[Users] Recover mail from a backup --- possible?

[Dustin Miller]

On Thu, 21 Apr 2022 12:20:55 +1200
Rolf Turner <r.turner at auckland.ac.nz> wrote:

> Just now I ... *deleted* an email from my inbox. ...
> 
> I have a *fairly* recent backup ...
> 
> How do I actually get at the emails ... ? ...
> 
> I have looked in "imap.cache" (the mail account in question is an IMAP
> account), but everything there seems "old" (most recent date is 3
> January 2021 (!!!) whereas many files in the /home/rolf/.claws-mail
> directory date from 8 April 2022.  (I did the backup on 9 April 2022.)
> 
DM: Hi, Rolf. From what you've said, my understanding is that the email
is 'gone forever'. The thing to remember with IMAP is that not
all emails get downloaded by default, depending on one's settings and
whether the email has been accessed, etc. Thus, just because you see
the email in your Claws inbox, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's
currently 'there' (on your local system), if that makes sense. And if an
email isn't downloaded it won't show up in imap.cache and thus won't be
included in any backup you do. Another option to look into is whether
your mail server keeps a copy of all your emails somewhere online that
you could access, similar to Gmail's 'All Mail' folder. Hope that
helps, ---Dustin