Archive mails

[pyroxar]

Sometimes I need to make a backup of all my messages to free up disk space.

I would like Thunderbird to have an integrated tool with the following features:

Archiving entire mail or selected range: I would like to be able to archive all messages or select specific ranges for archiving. The archive should include emails along with their attachments.

Saving the archive to disk: The archive should be saved in a chosen directory on the disk. Additionally, it should be possible to save the archive as an encrypted zip file or in another format that ensures data security.

Proper character encoding: It's important for the tool to support the encoding of Polish and other characters so that all content is stored and read correctly.

Mounting the archive in Thunderbird: It's crucial to be able to directly mount the archive in Thunderbird as a new mailbox labeled as an archive. This way, I would be able to easily access the data, browse the contents, search messages, and check contacts and attachments.

Introducing such a tool to Thunderbird would allow me to easily manage my archived messages and maintain order on my disk.

[Jon]

Some potentially related ideas for improving how emails are archived:

Auto-Archive messages after ... time 

Archive to different disc 

Improving email archiving for Thunderbird 

Option to organize Thunderbird Message Archive in different manner 

[pyroxar]

And I think, that option should be on right-click option on the mailbox.

[pedja]

It would be helpful if there is option to set Archive folder to arbitrary folder, so we can for example set it to other disk. That would allow freeing space on main disk.

[Gerry58]

Why is archives saving everything??

[DaveR]

There are account archive setting under copies and folders. 

I would like to see an archive option added to the "search messages" window.  There is a "Move To" option there now. 

I can right click on the account name and select "Search Messages" then pick "Date Before" and find All messages from all folders under that account before the given date, Select them all - ctrl-a then I want to run archive using the archive settings set for that account. 

I have it set to go to the account name under  local folder by Year and keep existing folder structure.