Michael Collette wrote: > Travis Crump wrote:
>>It is very >>nice to be able to both backup your mail and move it to other >>computers/partitions by only copying one file. >> > > Exactly which E-Mail application out there can you backup just one single > file and have everything you need for a restore, or even move. Okay, other > than Pine or Mutt *if* you don't create any new folders in them. I think Travis is referring to the mbox itself as a single file. That's one of the advantages of mbox. If you've organised your files, you can selectively copy portions of your hierarchy to another server, without worrying about bits and pieces being scattered all about. Want to back up messages from your wife? Copy one mbox. > In Mozilla for every single folder of mail there are two files. The mbox > file, and the index. This seems to be a very common setup for most mail > clients. At least it's true for Moz, NS 4.7x, KMail, and even Eudora. As > mail folders go deeper, so do the directories on the file system. Yes, but it is the index files that are worthless, when we are talking about portability. Most index files are proprietary, and really come very close to ruining the structure. pine does not use index files, and a mail directory that has been created and managed by pine is the easiest to move to another server. Other clients bury important information (including the mbox name!) in the index files, which just creates more work. I think the central question here is, who owns the data - the application, or the user?
