VMware Player 5.0.2
Host: WinXP3, 32-bit
Guest: Linux Mint 14, 64-bit + Xfce 4.10
Kmail 4.9.5

Where does Kmail store it's mail?

The reason I need to ask is 4-fold:
1, The Kmail doc doesn't say, and
2, The Kmail doc I have is stale, and
3, I've tried just about every email client there is and just discovered that they all left empty mail stores behind, and
4, I'm new to Linux.

Thanks very much.
Mark.

KMail 2 stores it's email where it is configured to store this. You can check this in the settings for the application, namely in the settings of the "Local Folders". If no path is set there, do not set one and export all mail you have stored in KMail immediately.

Thanks.

I'm using Kmail 4, not Kmail 2, but I was able to use your reply as a clue.

Just to clarify - it seems that KMail 2 has been renamed to KMail 4 at some point.

Sorry for bringing up an old topic. I started using Kmail recently, switching from Thunderbird. I have a path set for Local Folders, but they are empty. I'm not sure about the logic of Local Folders in general. How are they are supposed to be used in connection to some IMAP accounts for example? Or actual e-mails are stored in the PIM database may be? How is e-mail supposed to be transferred for example when moving to another Linux account? With Thunderbird it was quite easy - one could just copy the whole $HOME/.thunderbird directory (all the messages were stored within). With Kmail it's not so obvious.

shmerl wrote:How are they are supposed to be used in connection to some IMAP accounts for example?

With IMAP, mails are stored on the server, not on your hard disk.

So, in this case you don't have to copy anything. Just set up the IMAP account on another system, and all your mail should be there.

wolfi323 wrote:

shmerl wrote:How are they are supposed to be used in connection to some IMAP accounts for example?

With IMAP, mails are stored on the server, not on your hard disk.

So, in this case you don't have to copy anything. Just set up the IMAP account on another system, and all your mail should be there.

With Thunderbird they are also duplicated on the disk. So in case the server is down you can still access all your messages. Does Kmail support such functionality?

This is known as Offline IMAP. In KMail > Settings > Configure KMail > Accounts > (Select Account) > Modify, please ensure "Enable disconnected mode" is enabled. This can be found on the Advanced tab.

bcooksley wrote:This is known as Offline IMAP. In KMail > Settings > Configure KMail > Accounts > (Select Account) > Modify, please ensure "Enable disconnected mode" is enabled. This can be found on the Advanced tab.

Thanks, looks like that is already enabled. But my question was, where are e-mails actually stored on the disk? I.e. let's say I'm migrating my Linux account to another computer and want to transfer all my e-mails without connecting to IMAP first. With Thunderbird I just copied the whole $HOME/.thunderbird which included locations of locally stored e-mails. How can something similar be done with Kmail?

KMail handles these differently depending on where the original mail store resides.
For local email, it will probably be at ~/.local/share/local-mail/.
For IMAP or remote email, this will be retained within it's datastore, which can be found at ~/.local/share/akonadi/.

bcooksley wrote:For local email, it will probably be at ~/.local/share/local-mail/.
For IMAP or remote email, this will be retained within it's datastore, which can be found at ~/.local/share/akonadi/.

Thanks, that's what I suspected estimating by size. Is copying it to another account normal (i.e. Kmail would pick that up), or it's not so easy?

If you have Akonadi shutdown, and the versions of MySQL are the same / compatible with each other, then it should be safe to copy the ~/.local/share/akonadi folder from one system to another. You may wish to include all relevant Akonadi configuration files in ~/.kde4/share/config/ and ~/.config/ as well however to ensure the transfer completes smoothly.