Time to take your email archive offline?

I'm just curious: Does anyone download their email to their own computer and delete it from the server anymore?

I do it for privacy reasons. I don't want my entire email archive available to anyone with Internet access who may be able to crack my password), and I don't need access to any email older than a month or so from every device I own.

Having the bulk of my email offline also means I can switch email providers quickly, because I don't have thousands of messages to migrate.

Backup is as a simple as zipping the Thunderbird folder in %APPDATA% and copy the zip file to two external hard drives, one of which I always carry around with me, and one I keep at home.

Am I the freak here?

-peviha

Hi, Peviha

Not a freak. But perhaps more tech-savvy than the average user and more aware of privacy issues, etc..

In my case, I only have a desktop computer and I'm not interested in spending money on additional hard drives (or flash drives or whatever) to back up email or documents, etc. But I certainly do understand why others would want to do so.

In the particular case of email, I do have some emails that are very important to me (like irreplaceable ones from a friend who suddenly passed away last year), so I simply save them at several good, reputable email providers (Runbox, EuMX, FastMail) as well as on my computer (in Outlook 2007).

I am not overly concerned about removing emails from servers to keep the gov't from seeing them. I figure, with gov't snooping being what it apparently is these days, there is as much a chance that they can (or will soon be able to) intercept the emails in transit at least as easily as trying to get them -- legally or otherwise -- while resting on a provider's servers.

But if I were concerned enough to maintain strict privacy as much as I could, I would undoubtedly go your route: download them locally to an email client, remove them from the servers, and make multiple back ups on external media (and keep those multiple copies in different locations).

The trash button is my most clicked feature

I read and delete and rarely save any emails.

I'm just one of those types that likes to keep my inbox tidy.

I do not archive my personal email to my computer.

I do save much more of my work email.

That's mostly for maintaining information and knowledge to pass along as needed.