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Comment on Store (and access) old emails

I had roughly the same goals ( archive search 2 decades of mail) but approached it completely different: I export every mail to PDF with a strict naming convention.

Backend: No mailserver, just storage and backup for files.
Search: based on filenames FSearch and Void tools Everything. I could use local indexing on pdf content.
Frontend: a pdf viewer.

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atzanteol@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Pdf? You converted plain text to something designed to preserve formatting? But why?

You could use maildir and find things with “grep” or any mail client like Thunderbird.

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- joeldebruijn@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I don’t know.
  
  I don’t need formatting but it doesn’t get in the way either. So I am not bothered by it.
  
  Also pdf and especially PDF/A standard is widely used for archiving and compliance regulation.
  
  If you want text the same tactic goes: just export in bulk to txt instead of pdf
  
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  - atzanteol@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    Why would you want a mail specific stack of hosting, storage, indexing and frontends? If it’s all plain text anyway so the regular storage solutions for files come a long way.
    
    Because email has metadata. From, to, sent date, subject, etc. Plus attachments that may be binary.
    
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    joeldebruijn@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Must admit, those fields are precisely the ones I use in my filenaming convention. Other DMS put that in their databases but alas that’s just trading one stack for another.
    
    Other ones put it in XMP metadata of the pdf themselves. But I guess the work involved would be similar.
    
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