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Ask HN: Do you backup your Emails?

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Re: Ask HN: Do you backup your Emails?

#71

Post by jjice »

DougN7 wrote: post #65
not_your_vase wrote: post #7

No. Yolo. (Also, in the past 20 years I never needed to find any personal email that's older than a week, so I'm not terribly concerned about the effect of dataloss.)

I would have agreed with you until this year where a single email from 18 years ago, which I didn’t think anything about at the time, is saving me from being sued. It doesn’t matter until it does. I got lucky.

This is why I save documents like this too, but I've only had receipts for small bills come in handy.

If it's possible to give any detail without giving too much, I'm curious what the nature of the situation was and what the saving document was?

Re: Ask HN: Do you backup your Emails?

#72

Post by DougN7 »

jjice wrote: post #71
DougN7 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have agreed with you until this year where a single email from 18 years ago, which I didn’t think anything about at the time, is saving me from being sued. It doesn’t matter until it does. I got lucky.

This is why I save documents like this too, but I've only had receipts for small bills come in handy. If it's possible to give any detail without giving too much, I'm curious what the nature of the situation was and what the saving document was?

A company claimed my use of their software library was outside what I paid for, so they wanted 17 years back pay at a ridiculous rate. I had an email from back then from them saying my usage was within the license. It didn’t even occur to me they might claim the opposite almost two decades later.

Re: Ask HN: Do you backup your Emails?

#73

Post by TheNewsIsHere »

DougN7 wrote: post #72
jjice wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I save documents like this too, but I've only had receipts for small bills come in handy. If it's possible to give any detail without giving too much, I'm curious what the nature of the situation was and what the saving document was?

A company claimed my use of their software library was outside what I paid for, so they wanted 17 years back pay at a ridiculous rate. I had an email from back then from them saying my usage was within the license. It didn’t even occur to me they might claim the opposite almost two decades later.

This is exactly why I save all of my business email and I don’t mince words about that. I’m very up front with my customers that email is important and that both parties should save our correspondence. Whenever I’m asking for/proposing/communicating about changes to the terms of our relationship I always explicitly say “you should keep a copy of this email as evidence of [...]”

On the flip side, when a company refuses to acknowledge things like arbitration opt-outs that comply with the requirements articulated in the ToS (you know who you are), I email myself a copy of the Exchange trace report showing that the server never recorded a reply. I’m also usually open that I’m doing that, too.

Generally speaking records are an asset not a liability, unless you’re up to something shady. Generally.

Re: Ask HN: Do you backup your Emails?

#74

Post by TheNewsIsHere »

monsieurgaufre wrote: post #14
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’m using this system as well. I don’t keep letters in my mailbox. I don’t see why i should keep emails either.

This analogy isn’t convincing for me. My letter box and my email inbox both have a finite amount of space, but I can (effectively) infinitely extend my email inbox either “online” or by archiving it someplace.

I cannot achieve this with my letter box.

That assumes large volumes of important mail. Even without that though, an email inbox is a natural and “first class” place to store an email, whereas a letter box is not designed to be effective at any sort of reliable storage.

Re: Ask HN: Do you backup your Emails?

#75

Post by TheNewsIsHere »

elseleigh wrote: post #59

I have email going back more than 25 years from various software; in most cases an export dump when I stopped using, say, Pegasus Mail or Eudora. Since I started with Thunderbird I've created a new profile each year, and have profiles going back to 2008. Earlier this year I imported all this historical data into the Mail Server on our Synology NAS. I don't use this server for current mail, but I can now search these…

I’m right there with you.

This thread suggests that there are many who view email as something to curate in the same way you would a letter box or a physical office inbox.

I find it more freeing to disregard whether I’m saving dust. I can purge that dust en masse any time I want without having to stay on top of it. The other side of that is that I can also locate anything important from one place with just two pieces of information, one of them being “it was an email”.

Re: Ask HN: Do you backup your Emails?

#76

Post by TheNewsIsHere »

aborsy wrote: post #69
Terr_ wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A law/regulation that prevents you from even encrypting your backups? That sounds pretty weird.

No, I meant, the evidence is lost when using end to end encrypted email (like with PGP or proton): the server as a trusted third party doesn’t have access to the email in plaintext to confirm the message or document.

Absent specific archiving solutions, most providers don’t and wont care about third party legal disputes.

I’ve never heard this argument before. It’s routine in many regulated industries with de facto or legally required preservation mandates to encrypt email, often with S/MIME or sometimes something proprietary.

Re: Ask HN: Do you backup your Emails?

#77

Post by rendaw »

varjag wrote: post #35
rendaw wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's not legal, could it ever be used in a situation CYA is required?

"However, referring to the scope of work in your email dated 20-SEP-2021…"

I mean, in that case couldn't they say "there was no email discussing scope of work on that date"? I guess maybe it works anyways...

Re: Ask HN: Do you backup your Emails?

#78

Post by varjag »

rendaw wrote: post #77
varjag wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"However, referring to the scope of work in your email dated 20-SEP-2021…"

I mean, in that case couldn't they say "there was no email discussing scope of work on that date"? I guess maybe it works anyways...

It's seriously taking it to next level and most people you interact with aren't malicious. Also such emails tend to have other people on CC.

Re: Ask HN: Do you backup your Emails?

#79

Post by hagbard_c »

LinuxBender wrote: post #46
hagbard_c wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't you leave your mail on your own server? I self-host (on the server-under-the-stairs here on the farm) as well and always leave mail on the server so I can access it from any client anywhere in the world. Assuming you're actually self-hosting as in 'running your own services on your own hardware at your own location' pulling it from the server doesn't make sense since you're just moving data from one of your…

My preference. I don't really go anywhere so around the world is not required for me. It also means that when either my self hosted solution or the commercial solution gets popped there is nothing to leak. My emails are not exposed to the internet 99.99% of the time.

Run an IMAP server (on a separate host or VM) behind a locally hosted VPN - Wireguard is easy to set up and works fine for this - and you can have it both ways: mail accessible from all your clients no matter where you are. If your mail server is breached there won't be anything on it since everything is sucked up by the IMAP server. If your PC (where you currently store your mail) is compromised they'll be able to get access to everything so in that respect there is no change.
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