My database is too large and causing synch problems. I would like to copy all my old mail (by date) to separate database that I can then archive, but still access in an emergency. Is there any way to achieve this?
Hi Bruce, unfortunately it is not possible to easily export old data to a new eM Client database, however you can use the automatic archiving feature in eM Client and archive old messages. Using the automatic archiving tool, old items will be moved into local folders, however will still be kept in your current eM Client database.
If you’d like to move these messages into another eM Client database you can export local folders into .eml files and create a new eM Client database by changing the storage path in Tools > Settings > General > Storage.
e.g. …/Roaming/eM Client to …/Roaming/eM Client 2, this will create a second database location after an application restart to which you can import the exported data.
You can switch between the databases by adjusting the storage path in the application settings, next time you reopen the application, eM Client will load the existing database setup in preferences or create a new one if the database location does not exist.
Hope this helps,
Paul
This seems like such an obvious and useful feature. I imagine any long term user will need this capability sooner or later. Following your plan will not achieve the goal as your new database will have no history meaning you would need to change databases to check very recent emails. Is there a chance this functionality is likely to be added soon, and if not, is there another application you can suggest that has this feature? I cannot continue with EMClient now as my database is too large to synchronise regularly.
Hi again Bruce, we’re currently working on a an upcoming release of eM Client which should include an improved way of storing data in it’s database, this should help the way the application will be performing while containing a large amount of data.
However I’m not completely sure what exact sync issues are you referring to, as having a large database should not cause any synchronization issue, since only new and updated data should be exchanged with the server, are you seeing any errors while trying to synchronize the account(s)?
Thank you,
Paul
I noticed that after deleting many attached pictures and files from mails (I have old mails in my database dating 2005/2006) eM Client became more quick. I stored these files on my computer. I hope a future release will allow to keep all files in database.
Paul,
Thanks for considering my problem.
The issue is simply the size of the database. For my work I need to keep all my customer interactions, and many of them include attached images. I have many years of these stored. My database is 3gig.
Every time I open EMClient, the date stamp on all the database files change. That means that any synchronization process will involve replacing the old files with the new ones.
I synchronise my main computer to my backup computer most days as both backup of data and a way to make sure I can continue to work if I suffer a computer failure. I then synchronise all the data to a hard drive every 4-5 days which is stored in a fireproof safe. I cannot use cloud storage any more because the EMClient database was just too large and would take hours to upload.
If I could break the database into separate databases, each representing a year or so, then the older databases would rarely be opened and therefore would rarely change. That means they would not need updating during the synchronisations.
If you are working on a new version, there is another suggestion that would help in my case (I realize I am not a ‘normal’ user). If the database time stamps did not change unless the data in the files was actually changed. Then, if I am only reading mail from old databases (usually the case), the date stamp would not change system would not then need to synchronise that file.
I decided to attempt to wean myself off Microsoft Office, and went Libre and EMClient. It is only this issue that is causing me a problem, but it is enough that I may have to return to the Microsoft fold if I cannot find a solution.
Hi again Bruce, unfortunately there’s no other option to export your data to another database and keep the database active, you can only move your data from your IMAP server to the Local folders, disabling the need for synchronizing the data constantly and only keeping the on your local hard drive. Or create a separate database for these files only.
Regards,
Paul
Hi Bruce(?),
Actually a database of 3 GB is not so big (my eM Client database is 10 GB). I normally save big attachments as files to my hard disk, and remove them from my e-mails.
For synchronizing files between computers, I can recommend GoodSync.
As alternative for Microsoft Office, I can recommend Softmaker Office.
Sorry, but you misunderstand again. All the mail is in a local database. There are no IMAP servers involved. It is the local folders that I am synchronizing to backup all my data. That means I am synchronizing ten years of email data every day when 99.9% of that data is unchanged. Is there a way out or am I trapped?
Seems like the solution is Thunderbird. For anybody else with this problem, here is how I was able to get a solution… The only export option from EM Client is eml files with one file per email. It will however, export those files with the folder structure intact if you export the whole local folder structure. The Thunderbird ImportExportTools addon then has an import option to import all emails in a folder and a box that you can tick to include subfolders. That will Import all the emails and create the folders and sub folders as per the original structure. There were some minor issues along the way. Thunderbird seemed to not let you import straight into the Local Folders, so I had to create a sub folder, import into that, then move all those folders back into the Local Folders. Also, all the imported emails are marked as unread, so you will need to go through every folder and use the “Mark folder as read” option. Once in Thunderbird you can do a select all mail within a certain date range across multiple folders. Then move/delete them. I copied the database to a different location and deleted all mail less than two years old. That is now my archive I can refer to when I need to. The second database I deleted all emails older than 2 years and that is the one I use daily. Using that process you can create as many archives as you like for whatever time periods you like.
I agree that it would be useful to save the old emails in a separate file, to decrease the size of the “active” files. That way, the synchronization to my server would be faster, copying only the small, changed files. Please add this to eMClient 7! I bought a life-time license of eMClient and this feature is really missing!
I use an external hard drive for backups, FreeFilySync copies only changed files, but with eMClient, it has to copy the whole mail-data files over and over again (17 GB!).
Would be much better and faster to copy if the archived emails (changed only every 6 months during archiving) would be in a separate file and the backup program would need to copy only a smaller “live” mail file.
Please do something about this for release V7!
The internal backup algorithm should be changed as well to store this archive file separately and update that during backup only if it was changed (e.g. due to archiving), this way the internal backup would be much faster as well!
Thanks
P.S. Why does this thread have the status “answered”, this needs to be “open”! eMClient is the only email program with no separate physical storage for the archived mails which delays internal and external backup solutions a lot!
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This thread highlights a serious issue: That any file backup solution will have to backup the entire email storage, even when only a few messages have changed. In our office this would require a typical 3GB daily backup on each PC rather than just a few MB,. This will “break” most backup solutions, be they local or cloud-based. Unfortunately, this one issue seems to make emClient unsuitable for our office.
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Guys - this is important to add as a feature. Having suffered database corruption issues that mercifully have all been eventually resolved - if you get an unrecoverable corruption EVERYTHING is gone. By chunking old emails into separate databases, you limit the scope of any corruption.
Please implement.
Local data can always be at risk whether it is in a single database or in multiple databases. But you can use eM Client’s automatic backup, which will take snapshots of the database, so you can roll back to a previous state if something happens with your local unsynced data.
Fortunately synced data is not at risk, unless your email provider deletes it from their server. For synced data, if the database is lost, you just add the account to a new database, or other app, and it will sync back from the server.
You do not want a backup file to row and grow ad infinitum over time. This is standard IT practice for archiving (not backup). After all the whole point of the existing Auto Archive functionality is that you delete it from the server. Yes there are lots of ways to work around things but this is essential for emClient to be taken seriously.
In its basic form, it’s not hard, you just give it a new database to create and it archives to there but ideally it would allow you to see the folders in the client and then when you choose such a folder, it will switch to that database.
You want more people to use it, implement this. As it is, I am looking for alternatives because the lack of this functionality makes it unwieldy over time (I would locate the archives on a NAS and backup to GCP).
I don’t have a problem doing this on Windows PCs.
- Make sure eM Client is the default app for .eml files
- In emClient, move the emails that you want archived to a folder in Local Folders
- In emClient, go Menu > File > Export, choose “Export emails to .eml files”, choose that folder(s) to export and select a destination folder to export it to.
- Then you can use Windows search in File explorer to find emails - files will open in emClient
- Then verify and backup the exported folder
- Then you can delete the Local Folder in emClient containing those emails that you exported.
Notes:
(1) The exported files are not part of the emClient database, there is a separate .eml file for each message, so you need to create backups of them yourself.
(2) The file name of files exported are quite brief. However, if you use the File Explorer search to find emails, in the search results you see the sender, date/time, subject, and a bit of the message listed.