Incremental Backup

jrfo...@gmail.com

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Apr 26, 2010, 10:29:54 PM4/26/10

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Is it possible to do an incremental backup of Thundrebird emails? Or
can you only backup the entire Inbox? I backup over a VPN network, and
backing up my Inbox, which is now about 500MB in size, takes a loooong
time. For everything else on the computer, the incremental backup means
that only files that changed during the preceding day get sent over the
network. It would make a lot of sense if only the email activity of the
day had to move over the network for backup purposes, instead of moving
the entire Inbox with 3 years of emails every day. But is there any way
to do this?

LD55ZRA

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Apr 26, 2010, 10:34:27 PM4/26/10

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You could rename your current inbox to inbox02 and then create a
new one so that that can be backed up daily. When it is big
enough, you can rename it and create another inbox and so and so
on. I don't think mailboxes have incremental backups facility.

hth

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GP

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Apr 27, 2010, 3:53:55 AM4/27/10

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Assuming you do not sort your emails in many folders, you may just
backup file after compression, and then move the emails in an 'archive'
folder, where they would be kept available from TB (there is also the
'archive funciton of TB').
If you do this daily you have a backup of each day. I guess you may have
a hard time finding back your emails if you would have to dig into this
mess though...
Another way could be to use the (previously mentioned) archive function
of TB (message->archive) and then backup the created folder, but this
would be on a monthly basis only (if I remember correctly how it works).

Guillaume.

Terry R.

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Apr 27, 2010, 1:01:08 PM4/27/10

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On 4/26/2010 7:29 PM On a whim, jrfo...@gmail.com pounded out on the
keyboard

Since the Inbox is a single file, any change will cause the whole file
to be copied, even with an incremental backup.

What are you using to perform the backup? Some programs use "smart"
technology that only backs up the part of the file that has changed. It
may be your backup program does not support a feature similar to that,
and you may want to look into one that does.

Terry R.
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gNeandr

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Apr 27, 2010, 1:50:43 PM4/27/10

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[27.04.2010 19:01] �Terry R.� wrote:
> ... Some programs use "smart" technology that only backs up the part
> of the file that has changed. ...

Any suggestion for a "smart backup"?? Any specific program / extension?

gN

Terry R.

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Apr 27, 2010, 6:51:05 PM4/27/10

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On 4/27/2010 10:50 AM On a whim, gNeandr pounded out on the keyboard

Most offline backup internet services use that type of technology today
because of slow transfer rates. Since hard drive capacity is so large
and inexpensive now, it really isn't worth the cost any longer for most
backup programs to support it. They are still out there, but mainly
used for server/network type backup, not individual workstations.
Search for partial file copy backup or block level incremental backup.