Today I found out to my horrors that I had lost some emails that I regarded as important. This lost emails was not because of my fault, it was the software fault why this did happen. Why this did happen I do not yet know, besides that this is a software bug that created this mess. I don’t expect too get this email back, as the email program that I use doesn’t keep any backup on it’s own. It also doesn’t correct file errors, or doesn’t appear to do any type of maintenance on the files where the emails are stored. This type of practice is quite common among email clients, both open-source and closed-source. If the email clients messes up due to a software bug, you are on your own.
The fact that email clients actually loose emails that they are supposed to keep is quite bad in my opinion. Because a software that stores data should not loose any of the data it is keeping, and should provide a simple solution on how to backup your data, both automatic and manual. My current email client does offer a simple way to backup the email manually. But no background automatic backup happens far as I can tell, in the case of sudden system failure (power outage and so on..). But those often create data loss far worse then the accidental ones, that user might have prepared him self for by making a backup of his data.
I am currently using a email client called Evolution, and for some reason it lost my email with no way of recovering it. Because it did overwrite the file that was storing the emails in question, instead of letting me know of a problem with that storage file like would have been a useful feature too me, and other users how face the same problem as I do.
This is one of the reasons I prefer IMAP so the e-mail stays on the server.
Oh no, that is terrible! I was so happy when I got back my email account from UC Berkeley that all my old saved emails were still there (as far as I could tell). Berkeley used Squirrel Mail and Round Cube.
It was bad for me, since this where newsletters from EU. But I sometimes use them as source for information. Thankfully it was nothing more. But now I have to go online and get that information. My server also uses squirrel mail for web mail, it is handy. But I prefer my emails on my computer, in case of lost or no internet connection.
I managed to save few emails that I found elsewhere in my email client. But not many. In this case I lost emails from 2008 at the earliest. I will continue to search for copies of the lost emails, so I can recover some of the emails that where lost.
Svavar, email can be lost on the server too.
I found the backup option, and I have made a backup of my emails.
Yes, I use Google Apps and they take care of the backups. My e-mails are relatively safe there.