I would like to REALLY archive some older e-mail-folders. Archive seems not to be the right word, because i work with empty inboxes, so every completed or answered e-mail is still archived in a folder (with the name of the year), but i use IMAP so all archived emails are still on the server.
Now i want to EXPORT the years 2018-2019 to my selfhosted-backup-server so that i can delete the emails on the mail-server.
a) Which format make most sense? EML? mbox? Another one? Would be nice if i can search the archived stuff without too many effort. b) Should i export directly from the UI of my mailprovider (if possible) or is exporting from thunderbird-client ok.
It doesn’t really matter, you should do it however the mail archive software wants it. Apparently there is a pretty big difference between eml and maildir, so you possibly need to try both ways to see what works with your software and workflow.
What email archive software do you use? I’ve often thought about spinning up an IMAP server locally that doesn’t send/receive but allows me to copy all my old mail to it. I have a dozen or more email accounts across different providers and would want each kept separate in the archive. They also span 15+ years.