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Incremental Backup. Problem with hugh Inbox files.

  • 3 replies
  • 2 have this problem
  • 3 views
  • Last reply by christ1

feluxe
feluxe
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Hi,

I'm using rsync to create incremental backups of my 'home' dir. It works well except for the '.thunderbird' dir. Thunderbird seems to store all messages in one big 'Inbox' file for each account. The Inbox file constantly changes with each mail I receive. So each time I start an incremental backup the 'Inbox' file is being copied, even if it is just one mail that was added to the file. It gets even worse. My backup solution creates 'snapshots' of the changes daily. For the 'Inbox' files that means the backup solution will store a new copy of it per day and keep it for a certain amount of days. I end up with huge data redundancy.

Does anyone have an idea what I could do?

Hi, I'm using rsync to create incremental backups of my 'home' dir. It works well except for the '.thunderbird' dir. Thunderbird seems to store all messages in one big 'Inbox' file for each account. The Inbox file constantly changes with each mail I receive. So each time I start an incremental backup the 'Inbox' file is being copied, even if it is just one mail that was added to the file. It gets even worse. My backup solution creates 'snapshots' of the changes daily. For the 'Inbox' files that means the backup solution will store a new copy of it per day and keep it for a certain amount of days. I end up with huge data redundancy. Does anyone have an idea what I could do?

All Replies (3)

christ1
christ1
  • Top 25 Contributor
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Keep your Inbox as tidy as possible. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Keep_it_working_-_Thunderbird

feluxe
feluxe Question owner
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Your link suggests the following:

  • keep the Inbox empty' and to move the mails to another folder.

Am I not going to have the same issue with the new folder if I move all the mails to it?

  • Regularly empty your Junk Folder and your Trash folder.

Both folders are not in my 'Inbox'. This doesn't help.

  • Regularly compact your Inbox folder.

I already do that.

christ1
christ1
  • Top 25 Contributor
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Am I not going to have the same issue with the new folder if I move all the mails to it?

Probably not, because a new folder won't be accessed as often as Inbox. In any case, take a look at the archive feature. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/archived-messages