Hello,

I have just started using Kontakt as mail, calendar and what-not program. Sofar I like it. I managed to import everything from Thunderbird so I can just continue with my daily routine.
Thunderbird has all its files in one folder ~/.thunderbird. I have always made a complete backup of this folder on an external harddisk and even after doing a fresh install of an other operating system I simply placed the backup folder in my home folder and Thunderbird would know it all: accounts, mails, calendar items through lighting, contacts, everything.
How to do this with Kontakt? I found my mails and parts of my contacts in the ~/.local/share folder, but where is the rest? What do I need to backup so I have a complete backup of all my data?
Who can help me with this?

DeMus wrote:Hello,

I have just started using Kontakt as mail, calendar and what-not program. Sofar I like it. I managed to import everything from Thunderbird so I can just continue with my daily routine.
Thunderbird has all its files in one folder ~/.thunderbird. I have always made a complete backup of this folder on an external harddisk and even after doing a fresh install of an other operating system I simply placed the backup folder in my home folder and Thunderbird would know it all: accounts, mails, calendar items through lighting, contacts, everything.
How to do this with Kontakt? I found my mails and parts of my contacts in the ~/.local/share folder, but where is the rest? What do I need to backup so I have a complete backup of all my data?
Who can help me with this?

Really nobody here to help me? Such a shame since I do need to re-install my OS. Something is wrong with the local settings and I can't get that right.
Before the reinstall I do need to backup all data from Kontakt or I am so screwed.
Please help. Thank you.

I too must move from one machine to another and need to move all that is within Kontact. My searching has not found anything current either. Everything I have found posted on the Internet is very old and makes reference to kmail 1.x and outdated technologies like nepomuk. I cannot believe that an application as powerful, configurable, and full featured as Kontact would not have a utility to easily migrate user data. I suspect we have just not found it yet.

If you find a solution, please post it here.

Thanks!

Darrell

I just discovered a couple of tools that may be useful: Akonaditray and Akonadi Console.

Akonaditray allowed me to make a backup. Restoring this on my new system almost worked. It looks like all is there, but kmail now crashes on load. Using Korganizer and Kaddressbook reveals my calendars and address book okay.

Kmail outputs an error that "Parent collections can not contain sub-collections."

Running the debugger in Akonadi Console shows this error associated with the inbox of one of my IMAP accounts.

I will continue to experiment with this.

Darrell

Rebooting solved the fatal error with kmail.

However, before rebooting I was able to move the error message dialog box out of the way and see what appears to be all of my email, IMAP and local. However after the reboot the local mail is missing.

I also discovered that the Akonaditray backup and restore did not include identities or accounts from kmail.

This is what I ended up doing:

On the old system:
1) Exported address book as a vcard 3.0 file (File -> Export).
2) Exported RSS feeds (File -> Export).
3) Exported keys with Kleopatra (File -> Export secret keys).
4) Found the calendar files as ical files (right click on the desired calendar in the calendar selector and select properties) and copied them.
5) Exported kwallet as XML (File -> Export as xml).

Copied all these files to the new system. I created hidden folders in the home directory for the address book and calendars as Akonadi will use these files.

On the new system:
1) Imported keys with Kleopatra.
2) Imported kwallet.
3) Started Kontact and recreated my IMAP accounts.
4) Imported my address book (Add new address book, select vcard file).
5) Imported my calendars (Add calendar, select ical calendar file).

It took a bit to recreate my IMAP accounts and reconfigure Kontact the way I like, but now everything is working well.

A few notes:
I could not get the Akonaditray backup and restore to work properly, so I gave up. The only email accounts that I use are IMAP anyways, so the messages are on the server.
Akonaditray backup does give a warning that it does not back up all data, but did not give specifics.

I did notice in Kmail that there is an export kmail data option under tools, but I did not try that. Perhaps this the rest of the data and the reason my email did not migrate properly.
I did have some local email messages that I did not move. They were from an old experiment to recover email from evolution many years ago. I still have the original raw data form evolution and may try to recover these some day.

I seriously considered going back to Thunderbird, but I do prefer Kontact and the semantic desktop. All in all it was worth the hassle to move things. Rebuilding email from scratch also allowed me to set up the folders like I should have previously, but never took the time. Things like setting up mailing lists and expire settings on a per folder basis.

I hope my experimenting may help someone else. I'm not sure if this is the best or only way to migrate Kontact data, but it worked for me. Hopefully a Kontact/Akonadi developer will document the best way to migrate all the data.

If anyone tries the kmail data export, please let us know what it does.

Darrell

Hello Darrell,

It seems like a whole of work and I simply can't believe there is not an easier way to do this. I asked the question because I do a weekly back-up of my data, including mail, contacts, etc. I used to use Thunderbird and simply copied the complete ".thunderbird" folder in my home folder. Works great.
Now, if I have to make a backup I first have to find out where to find data and copy a whole lot of different folders/files to have it all.
As you also mentioned, there must be a more convenient way to do this.

Who can help?

I looked a very little into the kmail -> Tools -> Export Kmail Data.

This starts an application named PIM Setting Exporter.

I have not tried it, and unfortunately there is no documentation and the program itself does not shed any light on what it does.

Perhaps between AkonadiTray backup and PIM Setting Exporter there may be a solution.

I wonder if any of the PIM/Adonadi developers read this forum and give some direction.

A single standalone utility that could backup and restore all of the data and configuration of Kontact or even the greater KDE PIM would be awesome. Something that would run off a rescue CD would be ideal for recovering data from systems that no longer boot.

As you mention Thunderbird and Firefox are so easy, copy the profiles and you have it.

Well, curiosity got the best of me, so I backed up my home directory, and tried the PIM Setting Exporter. I am always so leery of undocumented software as what I think it might do, may be nothing at all close to what it does do.

It offered me a rather large selection of items to backup and then created a zip file of them. It looks fairly complete, but I did not try a restore on a newly installed system. Perhaps later I will create a VM and try the restore.

I really wish that KDE would force applications to have documentation. I know the standard Linux answer to lacking documentation is to "read the source code", but to me at least, that in not in line with the "KDE Experience" or at least what I expect the KDE Experience should be.

Don't get me wrong, I love KDE and have been using it since version 1.0. I have tried other DE's and WM's but always come back to KDE. The only other environment that has my interest is Enlightenment, and although hard to believe, its documentation is even worse.

If I have more time today or tomorrow, I will see if I can set up a VM and try a restore.

I built a VM with a fresh install of KDE and tried to restore Kontact from the PIM Setting Exporter.

It appears as though it will restore a number of things, potentially most or all of what is there. I did not allow it to access my email accounts, so I did get a bunch of messages that I think would not have appeared if the PIM Setting Exporter could access my IMAP data.

It still appears that my address book would need to be moved manually. This may be due to the way I created it and not all address books may have this problem.

My calendars were restored.

I do hope that the developers will provide some documentation at some point. I am going to email the developer of PIM Setting Exporter.

The alternative is to spend a bunch of time either going through the restore process many times playing with each option and figuring it out, or going through the source code.

My guess is that with a documented procedure, backing up or moving PIM data and configuration should be possible.

Found some documentation:

At http://docs.kde.org one can find the Kontact handbook. It is not very comprehensive, but it has a link to the kmail handbook. The kmail handbook has a link to the handbook for the PIM Setting Exporter.

I had previously searched for PIM Setting Exporter, but did not find anything. One must search for pimsettingexporter to find it.

Unfortunately the documentation is not very comprehensive, but I do get the impression that what we want to accomplish can be done.

I have emailed the author of the PIM Setting Exporter.

Hopefully he can provide a bit more information.

I returned to Thunderbird and just copy the hidden .thunderbird folder to make a complete backup of mails, settings, contacts and calendar. Works great. No more Kontact for me. Sorry. Would love to use it but the problems are greater than the benefits, so what else can I do?

Backup all-data in kmail isn't easy, if you want only to copy a Folder. That is because kmail, and other kontact-related programs, uses, and needs, akonadi.

Akonadi stores e.g. all your accounts and it takes care of retrieving and sending E-mails. So if you want to backup your E-mail accounts you must have to backup some akonadi-data too. As akonadi is a db-server. you will have to stop akonadi if you want to restore your backupped data. See link above.

See this blogpost to get infos about where your data is stored.

AFAIK the easiest way to backup your data, is to backup your complete home-folder.

a kde-Developer told me once, he isn't responsible for Documentation, because if he write it, it would be more technical than userfriendly...

franku wrote:Backup all-data in kmail isn't easy, if you want only to copy a Folder. That is because kmail, and other kontact-related programs, uses, and needs, akonadi.

Akonadi stores e.g. all your accounts and it takes care of retrieving and sending E-mails. So if you want to backup your E-mail accounts you must have to backup some akonadi-data too. As akonadi is a db-server. you will have to stop akonadi if you want to restore your backupped data. See link above.

See this blogpost to get infos about where your data is stored.

AFAIK the easiest way to backup your data, is to backup your complete home-folder.

a kde-Developer told me once, he isn't responsible for Documentation, because if he write it, it would be more technical than userfriendly...

There are times when I don't want to copy my complete home-folder and want to start fresh, but yet move my data like calendars, address books, etc., but not move the configuration data.

I would gladly take documentation that is too technical, as at least that gives me the chance to learn and figure it out, rather than guess and reverse engineer.

I just completed a successful, yet arduous copying of a KMail configuration from one computer to another, across distributions (OpenSUSE to Kubuntu) as well! Hopefully, this will help out a few folks down the line.

My configuration was made more complicated because I also use Filters in KMail. So the intention was to migrate everything without having to manually rename or reassign folders. Something I found rather grating the first few times I tried this. Anyway here are the steps:

WARNING: Normal disclaimers that this may not work as planned for you. I simply explain how it worked for me, and if you have a new setup, this would be ideal.

1. Backup your original email In Kontact > Mail > Tools > Export KMail Data > File >
   Back Up Data.
2. In the new setup, go to Kontact > Mail > Tools > Export KMail Data > File >
   Restore Data.
   
   Crucial Step!
   
3. Wait for the dialog boxes asking for the sign in passwords for your email accounts. Once all of them have been filled in without error, then proceed to the next step. Do not do anything else!
4. In Kontact, go to Settings > Configure KMail > Accounts.
5. Modify the names of the receiving accounts so that their names match the names in the original. To ensure they matched, I clicked on Modify in the original Kontact and pasted the exact information into the new KMail account.

After all that shenanigans, the email accounts should now have the same email structure such that you can export and import filters between setups, unless you accidentally deleted the akonadi Local Folders account like I did . You should now be able to finish the KMail import process without major issues.