Gmvault v1.7-beta, Gmail backup simply: The initial version I wanted to build (opens in new tab)

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35 pointszoobert13y ago23 comments

23 comments

I decided I'm leaving Gmail at some point in the future, here's why: Yesterday I wanted to comment on a video on Youtube. I clicked the 'reply' button, and a message came up, telling me that I needed to create a YouTube channel (or something) on order to be able to comment. So I quickly filled the mandatory fields and hit save. The next thing I saw was a message from Google telling me that my account had been locked because I am under 13 years of age. My Gmail account! My account where I have all my precious data. Because I had a typo in a field somewhere on YouTube! I understand that the US law requires these things, but why on earth would a typo on YouTube kill my personal Email account? Now I uploaded an image of my passport onto their servers to proof that I'm over 13. If that doesn't work out, they'll delete all my data in 29 days.

I can't explain how fed up I am about that. When I'm entering any date fields on my Gmail account, I'm always cautious. But this was YouTube. Enough rant.

Thanks for this tool! When my account comes back up, I'll use it to keep the data safe (I do have it in imap of course). And then at some point in the future I'll look for an alternative to Google.

jonknee13y ago

That rant should also be directed at US law, which is pretty clear about what Google needs to do in this situation. I suppose the problem is integrating YouTube with Google accounts, but you could have just as easily muffed a field in Gmail and had the same issue.

What should Google do when you state you are under 13? If they pop up a message saying "Are you sure? All this cool stuff is going to go away if you say that you are under 13." it breaks the intent of the law and child advocacy groups would rightly eat Google for lunch.

andybak13y ago

In case anyone misses it, the advantage of this over other IMAP solutions is that it preserves information specific to Gmail - most importantly - labels aren't converted into IMAP folders (and therefore emails aren't duplicated needlessly).

zoobertOP13y ago

couldn't have said it better. In addition to emails, chats are also backed up with v1.7-beta

zoobertOP13y ago

This is a great opportunity to suggest new features/wishes for this tool. Please let me know what you would like to have to v2.0

tom_usher13y ago

Thanks for your work on Gmvault - really helps with my peace of mind.

I'd love to see:

- Better support for multiple accounts - at the moment I have to specify separate data directories manually every time I want to re-run a backup of each of my accounts. Would be great if Gmvault worked this out for me, and could run a backup on multiple accounts in a single run.

- Some way to read my backed up emails easily without re-importing them to Gmail - a mini mail server, a web-based UI, etc.

- A way to export to some other format if I want to migrate away to Gmail - mbox, etc.

zoobertOP13y ago

thanks for the support. You can backup multiple accounts in one data directory (Gmvault-db) with the option --multiple-db-owner. When you restore though all the emails from this Gmvault-db will go to one Gmail account. If you want to have the possibility to restore each account individually, then you have to use a separate gmvault-db dir for each account. In the roadmap for v2.0 I have some tasks to add a better support for managing multiple accounts. As you said all the accounts will be incrementally backed up automatically onced configured. v2.0 will provide a GUI and one feature should be to allow users to browse their emails. A clean way to export emails in standard format (MailDir and maybe mbox) is since this morning also in my roadmap.

dan0013y ago

"- Some way to read my backed up emails easily without re-importing them to Gmail - a mini mail server, a web-based UI, etc."

I'm using offlineimap, which syncs an IMAP server with the MailDir-Format. The MailDir-Format should be readable by any email program.

robmay13y ago

If you want mbox you can try www.snapshottool.com, which runs in the cloud and provides a local download.

tropin13y ago

It would be useful to be able to pack the thousands of files in just one big 7z archive.

zoobertOP13y ago

You can already do that by 7zipping the subdir db of the Gmvault-db dir. I think that 7zip can archive a directory tree. You could also tar it and 7zip it to have one dir containing everything.

vasi13y ago

The #1 reason I want Gmail backup is to be able to migrate in case something goes wrong with Gmail. Does Gmvault make this possible? I don't see any documentation about exporting from Gmvault to another IMAP server, or to a common format like Maildir or mbox so that I could run my own server.

epo13y ago

If the gmvault on-disc format is well defined why not produce a tool to convert that to maildir or whatever? Gmvault does one thing well (allegedly, I've not used it), "export to some other format" just seems like feature creep especially when conversion can be done offline.

zoobertOP13y ago

Gmvault stores email content in individual files as text files (EML file) so it should be pretty easy to add some export functionalities (it might be a second tool). I will add that in the road map for v2.0.

zoobertOP13y ago

Currently Gmvault gives you the ability to save your emails on disk and restore them on any Gmail account with all the features. For example labels will be restored as identical. Many email backup tools are very generic and you will loose quite a lot of information when restoring your emails in a blend IMAP Server. Now all emails are stored in individual EML files with a unique filename. It is quite open and it should be pretty easy to create a Maildir structure. I will add that in the roadmap for v2.0. I am not convinced by mbox because it is a unique file with all the emails concatenated in it. I will see what to do with it.

vasi13y ago

Yeah, I understand the advantages of Gmvault :)

I also realize it might not make sense to use Maildir as the native DB for Gmvault, since you don't want to store multiple copies of each email like OfflineIMAP does. A 'gmvault export' option would be sufficient for my purposes.

Let me know if there's anything I can do to help!

1 more reply

mw662113y ago

I use OfflineIMAP to back up Gmail and Google Apps mail. I have it set up to run every evening from cron, backing up a Gmail account as well as a couple Apps accounts. It uses Maildir format.

[1] http://offlineimap.org/

vasi13y ago

Yeah, I'm currently using OfflineIMAP until I find something better. But it's really not a perfect solution: it downloads emails multiple times (once per label), it doesn't restore to Gmail terribly well, it's pretty slow, and it crashes sometimes. If Gmvault adds some sort of export facility, I'd switch.

zoobertOP13y ago

As said above OfflineIMAP will create a blend copy of your emails and you will loose quite a lot of very interesting features when copying them to a standard IMAP server. That said I understand the need and will think on an approach to allow users to leave Gmail for another IMAP server in v2.0 Another point is that Gmvault is meant to be easy to use. OfflineIMAP is a very good tool but it is meant for advanced users like us as Gmvault is meant for users with very little computer knowledge. Gmvault v2.0 will go further as it will have a GUI (while still having a CLI mode) to allow my Granma to backup her emails :-).

pasbesoin13y ago

As of circa 19:00 GMT, 2012-08-16, the Github repository is unavailable.

zoobertOP13y ago

This was because of the planned Github downtime.

pasbesoin13y ago

Thanks! I'll try again later.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

23 comments

terhechte13y ago

I can't explain how fed up I am about that. When I'm entering any date fields on my Gmail account, I'm always cautious. But this was YouTube. Enough rant.

Thanks for this tool! When my account comes back up, I'll use it to keep the data safe (I do have it in imap of course). And then at some point in the future I'll look for an alternative to Google.

jonknee13y ago

andybak13y ago

zoobertOP13y ago

couldn't have said it better. In addition to emails, chats are also backed up with v1.7-beta

zoobertOP13y ago

This is a great opportunity to suggest new features/wishes for this tool. Please let me know what you would like to have to v2.0

tom_usher13y ago

Thanks for your work on Gmvault - really helps with my peace of mind.

I'd love to see:

- Some way to read my backed up emails easily without re-importing them to Gmail - a mini mail server, a web-based UI, etc.

- A way to export to some other format if I want to migrate away to Gmail - mbox, etc.

zoobertOP13y ago

dan0013y ago

"- Some way to read my backed up emails easily without re-importing them to Gmail - a mini mail server, a web-based UI, etc."

I'm using offlineimap, which syncs an IMAP server with the MailDir-Format. The MailDir-Format should be readable by any email program.

robmay13y ago

If you want mbox you can try www.snapshottool.com, which runs in the cloud and provides a local download.

tropin13y ago

It would be useful to be able to pack the thousands of files in just one big 7z archive.

zoobertOP13y ago

You can already do that by 7zipping the subdir db of the Gmvault-db dir. I think that 7zip can archive a directory tree. You could also tar it and 7zip it to have one dir containing everything.

vasi13y ago

epo13y ago

zoobertOP13y ago

vasi13y ago

Yeah, I understand the advantages of Gmvault :)

Let me know if there's anything I can do to help!

1 more reply

mw662113y ago

I use OfflineIMAP to back up Gmail and Google Apps mail. I have it set up to run every evening from cron, backing up a Gmail account as well as a couple Apps accounts. It uses Maildir format.

[1] http://offlineimap.org/

vasi13y ago

zoobertOP13y ago

pasbesoin13y ago

As of circa 19:00 GMT, 2012-08-16, the Github repository is unavailable.

zoobertOP13y ago

This was because of the planned Github downtime.

pasbesoin13y ago

Thanks! I'll try again later.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse