I’ve been looking for a way to backup my kmail for transfer 13.1 to 13.2 and found “Pim Settings Exporter” under “Kmail” > “Tools” > “Export KMail settings” which is new to me.
It presents a k-pim context menu where I ticked off relevant kmail selections; it generates a younameit.zip file.
Seems to easy;) Anyone tried it? (I will give it a go after work this evening.)
I gave it a try, import the pimsettingexporter zip file into 13.2 Kmail, and promptly screwed it up; it’s not intuitive – but, it’s easy if you read the help manual.…
At first, I could not see the way to import, so I unzipped the file and started manually placing folders; even went back to 13.1 and copied over my .local kmail folders – wrong! Don’t do what I did!
The 1st thing one should do is read “The pimsettingexporter Handbook” in 13.2
Kmail > Help > Using Kmail, look under “Exporting” > last paragraph > Click on the pimsettingexporter link.
There I found that I didn’t even need to open Kmail – hint, hint – as you can enter “pimsettingexporter” in a terminal – hint, hint.
BTW, we want all Kmanagers closed.
In pimsettingexporter, Click on “File” to get the context menu and there you will find “Restore Data” tab.
All I had to do was point it at my backup folder & mykmail131.zip
I will add a couple of unknowns at this point:
It works! So, I look at my account settings and find two of everything (hope I deleted the right ones) from my 1st messing around.
Next time, it will be “pimsettingexporter” in a terminal at the very beginning for sure!
Try it; you will likeit
PS: you IMAP users will need to read the manual as you will need to 1st backup to a local folder
Found #1, at least in 13.1 it’s: /home/myname/.kde4/share/config/emailidentities – I think:P
On 2014-10-22 01:56, snakedriver wrote:
> PS: you IMAP users will need to read the manual as you will need to 1st
> backup to a local folder
Nay. We have our IMAP email safe in the imap SERVER 
(I don’t use kmail much, so I could be wrong. I suppose you need to
backup your settings, at least).
But thanks for your writeup, it is interesting and will help many, I guess.
Maybe, if you reuse your home when migrating from one release to the
next, you don’t have to do anything.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” at Telcontar)
Here it is:
https://docs.kde.org/stable/en/kdepim/pimsettingexporter/pimsettingexporter.pdf
I used pimsettingexporter to transfer (via thumb key) & test on my laptop where Kmail had not been opened.
1st thing I found was that there is a “PIM Setting Exporter” tab under Start > Applications > Internet > Email, click it & you are up and running.
Next thing was, it again asked me for the “Identities-number?” location; I could not navigate in the provided menu to /home/myname/.kde4/share/config/emailidentities, and again was relagated to creating a subfolder under local folder, which I later deleted as the data made it to the right place.
Forget that 2nd location issue that I posted earlier, it was simply an additional folder that I had created in trying to backup 13.1 Kmail and pimsettingexporter was wanting to put it back in the original location but the folder didn’t exist; not an issue if yoe not have not created additional mail folders.
My emails didn’t get transferred; appears that we will still have to copy over /home/yourname/.local/share/local-mail
Have fun!
Hm, I just tried it on KDE 4.14.2, and it did export all mails from my local folders to the archive.
The mails from my IMAP accounts were not exported, but that doesn’t make sense anyway.
I haven’t tried importing yet though.
I didn’t see any question about an “Identities-number?” either. All my identities, account settings and all other KDEPIM settings and data (like contacts, notes, even Akregator’s RSS feeds) have been exported to the archive as well AFAICS (it’s just a zip archive).
I take it you used version 4.11.x that’s included in openSUSE 13.1?
Maybe there were some bugs/missing features that have been fixed/added in the meantime…
Glad it worked for you & happy to hear that! Thanks:)
Yes Wolfi, I was in openSuSE 13.1 with KDE 4.11.5 to try pimssettingexporter export Kmail on my desktop. Then I restored it in openSuSE 13.2 KDE.14.1 on both my desktop and laptop, using the same zip file.
I agree with your last statement, we have seen significant changes with each iteration of KDE. From what I have recently read, there have been marked improvements in the app i.e., in the past year it was renamed from “backupmail” as the KDE team added features. I may even start using the other apps it backs up, heck of a feature!
Lastly, my Kmail config may have screwed up the app as I add various folders e.g., “Save” where I stick all the important email that I think I will need to get to quickly.
I’m gonna use it again for sure when GM hits the street & I do a fresh install.
Well, I do have some extra folders as well in my local folders resource (actually it’s a mixedmaildir resource, i.e. “KMail Folders”, here, and two of the “folders” are actually mbox files. This dates back to early KDE3 versions 11 years ago… 
).
I’m gonna use it again for sure when GM hits the street & I do a fresh install.
If you do encounter problems, it might be a good idea to file bug reports:
http://bugs.kde.org