On Tue, May 15, 2018 at 02:06:54PM +0200, Sandra Snan wrote: > Nicolas Sebrecht <nicolas.s-...@laposte.net> writes: > > It's not easy to explain what you could do because it's not clear what > > you intend. > > My INBOX on the server right now has thousands and thousands of email. > And our tiny li'l server is getting pretty full. > > So what I want to do right now with my maildir is: > > • Email to exist on my local computer > • Email to exist on a local backup hard drive, I'll use some USB disk > for it > • Server to be cleared out. Either the emails not to be there, or, the > emails to live in some non-INBOX folder, such as "archive".
I'd say you want usual 2-way sync between the server and the local maildir plus a cumulative local archive. You might like to keep the offlineimap configuration pretty simple. The usual 2-way sync is what offlineimap does by default. With this setup you're able to clean the remote by removing emails locally and starting a new offlineimap run. For the cumulative additional backup you have to write a small script for the purpose or use any archiving tool which support cumulative data (no removal on the backups) from the local maildir to the USB archives. > But I guess I have a hard time understanding not only the syncing > process but the idea of a local maildir in the first place and how it > works. There's no need to understand the technical details. Offlineimap just mirrors the remote emails locally in a maildir structure. Syncing updates both sides. That's all. Bear in mind that it's a 2-way sync, so changes done locally in the maildir structure are propagated back to the server. > The local app I've been using haven't really been touching the emails, > setting their flags at all etc etc, or so it seems. Keep things simple. Don't try to make offlineimap do everything you need. Add a new local process for cumulative backups. After each offlineimap sync, start a new local backup process to archive to the USB device (with archives history). -- Nicolas Sebrecht _______________________________________________ OfflineIMAP-project mailing list: OfflineIMAP-project@alioth-lists.debian.net https://alioth-lists.debian.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/offlineimap-project OfflineIMAP homepages: - https://github.com/OfflineIMAP - http://offlineimap.org
