Does archiving emails act as a mail backup?

DEVONthink
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I was thinking of archiving my Apple Mail into a separate DT3 database that would be used only for that purpose, but I couldn’t quite understand something from the DT3 manual or from a search here.

Say I archive an Apple Mail (iCloud) mailbox, using the ‘Import’ part of the sidebar, and later for some reason I lost my mail in Apple Mail (maybe that Mail bug if I upgraded to Catalina) - would I be able to restore email back to Apple Mail from my DT3 archive? In other words, does archiving into DT3 act as a decent backup in this way?

Thanks.

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While it’s not necessarily advertised as such, there is an option to select emails and choose File > Export > as Unix mailbox in DEVONthink 3 Pro and Server. The MBOX file could be imported into Apple Mail, noting it won’t be imported into the original location in Mail. However, you could do some manual housekeeping in Mail, after the fact.

1 Like
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OK so, limited but still potentially useful. Thanks.

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No problem.

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If I may revisit this thread - I have a question that’s relevant.

I’m in the process of archiving all my Apple Mail via the sidebar import. ( I’m doing it partially with the possibility of upgrading to Catalina in mind. I’ve read that there may be potential problems with Apple Mail data loss.)

I made a new database called “email-archive” expressly for this purpose. I selected the entire ‘iCloud’ mailbox and clicked the ‘Archive Mailbox’ button at the bottom right. The initial import seems to be taking ages, but I suppose that’s to be expected.

Firstly, am I right in thinking that, when in future I click the ‘Archive Mailbox’ button again, the process will only add newly received emails to the archive?

Secondly, if I sync this “email-archive” database to my other Mac (which has the exact same email accounts), can I essentially follow the same process there to add new emails to the archive on the database, or would there be different IDs for messages on the different machines that would preclude this?

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Firstly, am I right in thinking that, when in future I click the ‘Archive Mailbox’ button again, the process will only add newly received emails to the archive?

If archiving into the same database, yes that’s correct.

The second is an interesting question (as I have never had a need to do this), but the UUIDs are generated from the email headers so an archive in the same synced database should only pick up new emails on either machine.

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Excellent. Thanks for clarifying.

Hmm. untested (eek) but hopefully it should work.

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On a subsequent archive, will emails in the database but since deleted in Apple Mail, be kept in the database?

Also - I notice the counts in DT3 don’t match those in Apple Mail’s “Account Info” (found by right-clicking on a mailbox). In certain cases there are big discrepancies. Is this something to do with threading? (In DT3 preferences, I have the option Email > Conversations > Import complete conversations unchecked, and Email > Conversations > Group conversation threads also unchecked.)

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