Re: [Evolution] Backing up Evolution Data

[Patrick O'Callaghan <poc usb ve>]

On Fri, 2015-09-04 at 12:19 -0400, Dennis Reichel wrote:
> What are the best practices for backing up Evolution data? 

I just back up my home directory. If you want more detail then look at
the Help topic on exporting Evolution data.

> Though these are (mostly) general sorts of questions, I'm using
> Evolution 3.16.5 on Fedora 22.

Same here.

> What specifically is backed up when you back up you "Backup Evolution
> Data.."?

Again, see the Help. It's important to realize that this is not
intended for regular backups. Its main purpose is to enable you to move
an Evo installation to a different machine.

> What can be done to ensure the entire email base is both downloaded
> from the imap servers and included in the backup archives?

Why would you want to do that? If your mail is on an IMAP server you
don't need to back it up. If you don't trust the server admins, then
download it yourself, either by dragging and dropping folders or using
the off-line synchronization option. Evo will not do this automatically
when you use the "backup" function.

> Are contacts backed up? (including Google Contacts and CardDav
> contacts)

No, you have to do that manually. See the Help.

> How does this handle accounts that are created by "Gnome's Online
> Account service"?

AFAIK there is no special treatment.

> What happens if this backup is restored on a non-Gnome Linux machine?

The "backup" is just a tar archive of Evo's local directories. You can
restore it anywhere, but to use it sensibly you probably need an Evo
installation, which means at least some Gnome libraries. i.e. it would
be painful (though not impossible) to read it on a Windows machine.

poc