Creating a local folder for Gmail backup

[Nicholas Saunders]

How can I create a folder which is only local and not on IMAP?
I see:


Incoming-Folders
Incoming Message Folders

***@gmail.com
Folders on imap.gmail.com:993/ssl/user=***@gmail.com in home directory

and then, of course, many IMAP folders.

Looking to backup e-mails to ~/mail/ and free up some space.



Thanks,

Nick

[Nicholas Saunders]

Post by Nicholas Saunders
How can I create a folder which is only local and not on IMAP?
Incoming-Folders
Incoming Message Folders
and then, of course, many IMAP folders.
Looking to backup e-mails to ~/mail/ and free up some space.
Thanks,
Nick

I exported e-mails to a file and that seemed to have created an mbox file.

Copied the file around to a totally different account, and, lo and behold, read it in from Alpine.


For my purposes, today, that works fantastically. I should've just used Alpine from the get-go. The "app specific password" wasn't that much of a hassle, all things considered.



How would I import such e-mails to Thunderbird? Thunderbird won't read localhost e-mails, so far as I can tell. There might be some e-mails which just need a GUI to display properly.



thanks,

Nick

[Carlos E.R.]

...

Post by Nicholas Saunders
I exported e-mails to a file and that seemed to have created an mbox file.
Copied the file around to a totally different account, and, lo and behold, read it in from Alpine.
For my purposes, today, that works fantastically. I should've just used Alpine from the get-go. The "app specific password" wasn't that much of a hassle, all things considered.

There are also specific tools designed to copy (more?) mails from one
server to another, like for example "imapsync". That one doesn't do
oauth, AFAIK. The advantage is that it can run in scripts.

Post by Nicholas Saunders
How would I import such e-mails to Thunderbird? Thunderbird won't read localhost e-mails, so far as I can tell. There might be some e-mails which just need a GUI to display properly.

Yes, Thunderbird can read the folder.

For instance, if your folder path is

/home/name/mail/somefolder,

then you have first to find what is the path to your Thunderbird store.

For example, it could be:

/home/name/thunderbird/abcdefgh.default/Mail/Local Folders

You would change to that directory, close thunderbird and alpine, and do:

cd "/home/name/thunderbird/abcdefgh.default/Mail/Local Folders"
ln -s somefolder /home/name/mail/somefolder
touch somefolder.msf


Then start Thunderbird again. You should see the folder in "local
Folders". You must be careful not to use the folder simultaneously on
alpine and Thunderbird.


Alternatively, you can create your own imap server locally, and point
both Alpine and Thunderbird to it. This is what I do.

[Eduardo Chappa]

Post by Nicholas Saunders
How can I create a folder which is only local and not on IMAP?
[...]
Looking to backup e-mails to ~/mail/ and free up some space.

Press M S L A to add a collection, and enter the following information:

Nickname : Anything you want
Server :
Path : mail/
View :

Exit and save, and that add a collection where you can add folders.

[Nicholas Saunders]

Post by Nicholas Saunders
How can I create a folder which is only local and not on IMAP?
[...]
Looking to backup e-mails to ~/mail/ and free up some space.

Nickname : Anything you want
Path : mail/
Exit and save, and that add a collection where you can add folders.
--
Eduardo
https://alpineapp.email (web)
http://repo.or.cz/alpine.git (Git)

That works very well. Is there a timeout risk for very large folders? I need to free up space in Gmail through IMAP.


Thanks,

Nick

[Eduardo Chappa]

Post by Nicholas Saunders
That works very well. Is there a timeout risk for very large folders?
I need to free up space in Gmail through IMAP.

Yes, so my advice is to transfer messages by grouping them. For example
first transfer messages 1 to 500, delete and expunge those, and then
transfer messages 1 to 500 again, etc.

[Nicholas Saunders]

Post by Eduardo Chappa

That works very well. Is there a timeout risk for very large folders?
I need to free up space in Gmail through IMAP.

Yes, so my advice is to transfer messages by grouping them. For example
first transfer messages 1 to 500, delete and expunge those, and then
transfer messages 1 to 500 again, etc.
--
Eduardo
https://alpineapp.email (web)
http://repo.or.cz/alpine.git (Git)

This is working fine, thanks.

[Barry Landy]

that is exactly what I do.

On Wed, 29 Nov 2023, Eduardo Chappa wrote:

:>On Tue, 28 Nov 2023, Nicholas Saunders wrote:
:>
:>> That works very well. Is there a timeout risk for very large folders? I
:>> need to free up space in Gmail through IMAP.
:>
:>Yes, so my advice is to transfer messages by grouping them. For example first
:>transfer messages 1 to 500, delete and expunge those, and then transfer
:>messages 1 to 500 again, etc.
:>
:>