Offline storage of old IMAP messages

mossman

I have a laptop connected to an IMAP account (Hotmail) which is being cleared of old messages by Opera 12 on a desktop (for backup purposes, using POP3). My plan is to replace Opera with Vivaldi once mail import is possible.

I'm pleased to see that messages removed from the server are being kept by Vivaldi - but these are left in the trash and I haven't worked out how to move them somewhere else.

I wondered if it was possible to move messages to an offline account but I can't create one. I can't start by saying I want it to be offline, I can't fill in dummy details and I can't fill details of the existing account. The button to continue stays blanked out. It seems the design is you must first create a unique, valid account and only afterwards mark it as offline. I'm also not sure if you can move messages between accounts.

I think the offline storage of deleted messages was mentioned by Jon in the very early days of the mail Tech Preview last year, so I'm wondering if there's any "correct" way of keeping them somewhere apart from in the trash...

WildEnte

Thinking from the perspective of your hotmail account: Opera tells me that a message is trash, so I trash it and make a note that I did in my sync list (in case some IMAP client asks if I have new mail flags or where that email went). But now you say that I am not allowed to tell Vivaldi.

The whole point of IMAP is that server and client stay in sync, so trashing an email in one will send it to trash in the other. I'm far from an expert on these matters, but I believe what you see is expected behavior. I see two avenues here:

set Vivaldi to also download emails with POP but leave them on the server. To my limited understanding, Vivaldi POP should then ignore Opera POP trashing an email, as Pop doesn't sync like IMAP does. Note that Vivaldi needs to download the email before Opera trashes it.
if you have some space on your hotmail account, stop Opera from deleting mails it downloads and use Vivaldi with IMAP happily ever after.

Dancer18

When I started Vivaldi mail a few weeks ago and created my mail-accounts with IMAP, it wasn't a synchronizing with the servers what happened, but an unwanted deleting of the content of my IMAP-folders where I stored a lot of mails.
That happened also a long time ago with opera-mail.

So be careful when starting with the new client. Afterwards it will work rather fine - in my opinion.

mossman

@WildEnte said in Offline storage of old IMAP messages:

Thinking from the perspective of your hotmail account: Opera tells me that a message is trash, so I trash it and make a note that I did in my sync list (in case some IMAP client asks if I have new mail flags or where that email went). But now you say that I am not allowed to tell Vivaldi.

The whole point of IMAP is that server and client stay in sync, so trashing an email in one will send it to trash in the other. I'm far from an expert on these matters, but I believe what you see is expected behavior. I see two avenues here:

set Vivaldi to also download emails with POP but leave them on the server. To my limited understanding, Vivaldi POP should then ignore Opera POP trashing an email, as Pop doesn't sync like IMAP does. Note that Vivaldi needs to download the email before Opera trashes it.

if you have some space on your hotmail account, stop Opera from deleting mails it downloads and use Vivaldi with IMAP happily ever after.

Sorry for a late reply - I seem to have missed forum notification on this thread.

I'm not sure what you mean by "not allowed to tell Vivaldi"... Vivaldi is moving mails to trash - and this is what I want it to do. Vivaldi is keeping those messages in trash when Opera has completely deleted them from the server. This is also what I want it to do!

Vivaldi now has a few hundred OFFLINE mails in it's local trash folder which are not in the server trash folder. Again, this is what I want it to do!

But... now I want to make those offline, locally-stored messages visible in the UI filters "received", "sent" etc. for normal viewing - not "trash". I wondered if it is possible to create an "offline mail" account and move the messages there. So that's what I was discussing.

mossman

@Dancer18 said in Offline storage of old IMAP messages:

When I started Vivaldi mail a few weeks ago and created my mail-accounts with IMAP, it wasn't a synchronizing with the servers what happened, but an unwanted deleting of the content of my IMAP-folders where I stored a lot of mails.
That happened also a long time ago with opera-mail.

So be careful when starting with the new client. Afterwards it will work rather fine - in my opinion.

Well that's exactly why I use Opera as offline backup for all my mail... and also why I only keep a couple of months' mail on the server.

If there's ever accidental data loss or if the mail service suddenly shuts down(*) I can only ever lose a maximum few days of recent mails.

(*) I've been online since 1992 so I have had several mail addresses disappear over the years...

WildEnte

@mossman Ah. I understood that you didn't want them to ever cross Vivaldi's trash. Those mails carry the trash flag, so that's where they are.... I believe I have read somewhere that archiving accounts are considered, until then: what happens if you undelete one of those emails that are in Vivaldi's trash? I would assume they go back to received and sent, but I'm not sure if Vivaldi also uploads a copy to the IMAP server, making them reappear?

mossman

@WildEnte said in Offline storage of old IMAP messages:

@mossman Ah. I understood that you didn't want them to ever cross Vivaldi's trash. Those mails carry the trash flag, so that's where they are.... I believe I have read somewhere that archiving accounts are considered, until then: what happens if you undelete one of those emails that are in Vivaldi's trash? I would assume they go back to received and sent, but I'm not sure if Vivaldi also uploads a copy to the IMAP server, making them reappear?

Good idea - so I tested...

They get uploaded back to the server.

In Vivaldi and K9 (on my phone) they appear on the original dates, but weirdly the Hotmail webmail gives the time they are uploaded as a new timestamp. Confusing!

So to answer my original post: seems easiest just to delete the trash in Vivaldi and use Opera to look up old mails.