[SOLVED] Question email backup setup

Burner · 2021-01-01 12:57:25

Hello everyone,

I've spent the last few days to find a suitable email backup solution. I don't know that much about email server infrastructure etc so maybe I'm not searching for the right questions/answers or my approach is wrong in the first place.

My goal is to have a cyclic sync of my different email accounts located at different providers in a daily interval done by my server. In my mind the ideal solution stores all the emails in maildir format and the already setup cyclic backup (via back-in-time) on my server takes care of backing up the email data.
At best this solution is using docker for easy management and restore/relocation of the server.

So far I found offlineimap which comes closest to this goal but there is no docker image available. At least none that's updated within the last months.

My question is:
Is this a wrong approach or why am I not finding a solution for this?
What's the most common way to backup your emails?

Last edited by Burner (2021-02-07 16:43:01)

respiranto · 2021-01-01 14:59:48

If you check your e-mail daily and have your e-mail client store e-mail locally (including unread e-mail), you could simply backup that local storage regularly.

Otherwise, I guess offlineimap is a good choice. Since you only want one-way synchronization (I assume), you might prefer to use a POP client.

If you truly want to use a docker container, you can certainly setup one yourself, that is, without relying on an existing dockerfile. I'd just setup a backup directory (tree), a small script and a cron job on your server instead.

Burner · 2021-01-01 15:12:28

respiranto wrote:

If you check your e-mail daily and have your e-mail client store e-mail locally (including unread e-mail), you could simply backup that local storage regularly.
Otherwise, I guess offlineimap is a good choice. Since you only want one-way synchronization (I assume), you might prefer to use a POP client.
If you truly want to use a docker container, you can certainly setup one yourself, that is, without relying on an existing dockerfile. I'd just setup a backup directory (tree), a small script and a cron job on your server instead.

Thanks for your answer!

Backing up the local storage does not fit for me: I also try to backup accounts which are not checked via a PC just by phone.

I actualy was thinking about setting up a docker container for this. I just wanted to ask here, before doing it which will take some time. Also I try avoiding reinventing the wheel or to find out that there is a solution available afterwards.

Trilby · 2021-01-01 16:08:36

You may want to check out isync/mbsync instead of offlineimap. I've found it to be faster and far more reliable / robust.

Burner · 2021-01-02 14:05:15

Trilby wrote:

You may want to check out isync/mbsync instead of offlineimap. I've found it to be faster and far more reliable / robust.

Thank you for the hint!

When was the last time since you worked with offlineimap? For me it seems to be the most up to date solution atm. But I only tested it for a few syncs until now.

Trilby · 2021-01-02 17:36:10

I've not used it in several years, but what is "up to date" about it? It's not changed in quite some time. There's not really been any activity (relevant to the code) in their source repo in 3 years:
https://github.com/OfflineIMAP/offlineimap

Meanwhile isync development has been active within the past couple months:
https://sourceforge.net/p/isync/isync/c … /tree/src/

That said, source code activity doesn't mean much to me: performance does.

Burner · 2021-02-07 16:42:18

Trilby wrote:

I've not used it in several years, but what is "up to date" about it? It's not changed in quite some time. There's not really been any activity (relevant to the code) in their source repo in 3 years:
https://github.com/OfflineIMAP/offlineimap
Meanwhile isync development has been active within the past couple months:
https://sourceforge.net/p/isync/isync/c … /tree/src/
That said, source code activity doesn't mean much to me: performance does.

I've now settled with mbsync/isync since there was a fitting docker image available (https://hub.docker.com/r/cewood/mbsync & https://github.com/cewood/mbsync-docker).

Just to clarify when talking about "up to date" I was referring to offlineIMAP3. It is based on python3 (https://github.com/OfflineIMAP/offlineimap3) the python2 repo is indeed kinda quiet.

Arch Linux

#1 2021-01-01 12:57:25

[SOLVED] Question email backup setup

#2 2021-01-01 14:59:48

Re: [SOLVED] Question email backup setup

#3 2021-01-01 15:12:28

Re: [SOLVED] Question email backup setup

#4 2021-01-01 16:08:36

Re: [SOLVED] Question email backup setup

#5 2021-01-02 14:05:15

Re: [SOLVED] Question email backup setup

#6 2021-01-02 17:36:10

Re: [SOLVED] Question email backup setup

#7 2021-02-07 16:42:18

Re: [SOLVED] Question email backup setup

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