akonadi/KDE PIM backup/restore

[Daniel Vrátil]

On Monday, October 10, 2016 9:53:46 AM CEST René J.V. Bertin wrote:
> Hi,

Hi,

> 
> Does anyone have a good overview what of the various *rc and other files
> under ~/.config, ~/.local/share, ~/.kde/share/config, ~/.kde/share/apps and
> possible ~/.cache one should backup if one wants to be able to restore a
> working Kontact/KMail set-up - accounts, folder settings, filters, UI
> customisation etc?
> 
> What files hold crucial information, and which ones derived/downloaded data
> that will be regenerated anew after a restore?

I would argue that except for the search index, you want to preserve 
everything (including the massive file_db_data), see below.

> If this has changed from KDEPIM4 -> KDEPIM5, what are those changes?

With the exceptions of things in .config/akonadi/ and .local/share/akonadi/ 
(which has always been there), all the files mentioned below where moved from 
.kde/share/config/ to .config/

> 
> I'm mostly interested in KMail (handled via Kontact); I think that backups
> of its configuration will probably contain most if not all of the crucial
> information for the other PIM components as well?
> 
> Application: migration to another account or host, and where relevant, being
> able to back out of an intemptestuous/premature version update.
> 
> It'd be very reassuring if someone from the dev team could corroborate the
> information if it doesn't come from a PIM developer already.
> 
> The backup command I've compiled myself from educated guesses looks like
> this (executed in $HOME):
> 
> tar -cjf "${ARCHIVE}" 
> .kde/share/config/{foldermailarchiverc,kaddressbook,email,mail,knode,kontac
> t,kmail,akonadi,kresource}* \
> .kde/share/apps/{kaddressbook,kabc,knode,kmail,kontact}* \
> 	.local/share/akonadi* \
> 	.config/akonadi

This seems to be for KDE4? In KF5 ~/.kde is not user anymore at all, but the 
change is simple, just use ~/.config instead in your script. Otherwise it 
looks like you actually got them all. The only exception are .kde/share/apps, 
see below again.

In KF5 you can omit kresource*, that's long dead.

> 
> but I've never actually tested whether this does the trick (and doesn't
> include a lot of useless ballast).

the following should be a complete set of things to archive for Akonadi + 
KMail.

~/.local/share/akonadi/
Akonadi DB + data: you can omit search_db (Akonadi Search Index, see below), 
since it will be reindexed. You could omit file_db_data too, but then you will 
suffer the horrible penalty of Akonadi redownloading all the data (especially 
if you use offline IMAP) and the search won't work properly until all is 
downloaded (if you did not backup search_db too).

~/.local/share/baloo/{calendar,contact,collections,email,emailContacts,notes}/
Akonadi Search Index: historically it is in ~/.local/share/baloo, but if you 
wiped and recrated your index recently, then ~/.local/share/baloo will be 
empty and the indexes will be stored in ~/.local/share/akonadi/search_db (as 
mentioned above)

~/.local/share/kmail2/
KMail2 data

~/.local/share/messageviewer/
Custom header themes, if you had any

~/.config/akonadi/
Akonadi agent configuration. You want that.

~/.config/akonadi_*rc
Agents' own configuration. You want that too.

~/.config/baloorc
For historical reasons baloorc contains configuration of the Akonadi Search 
Index. Current git master has migrated the configuration to
~/.config/akonadi_indexing_agentrc.

~/.config/emailidentities
KMail email identities

~/.config/foldermailarchive
If you use Archiving

~/.config/kmail*rc
KMail configuration

~/.config/mailtransport
Sending account configuration (SMTP)

~/.config/specialmailcollectionsrc
Magic.

~/.kde/share/apps/kabc/
Historically, contains local contacts.

~/.local/share/contacts
New location for local contacts.

~/.kde/share/apps/korganizer/
Histroically, contains local calendars

~/.local/share/local-mail (sometimes also ~/.local/share/.local-mail)
Content of "Local Folders"



Dan

> 
> Thanks,
> R.


-- 
Daniel Vrátil
www.dvratil.cz | dvratil at kde.org
IRC: dvratil on Freenode (#kde, #kontact, #akonadi, #fedora-kde)

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