Ask HN: Do you backup your Emails? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Do you backup your Emails?

#21

Post by norwayjose » Sat, Dec 21, 2024, 1:32 PM UTC

On my Mac I accomplish email backups using the Mail app and Chronosync. I have filtering rules to automatically file messages into multiple IMAP mailboxes based on sender or subject. I periodically manually move messages older than a week to local mailboxes to keep my iCloud storage from getting large enough to require paying for additional storage. The Mail app can also export those local mailboxes to a folder which I then back up using Chronosync so I have local copies on multiple drives.

The whole process only takes about 5 minutes once every week or two. It gives me easy access to over 20 years of email which is nice to have even though I only search the old ones a few times a year.

Re: Ask HN: Do you backup your Emails?

#22

Post by wingerlang » Sat, Dec 21, 2024, 1:41 PM UTC

I once had a four year overdue reminder to setup gmail backups, still haven't set it up.

Re: Ask HN: Do you backup your Emails?

#23

Post by noman-land » Sat, Dec 21, 2024, 1:41 PM UTC

You're right not to trust cloud providers with your life's history. They are not trustworthy.

Thunderbird is a great way to back up emails. You can tell it to store everything locally. It stores everything in handy sqlite tables under the covers.

Re: Ask HN: Do you backup your Emails?

#24

Post by aristofun » Sat, Dec 21, 2024, 1:47 PM UTC

I rather move all important stuff out of email and back it up with more relevant tool.

To be calm that if all email is lost - it’s not a big deal.

I find the idea of backing up whole email life silly.

You don’t back up your physical post from beginning of ages, right? You rather keep only small fraction of most valuable things while dumping once in a while all temporarily important stuff.

Email is not a goal for me, just a mean to an end.

Re: Ask HN: Do you backup your Emails?

#25

Post by leptons » Sat, Dec 21, 2024, 1:53 PM UTC

Rotundo wrote: post #11

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.

I have an "empty" email folder. Nothing ever goes into it. Once I'm done checking my dozen email inboxes, I switch back to the "empty" folder and it gives me the feeling of "nothing in my inbox at the moment".

Re: Ask HN: Do you backup your Emails?

#26

Post by lbhdc » Sat, Dec 21, 2024, 2:09 PM UTC

No, I stopped even reading my email unless something prompts me to retrieve something from it.

Re: Ask HN: Do you backup your Emails?

#27

Post by globular-toast » Sat, Dec 21, 2024, 2:14 PM UTC

I use Thunderbird and just back up my home directory.

Re: Ask HN: Do you backup your Emails?

#28

Post by DoingIsLearning » Sat, Dec 21, 2024, 2:40 PM UTC

Personal no. But professional, yes.

Whenever I change jobs I always take a copy of all my emails and keep it in offline storage.

Arguably not always legal/compliant. But both for CYA, learned history, relevant contacts etc. it has had use for me in multiple occasions in the past

Re: Ask HN: Do you backup your Emails?

#29

Post by Hizonner » Sat, Dec 21, 2024, 2:42 PM UTC

Um, I back up EVERYTHING, like any sane person? And, like any other sane person, I self-host (on a server that's obviously backed up), and keep at least one copy of my email on my main working computer (which is also obviously backed up), so I don't have to do anything email-specific to make that happen.

Re: Ask HN: Do you backup your Emails?

#30

Post by gradschool » Sat, Dec 21, 2024, 2:45 PM UTC

I use mpop with a local mailbox file ~/Mail/inbox and mutt as the mua (so no fancy archive hierarchy), cleared annually and copied to a file named like ~/Mail/inbox.2024, searchable with grep, backed up remotely in encrypted tar files on backblaze with passwords committed to memory, locally on a zfs file server, and annually on dvd for at least a decade in case all my hardware gets fried.