[CentOS] Archive mail format?

[Les Mikesell]

On Thu, Nov 3, 2011 at 6:51 AM, Timothy Murphy <gayleard at eircom.net> wrote:
> Les Mikesell wrote:
>
>> 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?
>
> I have a much more naive question along the same lines.
> Apologies if it is too far from the original query.
>
> I'm running an IMAP (dovecot) server,
> with my mail stored in ~/maildir .
> I'm using KMail on my laptop to access the server (on another machine).
>
> I'd like to archive some of my older email,
> ie transfer it to another disk on the server,
> but I don't understand exactly what will happen
> if I run Folder=>Archive Folder on my laptop,
> and don't like to try it without more knowledge.
>
> Will the folder disappear from the list I see in KMail?
> Will the archive be saved on my laptop or on the server?
> In what format?
> Will I be able to "un-archive" it if I wish?
> Will the various dovecot index files be updated appropriately?
>
> I suppose my problem basically is that I don't know
> how kmail on my laptop and dovecot on my server interact.

I'd expect it to ask some more questions and give you choices about
those things, but you could make a new folder on the server with a few
messages to experiment with.  With imap, you should be able to
copy/move messages back from local storage to the server or between
folders on different servers if you have multiple accounts.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
     lesmikesell at gmail.com