FM: is it smooth sailing or a shot across the bow

**Shelded** · 27 Apr 2011, 10:25 AM

It's common knowledge that FM-Opera is working on the new product. It was extremely surprising to me to discover they're making changes on a production server which would anticipate FM and Opera using the same database. Remember the archive folder which cropped up unwanted? A small nuisance which said a lot to me. If they can add folders they could corrupt mail with an accident.

It's time to back up your mail. FM does a great job of redundancy, but we remember their multi-day outages of the past, and just this past week we have seen Amazon S3 down for days with their data problems -- why should we suffer?

I chose first to synchronize ALL my mail to a mail client. You can use Thunderbird or whatever, I used Windows Live Mail. I now have all my mail on my local machine. I was surprised to see my 2.6GB made no dent in my bandwidth usage but YMMV.

Next, because twice I have actually had a mail client go haywire and mess up the sync, deleting everything in the Inbox, I'm going to archive all that Windows Live Mail into a free archive using MailStore. Nothing will harm it there and I can merge it with the tens of thousands of messages I have from Outlook Express..

The Addressbook is exported to my favorite format using the button on the Address Book screen. I may or may not finish importing it, since I also got the LDAP working.

Notepad was at risk since they are not mail messages. I decided to delete all my Notepad items. I added them to the system folder Templates as "[note]blah blah." Template items are like Draft items but when you mail them they don't go away. So I won't lose my notes by mailing them, they will not mix with my Draft items, their subject will filter/sort on [note], and I will have an IMAP backup of them. I'm not sure I lose any functionality either.

All my Files have been copied local using my choice of WebDAV client, Gladinet. You can search our forum for a couple recent threads discussing Files backup and some options.

Rules have been exported as a [note] entry, I have done that over the years since I have so much invested there.

Other items I have no elegant answers for: website info, personalities, POP links, in short all that stuff on the Options screen. But you can figure that out.

Finally, if you use FM for business and don't own your own domain, what do you plan to do if FM is unavailable for a week and you cannot retrieve your FM-domain mail? Not good. Get your own $9 domain and host it at Fastmail in a $40 account. In an emergency you can switch to your ISP mail account to handle your business from your own domain.

You needed to do this anyway for safety, but FM has warned you.

johanborg · 27 Apr 2011, 05:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shelded

Finally, if you use FM for business and don't own your own domain, what do you plan to do if FM is unavailable for a week and you cannot retrieve your FM-domain mail? Not good.

Definitely not good for Opera's business, as our entire mail team would be without e-mail for the same period

By sharing code across systems we eat our own dog food and that usually leads to higher quality for everyone.

On a personal level I understand your logic, I even have a printed backup copy of my phone's contact list, rather paranoid

krimlin · 27 Apr 2011, 06:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shelded

Notepad was at risk since they are not mail messages. I decided to delete all my Notepad items. I added them to the system folder Templates as "[note]blah blah." Template items are like Draft items but when you mail them they don't go away.

I don't quite get this?! Could you please explain what you mean by the "system folder Templates"? I don't see such a folder in webmail.

rabarberski · 27 Apr 2011, 07:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by krimlin

I don't quite get this?! Could you please explain what you mean by the "system folder Templates"? I don't see such a folder in webmail.

See this fastmail help page:

Quote:

FastMail.FM also offers a way to create Template mails that can help you if you regularly send out the same type of mail. You can have any number of template mails, they behave like drafts, except for the fact that they do not get deleted when sending out your mail.

To create templates you'll need to create a folder called Templates (make sure you type it in exactly like that, including the capital T). Go to Options - Folders to do this. Now when saving a draft that you want to use as a template go to your Drafts folder and move the draft over to the Templates folder.

rabarberski · 27 Apr 2011, 07:23 PM

Shelded, actually I do agree with Johan that it makes sense to just have one system/database.
On the other hand, I do find it very weird that design changes that should apply only to opera (like the Archive folder) pop up for regular FM users as well.

I just made a backup, you never know

krimlin · 27 Apr 2011, 08:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rabarberski

See this fastmail help page:

Thank you! This is a new feature for me and I'll give it a try!

Adon · 27 Apr 2011, 08:56 PM

Is it safe to enter your FM login/password in Mailstore? What if they steal them?

janusz · 27 Apr 2011, 09:05 PM

The same goes for entering your login credentials anywhere. If you don't trust the site, don't provide the information ....

**Shelded** · 27 Apr 2011, 10:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adon

Is it safe to enter your FM login/password in Mailstore? What if they steal them?

I don't recall a need to do that. I did not need to enter authentication for locally-stored data. Are you asking MailStore to draw copies data directly off the IMAP server? I don't recall if the product does that, but if it does, you can expect it to take quite a long time and you will have less control of the process. IOW, I copied all the data to Windows LIve Mail and then let MailStore access that. (well, actually, when I did it, it was Outlook I used, but I am about to do it using WLM)

rabarberski · 27 Apr 2011, 10:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shelded

I don't recall a need to do that. I did not need to enter authentication for locally-stored data. Are you asking MailStore to draw copies data directly off the IMAP server? I don't recall if the product does that, but if it does, you can expect it to take quite a long time and you will have less control of the process. IOW, I copied all the data to Windows LIve Mail and then let MailStore access that. (well, actually, when I did it, it was Outlook I used, but I am about to do it using WLM)

Shelded: what's the advantage of Mailstore over just zipping the local folder used by Outlook/Thunderbird/... ?

**Shelded** · 27 Apr 2011, 10:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rabarberski

Shelded, actually I do agree with Johan that it makes sense to just have one system/database.
On the other hand, I do find it very weird that design changes that should apply only to opera (like the Archive folder) pop up for regular FM users as well.

I just made a backup, you never know

I don't see a disagreement above? Anyway, I agree also with Johan. But I have about ten years' experience with FM and their antics and I say you need a backup.

I remember when the RAID 5 went down for a week. I have seen Gmail and Hotmail/MSN/Live Mail go down for some people for days. I have seen the failure of many mail providers, poof they are gone. Love does not always return your email even if it eats its own dogfood. Stuff happens. Don't be the loser, be the victor, is all I mean. I really trust Fastmail. Just be safe.

If there is any diff of opinion it is due to my little knowlege about development: how this archive folder got added to customers accounts without notification. Either it is poor planning and communication or it's dev being done on a production server. I choose not to be risk exposed.

**Shelded** · 27 Apr 2011, 10:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rabarberski

Shelded: what's the advantage of Mailstore over just zipping the local folder used by Outlook/Thunderbird/... ?

MailStore gives you a hardware-independent app (Windows only?) you can use to search & view your email in. You could also shove mail out of it back to your platform, they say, I've not done it. A Zip of your local folder might require you to reinstall the Outlook/Thunderbird app (if you have bare metal after a crash), there may be good reasons you don't want that -- in my case, I have Outlook archived and never want to run Outlook. MailStore archives are intended to be updated incrementally, a Zip would not usually be done this way, certainly not resulting in a usable archive. A Zip of the folder would be a untested "backup" whereas the MailStore would be a proved archive -- a "restore" as well. There's a saying that applies here, I wish someone would help me get it right "Backups are cheap and easy. Restores are priceless and essential."

If you usually use the webmail, having a Thunderbird copy updated daily/weekly would be a good backup, much better than most people do now. The MailStore step is to help with the need to archive mail beyond the capacity of the mail application or the IMAP email account. It goes w/o saying I have used a lot of local disk space doing this. I have two copies of my 2.6GB online mail account.

adam15c · 27 Apr 2011, 11:01 PM

I have back ups at Gmail & hotmail. But if email is that important to you, then don't keep it in the cloud, download every copy and keep it on a back up disk.

**Shelded** · 27 Apr 2011, 11:07 PM

Right. It takes only a little imagination to think: what if my access to both those online places was terminated? Or became inconvenient or expensive to access? What if suddenly I wanted a local copy, but my ISP gave me a week's notice to get it before they began charging me by the bit for download? Make up your own terror story, and reality has done one more strange already.

FredOnline · 28 Apr 2011, 03:12 AM

I've been using MailStore for a few months now, but the portable version.

I have this stored on an external disk drive, as well as a USB pen drive., plus in the folder copied to SkyDrive.

Paranoid, or what?

That way, even if you lose your computer, you can run the portable program from another.

For my FastMail, purely IMAP; I used to use Thunderbird with local copies, but just got out of the habit . . .

27 Apr 2011, 10:25 AM	#1
Shelded Moderator Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: USA Northwest Posts: 3,849	FM: is it smooth sailing or a shot across the bow It's common knowledge that FM-Opera is working on the new product. It was extremely surprising to me to discover they're making changes on a production server which would anticipate FM and Opera using the same database. Remember the archive folder which cropped up unwanted? A small nuisance which said a lot to me. If they can add folders they could corrupt mail with an accident. It's time to back up your mail. FM does a great job of redundancy, but we remember their multi-day outages of the past, and just this past week we have seen Amazon S3 down for days with their data problems -- why should we suffer? I chose first to synchronize ALL my mail to a mail client. You can use Thunderbird or whatever, I used Windows Live Mail. I now have all my mail on my local machine. I was surprised to see my 2.6GB made no dent in my bandwidth usage but YMMV. Next, because twice I have actually had a mail client go haywire and mess up the sync, deleting everything in the Inbox, I'm going to archive all that Windows Live Mail into a free archive using MailStore. Nothing will harm it there and I can merge it with the tens of thousands of messages I have from Outlook Express.. The Addressbook is exported to my favorite format using the button on the Address Book screen. I may or may not finish importing it, since I also got the LDAP working. Notepad was at risk since they are not mail messages. I decided to delete all my Notepad items. I added them to the system folder Templates as "[note]blah blah." Template items are like Draft items but when you mail them they don't go away. So I won't lose my notes by mailing them, they will not mix with my Draft items, their subject will filter/sort on [note], and I will have an IMAP backup of them. I'm not sure I lose any functionality either. All my Files have been copied local using my choice of WebDAV client, Gladinet. You can search our forum for a couple recent threads discussing Files backup and some options. Rules have been exported as a [note] entry, I have done that over the years since I have so much invested there. Other items I have no elegant answers for: website info, personalities, POP links, in short all that stuff on the Options screen. But you can figure that out. Finally, if you use FM for business and don't own your own domain, what do you plan to do if FM is unavailable for a week and you cannot retrieve your FM-domain mail? Not good. Get your own $9 domain and host it at Fastmail in a $40 account. In an emergency you can switch to your ISP mail account to handle your business from your own domain. You needed to do this anyway for safety, but FM has warned you.

27 Apr 2011, 07:23 PM	#5
rabarberski Master of the @ Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Ghent, Belgium Posts: 1,027	Shelded, actually I do agree with Johan that it makes sense to just have one system/database. On the other hand, I do find it very weird that design changes that should apply only to opera (like the Archive folder) pop up for regular FM users as well. I just made a backup, you never know

27 Apr 2011, 08:56 PM	#7
Adon Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2010 Posts: 135	Is it safe to enter your FM login/password in Mailstore? What if they steal them?

27 Apr 2011, 09:05 PM	#8
janusz The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: EU Posts: 4,945	The same goes for entering your login credentials anywhere. If you don't trust the site, don't provide the information ....

27 Apr 2011, 11:01 PM	#13
adam15c Essential Contributor Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: UK Posts: 352	I have back ups at Gmail & hotmail. But if email is *that* important to you, then don't keep it in the cloud, download every copy and keep it on a back up disk.

27 Apr 2011, 11:07 PM	#14
Shelded Moderator Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: USA Northwest Posts: 3,849	Right. It takes only a little imagination to think: what if my access to both those online places was terminated? Or became inconvenient or expensive to access? What if suddenly I wanted a local copy, but my ISP gave me a week's notice to get it before they began charging me by the bit for download? Make up your own terror story, and reality has done one more strange already.

28 Apr 2011, 03:12 AM	#15
FredOnline The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Apr 2011 Location: Manchester UK Posts: 2,616	I've been using MailStore for a few months now, but the portable version. I have this stored on an external disk drive, as well as a USB pen drive., plus in the folder copied to SkyDrive. Paranoid, or what? That way, even if you lose your computer, you can run the portable program from another. For my FastMail, purely IMAP; I used to use Thunderbird with local copies, but just got out of the habit . . .