[Opera Mail] A Beginner Inquiry
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Deleted User last edited by
Hello guys,
I am beginning to get the hang out of Opera Mail. However, I have a few questions regarding backing up. I understand that in order to back up all e-mails, I need to right-click "Received" and "Sent" views separately under All Messages to export each or both of them. For contacts, I understand that export is in Settings menu.
However, I did not find a way to export e-mail accounts and labels. As such, I wish to ask how I can back up e-mail accounts and labels. I also wish to ask if, when importing "Received" and "Sent" e-mails, the e-mails are still labeled and threaded. Thank you in advance.
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burnout426 Volunteer last edited by
I am beginning to get the hang out of Opera Mail. However, I have a few questions regarding backing up. I understand that in order to back up all e-mails, I need to right-click "Received" and "Sent" views separately under All Messages to export each or both of them.
In the "store" folder in the "mail" folder, all your messages are stored there. There's a "Drafts" folder for drafts for all accounts and there's an accountN folder (where N is the number for the account as seen in accounts.ini) that stores the rest of the messages for an account (including sent). Each message in the account is stored as a single mbox file (with an mbs extension). They're grouped in the accountN folder as year/month/day/number.mbs.
So, all your messages are already in a format for backing up. So, no need to export them. If you want to just back up the messages, back up the accountN folder for the account.
Note though that if you have low-bandwidth mode turned, the files won't be complete unless you right-clicked on each messag and choose "fetch complete message".
Same thing with IMAP. Same thing with IMAP if you just have "do not download attachments" set. Same thing with IMAP if you have the default of "make messages available offline when I click them" and you haven't opened all of your messages. So, for IMAP, you want to make sure you have "make all messages available offline" set on the "incoming" tab in the accounts properties so that all messages are fetched in full. Then, you can close down Opera and back up the files.
However:
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Settings for an account are in accounts.ini.
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Opera keeps track of each message by id in the database omailbase.dat.
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index.ini defines the views in the mail panel and their settings.
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The indexer folder files keep track of message threading and what messages should be shown in each view.
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The lexicon folder contains search indexes for messages so that searching is faster.
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The feeds folder contains your feed subscriptions.
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The POP3 folder has id files for each account that keep track of fetched messages. The IMAP folder does the same for IMAP accounts.
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The incomingN.txt files (where N is the number for the account in accounts.ini) has settings for each IMAP/News account.
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contacts.adr (in the preferences folder) stores your contacts. The IDs in the file are specific to the mail folder they're used with.
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wand.dat stores your mail passwords.
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opcert6.dat stores your approved self-signed certs and your master password if you have one.
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operaprefs.ini contains all the global mail settings.
Given that, when you back up Opera mail, you need to back up the whole mail folder, wand.dat, contacts,adr and operaprefs.ini. But, if you're going to back up all that, you might as well just back up both the roaming and local opera profile folders. On Windows that's "C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\Opera Mail\foo" and "C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Opera Mail\foo" where "foo" is the name of the folder in "C:\Program Files (x86)" that Opera Mail is installed to.
Now, the only reason you'd want to right-click on each view in the mail panel and export is if you want all messages in that view to be grouped into a single mbs file to ease importing into a corresponding folder in another client. If you're just backing up Opera Mail to restore it for use with Opera mail, you don't need to do that. Also, exporting each view (especially labels) can be complicated if the message is available in more than one view as you'll get duplicate messages. Clicking the "Settings for this view" icon above the message list and adjusting the "show" messages for the view you're exporting can help with that. But, it's still a problem with labels.
Other notes:
If you use IMAP, you can sync labels in some cases.
Also see:
and
Also, for contacts.adr, if you plan on importing the contacts into another mail folder, it's best to export the contacts from the user interface. Only use the contacts.adr in the roaming profile folder for backing up for the purpose of restoring with the mail folder it was created with.
Also note that you can't import into IMAP accounts in Opera. You have to set up the IMAP account so that it fetches whatever message are on the server. Then, for messages that aren't on the server, you import them into a new account (will be a pop account without the connection settings set). From there you can drag them to the IMAP "Inbox" folder to upload them to the server.
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burnout426 Volunteer last edited by
I also wish to ask if, when importing "Received" and "Sent" e-mails, the e-mails are still labeled and threaded.
When you import messages, they'll be imported as received. However, the mbs file you're importing can be set in the "move to sent" drop-down to import them as sent.
In either case, messages should still be threaded properly if all the messages in the thread are imported and they have the proper headers etc.
Now, for labels, from my previous comment, you'll see that labels are not stored with the messages. So, you lose the label association when you export a message and import it.
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Deleted User last edited by
Hello burnout426,
Suppose I am to back up Opera Mail for a complete OS reinstallation, what do I need to do to save everything (POP3 e-mail accounts & messages, contacts, labels, etc)? The following information is from my current installation taken from the "About" page.
System: Windows 7
Preferences: \AppData\Roaming\Opera Mail\Opera Mail\operaprefs.ini
Saved session: \AppData\Roaming\Opera Mail\Opera Mail\sessions\autopera.win
Opera directory: \AppData\Roaming\Opera Mail\Opera Mail
Mail directory: \AppData\Local\Opera Mail\Opera Mail\mail- Are these the correct folders and files to save?
\AppData\Local\Opera Mail\Opera Mail\mail
\AppData\Roaming\Opera Mail\Opera Mail\contacts.adr
\AppData\Roaming\Opera Mail\Opera Mail\operaprefs.ini
\AppData\Roaming\Opera Mail\Opera Mail\opcert6.dat
\AppData\Roaming\Opera Mail\Opera Mail\wand.dat- Can I simply save "\AppData\Local\Opera Mail\Opera Mail" and "\AppData\Roaming\Opera Mail\Opera Mail" and then copy them over to new installation of Opera Mail?
(I think that there is a bug when I reinstalled Opera Mail a second time hence why there are two Opera Mail folders in the paths.)
I deeply appreciate your patience and assistance. Thank you very much.
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Deleted User last edited by
Oops. Looks the forum killed my post mark ups. My apologies for the problem.
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burnout426 Volunteer last edited by
Can I simply save "\AppData\Local\Opera Mail\Opera Mail" and "\AppData\Roaming\Opera Mail\Opera Mail" and then copy them over to new installation of Opera Mail?
Yep. You back those up, reinstall the OS for example, put those folders back where they were, first, and then install Opera Mail (using the installer so it sets up the registry keys etc.) to the same spot it was before. That's it.
Before you run Opera Mail, just check operaprefs.ini in the roaming profile folder to make sure there are no lines with paths in them so that when Opera Mail starts up, it uses the default. Paths that are still correct for the new instance of the OS can remain if you want, but it's just easier to remove them.
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burnout426 Volunteer last edited by
Are these the correct folders and files to save?
Yep. you got the idea.
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Deleted User last edited by
Yep. You back those up, reinstall the OS for example, put those folders back where they were, first, and then install Opera Mail (using the installer so it sets up the registry keys etc.) to the same spot it was before. That's it.
Before you run Opera Mail, just check operaprefs.ini in the roaming profile folder to make sure there are no lines with paths in them so that when Opera Mail starts up, it uses the default. Paths that are still correct for the new instance of the OS can remain if you want, but it's just easier to remove them.Hello burnout426,
Put the folders back first then install Opera Mail and remove paths. Noted.
Thank you very much for all your help.
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diooda last edited by
Well, in my scenario above all from opera mail received messages are deleted from the server but stored locally. I thought this was his wish. If he only wants to delete individual, already received messages from the server then it can only be done manullay with outlook.com.
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