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Best migration strategy from Exchange/Outlook to Thunderbird

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rdiez
rdiez
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Hi all:

I am trying to migrate my small company away from Microsoft Exchange + Outlook. Our Internet provider already supplies an IMAP mailbox for each employee, but these mailboxes are small and we do not want to completely rely on our Internet provider anyway. After all, we may want to change it, or it may go bust. We do not want to run our own e-mail server (like the current Microsoft Exchange) anymore either.

The ideal solution is easy to describe: every employee runs a Thunderbird, which downloads all messages from the Internet mail server. Messages are automatically deleted from the server only after a couple of weeks. This way, employees have access to the most recent e-mails when not in the office. Thunderbird can already do that. If the ISP breaks down, there is a local copy of all e-mails.

The problem is backing up the e-mail databases. Apparently, there is no automatic backup in Thunderbird. Add-on "MozBackup" is not being developed anymore, and add-on "ImportExportTools" is marked as experimental. Besides, Thunderbird and Firefox are famous for constantly breaking third-party add-ons.

As far as I know, Thunderbird cannot create local folders that are actually not local, but on a remote server share. With Outlook I can create a .pst file anywhere, and have e-mails copied or archived there automatically.

I could try to setup an automatic file mirroring for the profile directory between each Windows and Linux PC and some central sever file share. But backing up the e-mail database while Thunderbird is running is not really reliable. I would have to make sure that Thunderbird is not running when updating the backup file mirror. And employees tend to turn off their PCs when they leave the office.

I could also try to move all Thunderbird profiles to a server share that gets backed up overnight. But I am not sure that running all local Thunderbirds against a network share is good idea, for performance and reliability reasons.

Most users are not IT literate, so asking for regular, manual backups is asking for trouble.

Can someone describe a good automatic backup solution? If the Internet provider breaks down, I only want to loose the last few e-mails.

Thanks in advance, 

 rdiez
Hi all: I am trying to migrate my small company away from Microsoft Exchange + Outlook. Our Internet provider already supplies an IMAP mailbox for each employee, but these mailboxes are small and we do not want to completely rely on our Internet provider anyway. After all, we may want to change it, or it may go bust. We do not want to run our own e-mail server (like the current Microsoft Exchange) anymore either. The ideal solution is easy to describe: every employee runs a Thunderbird, which downloads all messages from the Internet mail server. Messages are automatically deleted from the server only after a couple of weeks. This way, employees have access to the most recent e-mails when not in the office. Thunderbird can already do that. If the ISP breaks down, there is a local copy of all e-mails. The problem is backing up the e-mail databases. Apparently, there is no automatic backup in Thunderbird. Add-on "MozBackup" is not being developed anymore, and add-on "ImportExportTools" is marked as experimental. Besides, Thunderbird and Firefox are famous for constantly breaking third-party add-ons. As far as I know, Thunderbird cannot create local folders that are actually not local, but on a remote server share. With Outlook I can create a .pst file anywhere, and have e-mails copied or archived there automatically. I could try to setup an automatic file mirroring for the profile directory between each Windows and Linux PC and some central sever file share. But backing up the e-mail database while Thunderbird is running is not really reliable. I would have to make sure that Thunderbird is not running when updating the backup file mirror. And employees tend to turn off their PCs when they leave the office. I could also try to move all Thunderbird profiles to a server share that gets backed up overnight. But I am not sure that running all local Thunderbirds against a network share is good idea, for performance and reliability reasons. Most users are not IT literate, so asking for regular, manual backups is asking for trouble. Can someone describe a good automatic backup solution? If the Internet provider breaks down, I only want to loose the last few e-mails. Thanks in advance, rdiez