Webmail Slurping Help

October 22, 2007 5:52 PM

Desperate! How do I download all of my email from Squirrelmail? I only have a few hours.

On Saturday, my ISP sent postal mail saying that we have to download all of our email by Tuesday in the pre-dawn hours. I've been using their webmail (SqurrelMail) for years, never used Outlook Express.

Today I called the ISP, from work, more than a little peeved, and got directions on how to download at home, using Outlook Express. Worked great for downloading my Inbox, but not any of the numerous subfolders wherein all of my email is kept. Over years.

Technical support went home at 5 p.m., or at least stopped answering the phones. I'm now a little desperate at the thought of losing all of this. I've already left a phone message and sent a bunch of emails, but I have no hope at this point that they won't just blithely wipe everything out.

I am, of course, shopping for a new mail provider.

posted by adipocere to computers & internet (21 comments total)

If they're using squirrelmail, they're probably backing it onto IMAP.

You need to configure your mail client to point at the IMAP server (sounds like you've done this) and then you need to 'subscribe' to all the other folders you have. There should be an option in one of the menus. Look for 'folder subscriptions' or similar wording, Once you subscribe to them they should appear in the same place as the INBOX.
posted by Jerub at 6:00 PM on October 22, 2007

You can move all your email into the inbox, or download the raw files by FTP (probably at /squirrelmail when you log in)
The raw files are just big text files though -- you most likely won't be able to import it anywhere into individual emails unless you can write a script to break it up.
posted by loiseau at 6:00 PM on October 22, 2007

There will not be raw files under /squirrelmail. Squirrelmail gets its mail via IMAP. If Outlook Express is set up for POP, configure it to use IMAP like Jerub says.
posted by zsazsa at 6:04 PM on October 22, 2007

I wouldn't be able to move all of my mail into the inbox. I have about ... three thousand emails and not that much time. Yes, I am a packrat. FTP isn't getting me anywhere, sadly. Nothing to see when I get in other than the usual.
posted by adipocere at 6:06 PM on October 22, 2007

adipocere:

If your ISP is using Squirrelmail, they have IMAP, not POP3 (which downloads your inbox) running on the backend.

You can setup outlook express to connect to their imap server using the settings from here. Just use the same incoming mailserver name they gave you for pop3, and the rest of the mail folders should show up. (I forgot how Outlook displays this, it may show another account such as "account name" with your inbox and folders underneath it).

IMAP is a mail folder system, that synchs with the server, so now you can see your messages, you will want to create new folders locally (so to remove the messages of of their server), and copy the messages there. I would only do a few (100 or so) at a time at first, just to make sure they really get moved, as i've seen people loose emails this way.

If webmail is your main way of accessing and sorting your mail, I would look into a gmail.com address, as they give you tons of storage space, and you can access it from anywhere.
posted by mrzarquon at 6:09 PM on October 22, 2007

Jerub, "Subscriptions" seems to be for Newsgroups, according to the help menu. Is it "Synchronize" I really want?
posted by adipocere at 6:10 PM on October 22, 2007

adi:

check to see if your account is imap or pop3, if it is pop3, you will need to setup another one (having both is fine for right now) to get the folder subscriptions and rest of the your folders downloaded.
posted by mrzarquon at 6:14 PM on October 22, 2007

I keep thinking, "This can't be that hard. I ran a frikkin' Exchange server," but it's driving me nuts. It's definitely IMAP now. I'm seeing "subscriptions" as Newsgroups, not Email, in Outlook Express' help.

I've synchronized and it looks as if it has downloaded everything.

I'll try another method, just in case synchronization bombs - how do I make local folders if I am in IMAP? Aren't they by definition on the server? Or do I have to make local folders in the POP3 alias (by which I mean the umpteenth instance of my provider in the "Accounts" section) and then copy them from the IMAP alias to the POP3 alias?

Side question: Once this is all on Outlook Express, how can I save it off into text files or something that isn't so ... Microsoft-dependent?
posted by adipocere at 6:26 PM on October 22, 2007

For your side question: either export it (or "backup" or whatever term Microsoft calls it), or copy the .PST file from the Application Data folder under Documents and Settings.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 6:29 PM on October 22, 2007

As a backup, you might also want to spend the next half hour or so forwarding all your Squirrelmail messages to a gmail account. If you go into Squirrelmail's Options/Display Settings you can set "Number of messages per page" to some large number and then forward a page worth of messages at a time. I think they'll forward as attachments, so it'll be a little messy if you ever need to retrieve them from there, but it's a low-tech solution with a high likelihood of success.
posted by bac at 6:43 PM on October 22, 2007

It may be worth looking into Thunderbird to grab your mail. It has good IMAP support, and makes the distinction between local and remote folders very clear.
posted by SemiSophos at 6:48 PM on October 22, 2007

Hunh, looks like Outlook Express only exports to Outlook or Exchange. That sucks. There's not even a PST file to be had on the whole hard drive, after searching. Apparently DBX files are what Outlook Express uses.

For the record, I ended up using both Outlook Express methods, because I'm paranoid, from Jerub and mrzarquon. And then did it all again in Thunderbird (which I hadn't thought of at all as a free mail client, thanks, SemiSophos). Thanks, all. The thought of losing years of email sent me into a panic.

Bac, this is really really ancient version of SquirrelMail they're running. You can't do anything like a "toggle all" or whatnot. I'd still be laboriously copying. I'll probably pick a different provider than GMail. I know it's all the rage, but the thought of them keeping all of my email, whether I want them to or not, doesn't please me.
posted by adipocere at 7:02 PM on October 22, 2007

I don't imagine Google is going to keep your deleted mails for any longer than your current provider. They put those provisions in the terms of use just to make it perfectly clear that they're not going to go combing through endless backups to wipe out obsolete backups of your old mails.

It strikes me as kind of funny that you're in a flat panic now because your mail provider is about to wipe you out, and your main objection to Gmail is that they won't do that :-)
posted by flabdablet at 7:28 PM on October 22, 2007

To download stuff so it's all local, create similar folders locally, and drag and drop all your email into them. This will ensure your mail won't disappear.
posted by Jerub at 7:56 PM on October 22, 2007

My main objection is that I haven't a choice. And read their EULA - apparently they can keep it just as long as they please. For "research purposes." I heard they moved their cookie expiration to something within shooting distance of reasonable, at least.
posted by adipocere at 8:01 PM on October 22, 2007

It sounds like you may have gotten what you needed, but if you want to be sure you have all the data rather than just hoping that "Synchronize" worked like you expect on the client you're using, you'll want to use something like fetchmail. Send me an email (in my profile) if you still need help with this - I'll be up for another hour.
posted by chundo at 8:50 PM on October 22, 2007

Also, if you haven't decided on a new email provider, you may want to check out FuseMail. I just moved my email over there, they also have an automatic import tool that will suck all of your IMAP folders directly from your old ISP account into their servers.
posted by chundo at 8:52 PM on October 22, 2007

Be careful that once you have your mail synchronized, that you back it up to some sort of immutable media right now.

I don't know how Exchange/Outlook work, but some IMAP clients will delete stuff from the local folders if you've set them to synchronize with the server, and the document is deleted from the server. I know someone who apparently lost a lot of email this way (they synched, then went in via webmail and deleted it all, then synched again the next day -- whammo, no more email). Make sure at the least that you move the messages into a Local folder that's not synchronized or linked in any way to the server.

Granted, I'm really paranoid, but I'd immediately export everything to the most generic format possible (there is an extension for Thunderbird to export to 'mbox' format, which is the traditional format and would be my choice) and then put it on CD. If you can do that before the messages disappear from the server, that would be what I'd aim for.
posted by Kadin2048 at 9:58 PM on October 22, 2007

Seconding the using thunderbird, I gave instructions on Outlook since you already have that setup.

If you are still looking for an email host, I would also just look at going with a paid domain to host it. I switched to pair.com over 6 years ago, I pay $17/month to host my entire families emails, and run some blog / php / web gallery stuff so they can upload photos and share them with other folks.

They do imap and even have a decently latest version of squirrel mail (you can select all, etc.).

If you want to go the route of hosting your email locally or on a server you own, Kerio Mail Server is pretty awesome, and is what I have my emails filtered through, since it's webmail and spam filter blows squirrel mail away (Kerio is also running on a colleagues server on his business cable line, so it is handling a much smaller load, hence more feature rich web experience, than pair's servers).
posted by mrzarquon at 10:23 PM on October 22, 2007

You don't actually need an extension to get mboxes out of Thunderbird, since that's what it uses natively.

%userprofile%\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\gibberish.default\mail

is where you'll find them.
posted by flabdablet at 1:31 AM on October 23, 2007

If they're using squirrelmail there should be an option to allow downloading mail folders - that may be a plugin in squirrelmail. Maybe if you call and ask nicely they will install it?

Oh yes, here it is, the archive mail plugin.
posted by Arthur Dent at 1:31 AM on October 23, 2007