switching to the cloud

[Erik Quaeghebeur]

Dear John,


> 1.  She wants to load her existing kmail files on her new 
> computer, […]. She has POP3 emails.  Suggestions re helping her do 
> this are appreciated.  My 
> suggestion to her was to archive her files to a usb stick and 
> then import the archived files 
> to her new machine.

Yes, that should work. The mails can either be put in the default ‘Local 
folders’ maildir resource location or an alternative one (created 
specifically for that purpose).

> 2.  She is also thinking that she might out to switch from pop3 
> to imap so she could access 
> her current (up to date) information from both her home and her 
> office desktops.  Any suggestions that might help her do this?

Just start accessing from IMAP and stop using POP. Get used to kmail's IMAP 
(akonadi) peculiarities. Namely, don't assume it retreived all mails 
automatically, but poll from time to time.

Upload tho mails previously downloaded by POP to the IMAP account! You can 
have kmail cache them all locally, so then it is easy to access them from 
anywhere via a system designed to do so.

(I've been using IMAP exclusively since 1996 and it has always been very 
convenient. There are options out there in case you want to make backups of 
the IMAP account contents.)

> "The intent would be to access my kmail through my dropbox account from any 
> computer which I may log into for work and still be able to 
> access all of my 
> kmail history."

That sounds like a recipe for disaster. Kmail (akonadi) ‘assumes’ the files 
are stored locally, but this way, they can change in unexpected ways. 
Moreover, it makes the complete setup more complex than just using one 
system, IMAP.


Success,

Erik