Gave this a try. It looks like the way I'll go, though a bit of a nuisance that it does not seem to get mbox (used by Tbird). Actually maildir seems to be a bit nicer in some respects, so I can probably live with having the backup in a different format from active files. Thanks to Pedro and all who replied. Best, JN On 10/09/2012 09:42 PM, Pedro I. Sanchez wrote: > You can try offlineimap at http://offlineimap.org. It has worked fine > for me for a few years now keeping local copies of my external mail in sync. > > The local copies are in Maildir format so you can access them easily > when you need them. Most distros have offlineimap already available. >