was of something that created folders, but that idea has
> been shot through and through with holes.
>
> The idea of archiving Gmail via the Takeout mechanism every year is still a
> good idea though, as you can download and save the file and then you don't
> have to worry if you accidentally delete old mail.
>
> I'm not sure what's a good interval for the Google takeout archival process
> but every January 1st doesn't seem too often.

I've got an addition mailbox on Yahoomail which I will, eventually, have
to download onto this Laptop's HD, so I'm interested in what you are
doing, i.e. finding out the problems for me!!

--
Daniel

[Steven Petruzzellis]

Right, Autumn Nissen is seeking to sell a System76 variable, which Savageduck can get for free, that anyone can learn from a video. If he wasn't so ignorant he would get how screwed up he sounds.

No one who isn't just using you for trouble-making purposes (isn't a troll) sees you as anything remotely close to good. You have few but yourself to blame for that. Someone's passed old text through Google translate with a takeoff of automated reinforcement learning to regurgitate posts which are in the form of ones from a previous post in the group. I shall not ask Autumn Nissen how any part of Savageduck's rear tastes no matter how often Autumn Nissen kisses it.

After the latest update I no longer have to issue 'pulseaudio -k' every time I login ;) There is no question this is an insomniac troll writing because some of them tap into what Savageduck said in very specific ways with clear thought behind them.

-
One Smart Penny!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZNxaaKD7-c
Jonas Eklundh Communication

[Steven Petruzzellis]

These posts are clearly at most partially automated, they are made by Jolly Roger who is a glue sniffing insomniac with a sick agenda who has way too much time on his hands (and possibly has other morons helping him).

Hint: You can not go into a gathering, chug all the firewater, shit on all the pets, nab the china, and ralph in the toilet without being loathed. Frankly I do not really give a shit. I bet Jolly Roger thinks my life was fun.

But when the stats were run, it turns out by _that_ criteria, Jolly Roger was far more "fanatical" than he admitted. So, yeah, I buy into my own fancy, fully knowing it is not real, because it makes me reconsider my code, improving it.



-
Curious how these posts are made? Email: fretw...@gmail.com