Todoist+Thunderbird

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Posted by MadaboutDana
May 13, 2013 at 01:51 PM

Hi Ken - yes, you’re right, mail seems to have become very complicated over the last few years.

But actually, the basic concepts are very simple. They boil down to:
- do you want to store and manage all your mail locally (i.e. on your hard drive) or
- do you want to store and manage your mail remotely (i.e. on your ISP’s server)?

There are pros and cons to each approach (you knew I was going to say that!).

The pros of local storage:
- you’ve got total control of your e-mail
- it’s always with you
- you can store it anywhere you want, depending on how flexible your mail client is
- you can index and search it at your leisure

The cons of local storage:
- if your hard drive melts down, and you haven’t taken backups, you’re b*ggered (to use a highly technical term)
- mail can take up huge amounts of space on your hard drive
- mail downloads/uploads can take up huge amounts of your (limited) bandwidth

The pros of remote storage:
- your ISP’s server is probably backed up anyway (multiple times if you’re with a big ISP with a proper server setup)
- your mail is only downloaded when you want it (so it doesn’t take up much bandwidth until you actually collect a message)
- your mail sits on your ISP’s server, taking up their hard drive space (rather than yours)
- you can structure your mail into folders, which can (although that doesn’t equate to “does”) make it easier to manage

The cons of remote storage:
- you need more or less permanent online access to your e-mail (i.e. no broadband breakdowns)
- if your ISP’s server melts down, you may lose all your e-mail

Now. How do you decide what you want, and once you’ve decided, what do you get? That’s a whole different ballgame, and will require a longer answer!

Posted by Ken
May 13, 2013 at 03:37 PM

Hi Bill,

Thank you for the additional information. I am up against a deadline to get this issue resolved, and due to health issues, am moving much slower than I would like. In this particular case, I will be closing out these accounts, so all of the mail needs to be downloaded and living on my hard drive (and its backups). Now, I need to determine which program to use to pull down the messages, and which program to allow me to search through these messages. As the accounts will be closed, I am not certain how important it will be for me to be able to send/forward these messages. I am hoping to have a few minutes some time this week to resolve my selection process.

Thanks again for your help,

—Ken

Posted by MadaboutDana
May 13, 2013 at 05:07 PM

Okay, in that case the answer is simple: MailStore Home, available from:

http://www.mailstore.com/en/mailstore-home.aspx

This will allow you to download mail from all your accounts, including those you are closing. It also automatically indexes all the e-mail it downloads, so you can search through it fast and easily. It’s the best e-mail archiver on the planet, IMHO.

The good news is, regardless of what you decide to do with your e-mail accounts, MailStore is flexible. It can even restore an entire IMAP account to another server! Or export e-mail in a variety of formats. In this sense it is entirely open and won’t restrict or hobble your access to your e-mail in any way.

I’m really sorry to hear about the ill-health, and hope a general streamlining will make things (much) easier.

Best wishes,
Bill

Posted by MadaboutDana
May 13, 2013 at 05:08 PM

Oh, and in case I didn’t mention before: MailStore Home (despite its sophistication) is free.

Very best wishes,
Bill

Posted by Ken
May 13, 2013 at 09:24 PM

Thanks for the additional recommendations and the well wishes. I am slowly recovering from my some of my medical treatments, but my prognosis is supposed to be very good.

I took a look at their web site, and it looks like a good product. And the fact that it is free certainly helps. Now, I need to figure out if it can honor the folders that I created on the web mail account, and if I should download in IMAP or POP3. I keep hearing of people having problems with past messages when using POP3. They complain that the messages do not download, and that the server then deletes them before they can be accessed again. I am not sure of the downside of using IMAP if I plan on closing out the web account, and I do not plan on these messages being available anywhere else but my home PC.

Thanks,

—Ken

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