david noakes's dashboard

Well, for the present I'm only using Postbox. Of course I have a backup of the mail, and a backup of that, and a backup of the backup of the backup... :P

I have the mail on an encrypted disk, and a copy on an encrypted USB stick for the laptop, and synchronize between them to keep things up to date. I map the disk with the mail to Y: drive, and thunderbird allows me to change the profile.ini to point absolutely to that address, so either my desktop, laptop, VMWare backup of my desktop can be used to access the same mail from the same drive (or backup drive). Postbox allows the same functionality, which is good.

This way, if the laptop is stolen, the mail and other data is on an encrypted USB stick, and if that gets lost, well it was encrypted and I have a backup at home.

I don't like the idea of mail or other data being held on 1 disk inside 1 machine, because what happens when that dies (as they do).

Since Postbox is based on Thunderbird, underneath the hood they both support the unix format mailbox, and you can find all sorts of tips about copying unix format mailboxes between various mail programs - thunderbird, pegasus, evolution, eudora. I know they work because I've used all these mail programs at some stage in the past, and moved the mailboxes as needed to the new program.

If Postbox really does crud up my mail, I can copy the backup for use with thunderbird again, or import it into pegasus, or eudora, or evolution. And you'll hear about it if it does.

thanks for your concern