how to do clean re-install

how to do clean re-install

Greetings!

I've been using M2 for about 8 years. I would like to do a clean reinstall, copying off my current installation as an archive, and bringing back in the last 2 years of mail. My goals are (a) smaller databases and lexicons, (b) removal of accumulated "cruft".

I haven't been by these Forums for a while, and I'm wondering if anyone has a "best practices" guide for doing this. (This looks like what I need ... ?)

I only use pop mail (one Gmail account and one Microsoft Exchange/Office 365 account). I don't use chat or news.

The two strategies that occur to me are

1. create filters for the accounts and date ranges, export, reinstall Opera, create the relevant accounts, import.
2. copy off the Opera account, rename it, go to mail/store/ and delete older mails, reinstall Opera, and do a generic mbox import from the renamed Opera.

Originally posted by casals:

This looks like what I need ...

Yeh, you could do that and

Originally posted by casals:

2. copy off the Opera account, rename it, go to mail/store/ and delete older mails, reinstall Opera, and do a generic mbox import from the renamed Opera.

Specifically, after you move the original mail folder to a safe place (when following the directions in the link), you can move the mbs files in the store folder that are older than two years to somewhere else. Then, when you import into the accounts in the new mail folder, you'll just get the last two years of messages.

As for the older messages, you could import them into a new account and use the account selector to hide them. Or, instead, you can set up a standalone installation to a folder in your profile space somewhere and import the older messages into that and only load that Opera when you want to access the older messages. That way, your normal Opera won't be slow bloated.

In short, you got all the ideas right. Sounds like you know what you're doing. Just make sure to put a copy of your mail folder somewhere safe. Then, make another copy to work with. That way, you always have an original copy to fall back on so you can try things again (a different way) if it doesn't work how you like.

Thanks! Brilliant! Two thoughts:

--the generic mbox importer sorts the received and sent mail into the right places (yay!); I didn't find any left over trash (although I do delete it religiously every few days).

--my two mail servers (one an Exchange/Office 365, the other Gmail) keep tons of mail. If you create your account without doing anything else, Opera/M2 will load in all that mail. (Sadly, this isn't very helpful, since you will bring in all the mail that you've already deleted, and for Exchange, none of your sent mail.) You can keep it from doing this by looking (in the backed-up copy of your original mail/ folder) under

mail/pop/

for the file beginning

uidl_

(for example: uidl_account2_ver8)

and the account you are recreating; this file contains the list of the emails that have already been downloaded. You can prevent Opera from loading all the old mail by:

(a) create the new account with your network connection disconnected;
(b) shut Opera down;
(c) copy over the uidl file to your new fresh account.

When you restart Opera and reconnect to the network, it will only download new emails for that account.