I think this "How to" message could be moved to the FAQ section...

As a long-time Pegasus user and packrat, I now find myself with about 10 gigs of mail, new and old.  Can anyone point me to some method of archiving old messages without just outright deleting them?

Thanks.

On 26 Jun 2007 Pegasus Mail & Mercury - Automated Email <> wrote:

> As a long-time Pegasus user and packrat, I now find myself
> with about 10 gigs of mail, new and old.  Can anyone point me
> to some method of archiving old messages without just
> outright deleting them?
>
> Thanks.

Here is a method of archiving files to the directory "Archive" on the local
hard drive.  This same procedure will work for any read/write drive.  You can use any device for this even a pen drive as long as it's read write.

1.  Open the folder listing.  Go to the menu "Folders" next to "Tools".

2.  Use  "Add mailbox to list", enter C:\Archive as the path, Archive as
    the name.

3.  Add a folder to the mailbox called "Archive", the name is not
    important.  You can also just use the New mail folder on the disk but
    this storage is not as efficient since each message is stored
    separately.  

4.  Move the messages to this folder on the disk drive.  


There are some operational limitations here:

A.  Of course the size of this mailbox is limited by the size of
    the disk.

B.  Don't just drag an existing folder (or tray) from "My Mailbox"
    to the floppy drive mailbox or from the floppy to the "My
    Mailbox". It *appears* to work, but actually doesn't. The
    folder won't be moved to the floppy.  This limitation is being
    worked.

In addition, if you want to move whole folders then this may be what you are looking for to backup.


PMRestArch - Pegasus Mail Restore Mail Folder Archives:
http://www.lexacorp.com.pg

Usage:
PMRestArch SourceDir DestinationDir

Description:
Pegasus Mail cannot display two mail folders with the same internal ID even if they are in separate mailboxes. Mail folders also have to be Read-Write.
      
This causes problems when trying to view mail folders which have been archived by copying them to backup media.

This utility:

1.  Copies all .PMM and .PMI files in the source directory to
    the destination directory and renames them as BAKxxxxx.PMM
    and BAKxxxx.PMI.

2.  Ensures that the resulting file is Read/Write.

3.  Creates a different internal unique ID for each file.

Once you have run this program to restore archived folders to a directory you can attach that directory using the Pegasus Mail 'Add mailbox to list' option and access the archived folders in this new mailbox.

Thank you. Your help with the "add mailbox" for archiving is helpful and a very important feature to store old mail away from the primary PMail directory. It doesn't seem to be covered in the manual or online help particularly as a valuable "archiving" feature.

Thanks again.

sam

I'm actually also developing an external tool explicitly for archiving and backup (as well as a certain level of import/export). No deadline or release date at this point, but it's in development.

Cheers!

-- David --

Thank you, Tom.  Very helpful.

Ham

Thanks, David.  I can't wait.  Hope it's near the top of the list.

Ham

To that end... once one figures out the "add mailbox to list" protocol and customises it appropriately, it works beautifully as an interim archiving technique.

sam

Perhaps you can edit the original post and add step 0.

Create C:\Archive folder (or whatever name you want).

This may help any newbies who forget, or assume that Pegasus will create the folder. 

I used 'PMArchive', so that the archived mail and current mail were listed together. 

Great product...  I've been using it for many years ;-)