Hi all,

So I finally made the switch to an IMAP based email solution.
Can't believe I waited this long - everything is synched and I no longer have 6 Sent Items to work out from which device I sent the damn email.

However, I need to think about backup. So far I have a few dozen meg of email at my providers, in a few folders. In a few years, however, this will be several gig. My provider allows unlimited space for email, but what's the best backup for this?
The provider does not back it up themselves. They have backups in place of course, but if they burn to the ground or go out of business, I need to have my email backed up somewhere.

My devices are: On my PC tower, Outlook. On my MacBookPro, Mac Mail. On my MacPro, MacMail. On my iPhone and iPad, iOS4 Mail.
The PST file that's used by Outlook can be backed up, yes. However, even if I choose to Subscribe to all the Folders, it doesn't seem to always fully download all content, which means that yes, I have a PST file that can be queried/read by another Outlook profile but might not be complete (ie all content fully downloaded).

What method is the best to ensure that somewhere, I have a complete, all content downloaded set of my entire email?
Thanks all,

Diz.

What's the budget?
Personally I'd put an exchange server in and be done with it.

Whoops, sorry for the delay in replying to your reply.
Budget of nothing - this is just me, my Outlook and my email account. (IMAP service supplied by www.justhost.com thus I'm keen to find some kind of backup solution).

Thanks.

All you can really do is include the pst location in your PC file backup to a NAS or backup drive.
You can time machine the mac's aas well.

Speaking of moving to IMAP from POP3.
How do you make sure that all the emails you already have on your client aren't deleted and are uploaded to the server, rather than them all getting deleted because the server is empty.

When Outlook sets up an IMAP Account, it insists on using its own PST file and you can't use your old one (for delivery - you can of course have it in your Outlook profile as a data file).
Is that what you mean?

I mean I have an inbox full of email (in several folder) in Thunderbird. If I setup IMAP, how do I make sure that Thunderbird doesn't check the server, see that there's nothing there and then delete my existing emails? As I understand it IMAP, makes your computer mirror what's on the server.

Just export them from Thunderbird, then import them.


What server software are you using?

Nothing yet. It's just a move I'm thinking of making.

Found the answer in the end - you have to go into Send/Receive Settings of Outlook, and change the behaviour so that for all folders incl Inbox, the default behaviour is that Outlook downloads everything including all attachments everytime it connects. Takes a while to Synch the first time but thereafter it's normal speed. That means there is at least 1 perfect and complete PST file that can be backed up and used as a backup.

D