Using an email client as Gmail backup

Ask Fedora
1

I have a Gmail account (actually a Google Workspace account) where I often need to free some space as I reach the 30G quota.
I want to keep the most recent emails (say, last year or last two years) in Gmail and backup the old ones in an email client where I can make a search later (if I have to).

I used to follow this workflow but I find it quite convoluted and slow:

  • Use Thunderbird (IMAP) to download all the messages
  • Backup: go in the All Mail folder, select the messages and hit Archive to save them in the Local Folders
  • Remove the same messages in Gmail using the before:YYYY/MM/DD search

As I said, it’s slow and not reliable. It seems that the All Mail folder is not updated after a backup.

Also I don’t like Thunderbird and I thought I could use Evolution instead.
I see that in Evolution I can add an account with no ingoing email settings (but outgoing settings are required). I like this approach, as it’s exactly the kind of “backup only mail account” I’m looking for.
I’ve downloaded the Gmail data using Google Takeout and I’ve successfully imported the .mbox file in Evolution.
I have many older emails in Thunderbird to be imported. I’ll do some tests tomorrow.

I would be glad to know if you have any suggestions.
Thanks in advance

1 Like
2

You can use POP3 instead of IMAP and configure it to delete e-mails older than a specified amount.

2 Likes
3

Of course, it’s probably the easiest solution.

I haven’t used POP for years and for some reasons I did not consider it as a possible option. As long as it keeps the emails on the server, it should be Ok. I can delete emails manually when I need it.

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4

Most popular email clients (e.g. Thunderbird, Evolution, Outlook) have an option to leave a copy of messages on the server and automatically delete emails older than a specified period.

5

I’ve just made a test with another account.
You have to be careful with Evolution, because by default it downloads all the messages in the inbox without leaving them on the server. You can set that option later, but only after the first sync AFAICT.

6

It’s not true. You can tick the option “Keep the messages on server” (unchecked by default) in the Receiving options (I’m translating from the Italian interface). So you just have to be careful and check all the options before clicking on Ok to proceed.

7

I know you have a good solution already, but I thought I’d throw in that I do this type of thing all the time using mutt and IMAP.

mutt has extremely powerful pattern search and tagging capabilities, including date-based tagging, which I’ve found to work well. Once all messages you want to copy are tagged, you can do a group copy-to-file operation to take care of business.

I’ve found it’s also a pretty handy tool to use to go back through the entire email archive to search old messages.

Good luck!