I have an account on an SMTP server. The server has a storage quota. I’d like the delete stuff from the server but keep it locally in case I need it. Just in case.

I’d like to be able to access the mail somehow on other computers and hopefully mobile devices on my network so that it can be searched when needed. I’m not sure what the best interface for that would be. A webmail client?

One option would be to use Thunderbird or another client to download the mail once in a while but disable deleting local messages when they are removed from the server. Would Thunderbird store the messages in a format I can use readily with other applications? Or should I use something else to download the mail?

What about situations where messages are moved from one folder to another on the server? Would I get a duplicate locally of the message appearing in both locations? Not sure how the storage and metadata actually are.

Also, is it possible in such a situation to put a message back on the server if I realize it was deleted in error?

Any idea would be welcome. I am a bit stuck.

I can use the command line comfortably but ideally I’d have a solution that doesn’t rely on the terminal to find find messages and such. I don’t really like terminal mail clients.

  • Daniel Quinn@lemmy.caEnglish
    7·
    8 months ago

    It’s actually not as crazy as you might think:

    $ du -sh .Maildir/
13G	.Maildir/

    That’s going back to 2000 1995, both sent & received. The first email I have in there is from a friend of mine offering to send me an MP3 she downloaded.

    • chillytuna@universeodon.com
      1·
      8 months ago

      @danielquinn Is that just for text or also for images & attachments? Either way, yeah, 13G is a tiny amount of space when you consider how much info is in there! I wish I had done something similar.

      • Daniel Quinn@lemmy.caEnglish
        2·
        8 months ago

        In most cases, it’s everything. I’ve made mistakes over the years, screwing up a transfer or when migrating between servers, and I expect I probably lost some attachments here and there, but yeah, it’s everything.

    • maxprime@lemmy.ml
      1·
      8 months ago

      You were downloading and sharing mp3s in 1995?? Didn’t the file extension only come out in 1995?

      • Daniel Quinn@lemmy.caEnglish
        3·
        8 months ago

        Wikipedia says it was 1991.

        I think she would have gotten the file via hot… something, this little file sharing network that predates Napster.

        Edit: It was probably Hotline, which was launched in '97, so there’s probably some corruption to the received email date somewhere. I wasn’t exactly tech savvy 25 years ago ;-)