[CentOS] Archive mail format?

[Phoenix, Merka]

>> I have a bunch of old mail spread variously across dovecot maildirs and mbox format files on several machines that are headed for the trash.  Is there anything considered to be a portable archive format for mail messages, and if so are there tools to copy into it - or do I have to pick a client and copy to its local storage?<<
>>
>>-- 
>>   Les Mikesell
>>     lesmikesell at gmail.com

The mbox format and mail messages in the dovecot maildirs can be copied as is to another server (or directory).
The only thing that you don't need (or probably don't want) to copy would be the index files that live in the directory above the maildirs.

The index files are in the form: dovecot-* and dovecot.index* and usually live above the actual directory where the messages are stored. Also, most of the sub-folders have a leading '.' so would be "hidden" unless you use 'ls -la' to view the directory contents.

Cheers!

Simba
Engineering