Thursday 15th February 2007

Webmail backups

I’ve been obsessing about data backups these days. Since my friend got her Hotmail account hacked into and lost it, I’ve been really worried about what would happen to me if I lost access to any one of my personal webmail accounts.

So I have a feature request. Webmail backup. I want to be able to make a backup of my Hotmail account, that I can save to my PC and burn it on to a CD. In the event of my account being hacked into, I could then create a new account and import all my backed-up messages into it.

I know some webmail providers offer the option to check your account using POP on an offline client like Outlook Express, but that’s not the same. What I want is to have an easy-to-use compressed backup file that I can keep in case of emergency. I know webmail providers do their own backups, but what happens if I lose my account to a hacker? I’m screwed.

What I’d really like to see is a common standard for this, so that I could back up all my Hotmails and import them into Gmail, for example. However, that’s unrealistic. The providers are never gonna make it easy for us to switch brands. Damn capitalism. :)

There are a couple of software apps that claim to do this, for a price. But I think either the webmail providers should offer this as a service, or someone should make a free app that can do this. (Maybe there is one and I haven’t found it – let me know!)

Anyway, I wanna backup my webmail. Help!

Comments:

  1. 1 On February 15th, 2007, janantha said:

    Hey dude.. As you are using hotmail..
    you will be needing 3 things

    1.Thunderbird Client
    2.Webmail Plugin for thunderbird(http://webmail.mozdev.org/index.html)
    3.Mozbackup (http://mozbackup.jasnapaka.com/)

    First you will be needing thunderbird client, then get Mozbackup & “Webmail” plugin. The “Webmail” plugin will give you the power to download your hotmail messages to a Thunderbird mailbox. Then you use Mozbackup to backup your e-mail!

    There you go.. Hope this helps. (assuming you have basic knowledge on installing and configuring the plugins, refer to the help files :) )

  2. 2 On February 16th, 2007, Yo said:

    If I use your method, and downloading via POP, won’t that clear out my Hotmail account?

    But I want to keep my emails in my Hotmail account. I travel around here and there, and I use webmail for that reason.

  3. 3 On February 16th, 2007, janantha said:

    Well Yo,

    It is really a trade off. But hey look at the bright side! I think you can enable the plug in to “keep all mail in the server once downloaded” to thunderbird. Or you can configure that on thunderbird it self. I wish the plugin had supported IMAP which will allow your local hotmail mailbox to always be in sync with the one on the server.

    I may have to get back to you on the “keep all mail in the server once downloaded” because right now i have everything downloaded onto my thunderbird as i don’t require read old mails while away. have to refer to my settings

  4. 4 On February 17th, 2007, janantha said:

    Hi Yo.

    As promised here i am. I got 4 screen shots and it is possible to configure the webmail extension to only download new messages and leave the other messages on the server. And also the new webmail plugin lets you use IMAP server of hotmail, which is a good thing as your thunbird hotmailbox will be in sync with the server. But make sure you have the offline save option ticked in the properties of the mailbox or else as IMAP requires constant internet access you will not be able to read your mail when your offline.

    Below im posting the screen shots

    This one shows the ability for it to only download unread messages

    http://www.imagehosting.com/show.php/225750_hotmail2.JPG.html

    make sure you tick “leave messages on the server” for the hotmail box you have created using thunderbird
    http://www.imagehosting.com/show.php/225749_hotmail.JPG.html

    when you install webmail you will get two seperate plugins as shown in the image below
    http://www.imagehosting.com/show.php/225759_webmailext2.JPG.html

    First one is webmail as in general and second one is specific to hotmail. Check the settings and config them as needed.

    OK mate.. now you should be able to create a hotmailbox on thunberbird and let it only download unread messages and to keep the rest at the server so you can review them from the web as needed

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