Ways to create a backup of online mail accounts

[Kaizac]

I'm looking for a way to create backups on my Unraid box of my online e-mailaccounts (Outlook/Hotmail/Gmail/etc.). I found MailStore home (free) and Mailstore Server (300 USD). The home version can only run on a Windows box while storing locally. Now I could run this in a Windows VM, but I find that quite a waste of resources.

 

Are there any other ways you found to create these backups? Running Thunderbird as docker seems possible, but that is also not really the clean situation I'm looking for.

[Frank1940]

Have you tried mapping an Unraid share as a local drive on your PC.  You do this by opening the Unraid server with Windows Explorer (i.e., File manager).  Right click on the Share and select "Map Network Drive".  (It generally starts with 'Z:' as a suggestion.)  From there consider that mapped drive a you would any other Windows drive. 

 

EDIT: If you want to, create a new share just to store these backups and map that share...

Edited June 28, 2019 by Frank1940

[Kaizac]

4 hours ago, Frank1940 said:

Have you tried mapping an Unraid share as a local drive on your PC.  You do this by opening the Unraid server with Windows Explorer (i.e., File manager).  Right click on the Share and select "Map Network Drive".  (It generally starts with 'Z:' as a suggestion.)  From there consider that mapped drive a you would any other Windows drive. 

 

EDIT: If you want to, create a new share just to store these backups and map that share...

Thanks, unfortunately network drives are not recognized. And when I create a sym or dirlinker it also sees it's a networked drive.

[AgentXXL]

Why not use any number of email clients that support downloading of online email providers? On Macs, I use the default Mail app to download all the mail in my online email accounts. And from there, a Timemachine backup to unRAID. I haven't used the Windows built-in mail app, nor have I used Thunderbird (multi-platform) in quite a while, but I'm sure those would work as well.

 

I haven't used it, but in the unRAID Apps section there's a Docker container called Kerio Connect that may also provide the functionality you're looking for. Not sure if you need to purchase a license to use the Docker container, but here's the Kerio Connect info from the developer:

 

https://www.gfi.com/products-and-solutions/email-and-messaging-solutions/kerio-connect

 

 

[Kaizac]

2 hours ago, AgentXXL said:

Why not use any number of email clients that support downloading of online email providers? On Macs, I use the default Mail app to download all the mail in my online email accounts. And from there, a Timemachine backup to unRAID. I haven't used the Windows built-in mail app, nor have I used Thunderbird (multi-platform) in quite a while, but I'm sure those would work as well.

 

I haven't used it, but in the unRAID Apps section there's a Docker container called Kerio Connect that may also provide the functionality you're looking for. Not sure if you need to purchase a license to use the Docker container, but here's the Kerio Connect info from the developer:

 

https://www.gfi.com/products-and-solutions/email-and-messaging-solutions/kerio-connect

 

 

Thanks! Kerio is indeed paid and quite expensive as far as I can tell.

 

Using local clients on my desktop and then back that up is possible, however then I'm wasting local storage as well. Which is just waste of expensive space when I have enough of it on my Unraid box. So far running a mail client like Thunderbird in docker seems most likely.

[johner]

Hi Kalzac, what did you settle on in the end?

 

I'm looking to backup gmail to local client/docker/something, which would keep in sync one way only. So I can then delete old emails from gmail to free up space, but it then NOT delete from the local copy.

 

[Kaizac]

On 1/11/2021 at 6:51 AM, johner said:

Hi Kalzac, what did you settle on in the end?

 

I'm looking to backup gmail to local client/docker/something, which would keep in sync one way only. So I can then delete old emails from gmail to free up space, but it then NOT delete from the local copy.

 

Sorry I didn't respond earlier. In case you were still wondering I currently have the following setup:

 

I run mailcow in a VM and just IMAP/POP3 sync with my other mailboxes, so the data is locally stored.

I also have the Thunderbird docker (found in CA) and run that as client to also just pull in the e-mails.

 

That seems to work fine. From there I can backup that data again from my local server to an external HDD and/or Cloud.

[johner]

awesome thanks.