I don't even keep my emails. I have nothing in my inbox at the moment.
If an email contains something I need to keep, it is transferred to my proper files.
Empty mail, happy life.
Ask HN: Do you backup your Emails?
11–20 of 79 posts
Re: Ask HN: Do you backup your Emails?
#12Do you backup your Emails? Yes. I have a combination of self hosted email and a vendor email provider. I access both with IMAPS. I pull down the emails with Thunderbird and never leave them on the server. I back up the local Thunderbird data folder locally then back it up to multiple encrypted SSD/NVME.
Can you search through old emails easily?
Re: Ask HN: Do you backup your Emails?
#13I don't even keep my emails. I have nothing in my inbox at the moment. If an email contains something I need to keep, it is transferred to my proper files. Empty mail, happy life.
Clicking “Archive” also has the same effect + you can easily finds things while not being at the computer.
Re: Ask HN: Do you backup your Emails?
#14I don't even keep my emails. I have nothing in my inbox at the moment. If an email contains something I need to keep, it is transferred to my proper files. Empty mail, happy life.
I’m using this system as well.
I don’t keep letters in my mailbox. I don’t see why i should keep emails either.
Re: Ask HN: Do you backup your Emails?
#15I can recommend https://github.com/joeyates/imap-backup for backing up gmail.
However, this does not function when a security key is activated.
Re: Ask HN: Do you backup your Emails?
#16I don't even keep my emails. I have nothing in my inbox at the moment. If an email contains something I need to keep, it is transferred to my proper files. Empty mail, happy life.
Clicking “Archive” also has the same effect + you can easily finds things while not being at the computer.
It just removes the clutter from view. It’s not the same thing.
Re: Ask HN: Do you backup your Emails?
#17Do you backup your Emails? Yes. I have a combination of self hosted email and a vendor email provider. I access both with IMAPS. I pull down the emails with Thunderbird and never leave them on the server. I back up the local Thunderbird data folder locally then back it up to multiple encrypted SSD/NVME.
Can you search through old emails easily?
If I import the folder into Thunderbird, yes. The search in Thunderbird is a subjective topic but it works for me. There are probably other tools to search through them but I have never tried to find one.
Re: Ask HN: Do you backup your Emails?
#18I self-host my email, and I backup my server. My Gmail account, which I seldom use, gets redirected to an address at my own server, so it automatically gets backed up as well.
Re: Ask HN: Do you backup your Emails?
#19No. There is really nothing useful in there. It's mostly just all receipts for online orders that I have never needed.
I view old emails as all of the browser tabs I have open right now: I feel attached to them and avoid closing them. But if they all disappear I'll be fine. I'm not wasting energy backing them up.
Re: Ask HN: Do you backup your Emails?
#20What's your favorite email search tool?
Ideally something that runs against a local archive on PC, and has a mobile app. With instant results.
I used to use Lookout (for Outlook) and have never managed to find something as fast, simple and reliable.