On 11/2/2011 4:42 PM, Les Mikesell wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 2, 2011 at 2:23 PM, Ljubomir Ljubojevic<office@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> Vreme: 11/02/2011 07:53 PM, Phoenix, Merka piše:
>>>>> I have a bunch of old mail spread variously across dovecot maildirs and mbox format files on several machines that are headed for the trash. Is there anything considered to be a portable archive format for mail messages, and if so are there tools to copy into it - or do I have to pick a client and copy to its local storage?<<
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>> The mbox format and mail messages in the dovecot maildirs can be copied as is to another server (or directory).
>>> The only thing that you don't need (or probably don't want) to copy would be the index files that live in the directory above the maildirs.
>>>
>>> The index files are in the form: dovecot-* and dovecot.index* and usually live above the actual directory where the messages are stored. Also, most of the sub-folders have a leading '.' so would be "hidden" unless you use 'ls -la' to view the directory contents.
>>>
>>
>> There is simple script to convert maildir to mailbox format:
>> http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-general-1/a-script-to-convert-maildir-to-mailbox-format-381568/
>>
>> and scripts to convert mailbox to maildir:
>> http://batleth.sapienti-sat.org/projects/mb2md/
>> http://perfectmaildir.home-dn.net/
>>
>> There are many more, but this ones come at the top of the google search.
>
> Thanks - I think most of what I'd want to keep is still accessible via
> imap. What I'm wondering is if there is a general consensus about
> the file format for long term storage that would be most likely to
> permit direct search and access from some future mail reader, possibly
> on some other OS. I suppose I could make a VM image that I could fire
> up as an imap server again, but that seems kind of cumbersome.
>
If you are interested in local storage readable on multiple platforms
then mbox format can be useful. There are many Linux/UNIX clients that
can read it, and so can MSWin clients like Thunderbird.
Best Regards,
Dave Windsor
Robert Bosch LLC
Team Leader, MES Database Infrastructure Group (AdP/TEF7.1)
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