Hi all,
I've run postfix and dovecot for years, but they have been so trouble-free that I've never really learned in-depth how they work. :)
But now I have a user who accidentally used a POP client, and it deleted all his email. He told me this only days later, and it's now been days later still, and so of course he has sent and received email since. I have backups of course, but it is a feasible thing to 'merge' the deleted emails from the backup into his current mailboxes?
I couldn't find any FAQ for such a scenario, so thought I'd ask here...
Thanks,
Sean
On Thu, 4 Nov 2021 19:01:03 -0400 "Sean McBride" <sean@rogue-research.com> wrote:
I have a user who accidentally used a POP client
which one?
d
-- Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really believe it.
Mark Twain
On Thu, 4 Nov 2021 19:01:03 -0400 "Sean McBride" <sean@rogue-research.com> wrote:
Hi all,
I've run postfix and dovecot for years, but they have been so trouble-free that I've never really learned in-depth how they work. :)
But now I have a user who accidentally used a POP client, and it deleted all his email. He told me this only days later, and it's now been days later still, and so of course he has sent and received email since. I have backups of course, but it is a feasible thing to 'merge' the deleted emails from the backup into his current mailboxes?
I couldn't find any FAQ for such a scenario, so thought I'd ask here...
Thanks,
Sean
If the user who did this accidentally still has the POP client installed, and said mail client supports multiple accounts - including IMAP accounts, the simplest way IMO would be to have him set up a second account as an IMAP account, turn off 'sync' for the POP3 account, then just drag the messages from the POP3 account inbox over to the IMAP account INBOX (then delete the POP3 account).
- Shaun
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Shaun Johnson Development Services - LinuxMagic Inc.
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On Thu, 4 Nov 2021 16:21:55 -0700, Shaun Johnson said:
If the user who did this accidentally still has the POP client installed, and said mail client supports multiple accounts - including IMAP accounts, the simplest way IMO would be to have him set up a second account as an IMAP account, turn off 'sync' for the POP3 account, then just drag the messages from the POP3 account inbox over to the IMAP account INBOX (then delete the POP3 account).
He was using Thunderbird. Do you happen to know if it has the features necessary to attempt what you describe?
Thanks,
Sean
On 2021-11-05 00:52, Sean McBride wrote:
He was using Thunderbird. Do you happen to know if it has the features necessary to attempt what you describe?
only tool i know works is aid4mail, easy to google, but imho thunderbird can drag and drop from one accound to another, it aswall can as a buildt in feature move to another account via mouse menu, pick the source folder, and use mouse to move mails over to another folder on another account, this works on the client side always
on the server side people say dovecot dsync, i just miss to know whole config of dovecot to use this, it seems a am not alone, so far i have solved most with imapsync, but that does not work for pop clients data
in the future possible disable pop after this
On 05/11/2021 07.01, Sean McBride wrote:
But now I have a user who accidentally used a POP client, and it deleted all his email. He told me this only days later, and it's now been days later still, and so of course he has sent and received email since. I have backups of course, but it is a feasible thing to 'merge' the deleted emails from the backup into his current mailboxes?
Personally, I'd restore them to another, temporary account set up for the purpose. Then I'd either use
- dovecot sync,
- imapsync, or
- manual drag and drop from one account to the other in Thunderbird
to put the mails back in place, depending on volume of mail involved and personal whim. The Thunderbird route would be easiest for a user to do themselves once set up. However as mail is downloaded from the server to the desktop and then back up to the server, it would take a while if there were lots of messages to deal with.
P.
participants (5)
-
Benny Pedersen
-
Dave Stevens
-
Plutocrat
-
Sean McBride
-
Shaun Johnson