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Using TB to "archive" Gmails — seeking guidance

  • 2 replies
  • 0 have this problem
  • 8 views
  • Last reply by BishopJ

BishopJ
BishopJ
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One of the webmail services I use is closing down and I am starting to use Gmail instead. It was a straightforward service, which I used for nearly 20 years, but with limited online storage. I used Windows Live Mail (and its predecessors) as an offline archive (using the word in the conventional sense) of emails, locally stored (and backed up) in a large set of folders within WLM, only going online to offload mails from webmail as needed. I should like to do the same with Gmail, keeping only active messages online. But Gmail will not talk to WLM so I am hoping to use TB instead. I do not wish to synchronise TB and Gmail, nor to send/receive messages in TB — just in effect "import" mails from Gmail into TB, arrange them in locally created folders within TB, then delete them from Gmail. Usage of TB would be largely offline. Is it possible to use TB this way? I have read many useful question threads in the forum and some wiki articles but remain quite uncertain as to whether and how. I am quite old now and though I have used PCs at work & home since they first appeared I am not technically proficient... I have made the Gmail account POP3, which I think is right. I am aware only Inbox will show in TB and am happy to move messages from Sent, etc., in order to move them into TB. I'm unclear if I can set automatic delete from Gmail of moved messages: this may be an IMAP only thing. But I am happy anyway to manually delete them later in Gmail; we're not talking 1000s of emails. I'm fairly sure local folders can be created in TB. WLM (I think) saves messages in separate .eml files. I am unsure if that would be, or could be, the same in TB or if an extension is necessary. I have seen talk of mbox and maildir but do not understand when these issues arise. I am sure there are others factors I should take into account and some I have forgotten already to list here. I shall be grateful for any advice offered. I apologise for this long message: thank you for getting this far! Thanks again, Peter

One of the webmail services I use is closing down and I am starting to use Gmail instead. It was a straightforward service, which I used for nearly 20 years, but with limited online storage. I used Windows Live Mail (and its predecessors) as an offline archive (using the word in the conventional sense) of emails, locally stored (and backed up) in a large set of folders within WLM, only going online to offload mails from webmail as needed. I should like to do the same with Gmail, keeping only active messages online. But Gmail will not talk to WLM so I am hoping to use TB instead. I do not wish to synchronise TB and Gmail, nor to send/receive messages in TB — just in effect "import" mails from Gmail into TB, arrange them in locally created folders within TB, then delete them from Gmail. Usage of TB would be largely offline. Is it possible to use TB this way? I have read many useful question threads in the forum and some wiki articles but remain quite uncertain as to whether and how. I am quite old now and though I have used PCs at work & home since they first appeared I am not technically proficient... I have made the Gmail account POP3, which I think is right. I am aware only Inbox will show in TB and am happy to move messages from Sent, etc., in order to move them into TB. I'm unclear if I can set automatic delete from Gmail of moved messages: this may be an IMAP only thing. But I am happy anyway to manually delete them later in Gmail; we're not talking 1000s of emails. I'm fairly sure local folders can be created in TB. WLM (I think) saves messages in separate .eml files. I am unsure if that would be, or could be, the same in TB or if an extension is necessary. I have seen talk of mbox and maildir but do not understand when these issues arise. I am sure there are others factors I should take into account and some I have forgotten already to list here. I shall be grateful for any advice offered. I apologise for this long message: thank you for getting this far! Thanks again, Peter

All Replies (2)

david
david
  • Top 10 Contributor
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Yes, that is the nature of POP accounts. It downloads from web server to PC and deletes from web server. And you can create local folders and move messages to them.

BishopJ
BishopJ Question owner
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Thank you for the response. With this nearly-reassurance, transferring the first load of emails was tried and seems to have worked fine. Unexpectedly, not just the Inbox contents came over but also Sent and a couple of other 'labels' that I had set up for things I wanted to stay in Gmail. (Presumably another Gmail thing I don't understand.) Fortunately I had opted for Do not delete from web server, just in case, so not a problem.