@gedfromgont@piefed.ca
So there's two different ways of archiving/backing up your email. (Ignoring proprietary stuff like Microsoft 365) IMAP is popular for keeping inboxes in sync if you're still using them. Of course IMAP is used for third-party email clients as well. But I imagine this as something you use while you transition if you're using both your new and old email account/s.

Then we have the file formats (both IMAP and file archives are supported by the above). Normally these are what you get when you export from a service. The most common are:

- PST - Proprietary and made by Microsoft. Used in all the Micrsofty/Windowsy things.

- EML - Seems more commonly used by email clients than by mail services themselves. Used for individual emails.

- Mbox - A common one by the looks. Unlike EML this one is used for entire email accounts. As far as I can tell by default it doesn't export folders, it's just one big message dump (so that's one benefit for IMAP over files). This is what Gmail provides via Google Takeout. I exported an account into Mbox to play around with.

- Maildir - This isn't a file format. It's actually just a way of storing email as files on your file system instead of using a database. It's come up a few times and I thought I'd mention it here until I get a better grasp of the landscape.

I imagine you'd take this route if you're going to switch immediately and don't want to maintain an old account for a while. Regardless if you manage to export in to one of these formats or have IMAP access (which Gmail does) I think you're pretty good to go.

One thing the IMAP + archival has going for it is that it can keep your storage usage low so you can use cheaper/free plans.

I want to explore non-self-hosted options next. I imagine Thunderbird can do most of what I was using those self-hosted services for. I would obviously go self-hosted route but this would probably be better for others. 2/2