Hello:
I have been using Pegasus Mail for the longest while.
To the point that at one time I have had over ten years of emails from three (and for a couple of years, four) different accounts divided like this:
eg:

2000
    inbox - default and accounts 1/2/3  
    outbox - default account
    outbox - account 1
    outbox - account 2
    outbox - account 3
2001
    inbox
    outbox
    outbox - account 1
    outbox - account 2
    outbox - account 3

Then one year I decided to archive most of it.
As the archive grew, I realised that it was taking as much space as it was before being archived.
I just did not see them till I needed to.

Eventually, I made a drastic reduction and ended up losing some data I eventually needed so ...
I am now at ten year point again and need to find a suitable solution.

I recall that the archive process needed R+W media (FDD, USB stick or an external HDD) in order to work properly and was wondering if that had changed.

This because I would like to explore the possibility of dumping the archive to a DVD or CD (yes, I still have a reader/writer) and be able to access/search the emails achived on that media by "mounting" it via a Pegasus Mail installation.
ie: just like if it was archived but residing on RO media instead of inside my box taking up HDD space and subject to HDD misshaps.

Properly written quality media will surely outlive me and having more than one copy is probably insurance enough.
The important thing is that the archive be indexed just like Pegasus Mail folders and searchable.

Any idea as to how to get that done these days?
Thanks in advance.
Best,
S.

Absolutely! See the attached document. Method 3 on page 2 will likely be what you are after. Post back with any questions.

Archiving Pegasus Mail email messages.pdf

Hello:

Thank you very much for your help.

Best,

S.

Sawbona, something that is not documented in the .pdf I provided is the loss of annotations. The link between the message and its annotation file gets broken when a message is copied or moved to a location outside of Pegasus Mail local folders. There is no work around for this.

Just as a tip, I wouldn't backup to R/O media these days. A good-capacity external hard drive is relatively cheap and much faster and more reliable (durable) than CDs and DVDs. Besides these obvious advantages of using external hard drives, using R/O media has the disadvantage of making all the files in the backup R/O and therefore useless for Pmail without first converting them back to R/W. Another disadvantage that has happened to me more than once is that R/O media recorded on one drive is not always readable on another, which is the first reason I changed my backup methods.

Hello:

You are right, good capacity external drives are relatively cheap but in my experience, the decrease in price (as usually happens) has also brought on a decrease in quality. eg: I have more than once lost files to new, brand name 2.5" external HDDs, probably because they were what is nowdays referred to as consumer grade hardware.

That said, I do have a (pre SMART) 40Gb Samsung MP0402H ATA HDD recovered from a 486 portable which is still working properly after more than 20 years. I guess they just don't make them like they used to.

And I still have (and can read without issues) quite a few RO CD-ROMs written long ago, a half dozen from 2001. Undoubtedly, they have survived because they were stored properly.
Thanks for your input.
Best,
S.