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attachments & the .eml format

Submitted by Anonymous on 26. June 2008 - 15:05.

I've successfully (as far as I can tell) downloaded a full backup using Gmail Backup. I can open the .eml files in Thunderbird (or Outlook Express) -- however the attachments are not "preserved" as I'd expect. The attachments are displayed encoded in-line inside the message.

Are the attachments still accessible somehow?

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#1Submitted by jan.svec on 4. July 2008 - 17:10.

fixed

Hi,
this error should be fixed in the 0.12 release of GMail Backup. Could you try this version and report if it helps?

Jan
#2Submitted by smap (not verified) on 8. July 2008 - 20:12.

Great!

Attachments seem to be coming through successfully this time. Now ... hopefully I can get tags this time as well and I'll be one happy man.

If tags come down OK I'm going to try importing the whole lot in to a new empty GMail account which I'm thinking basically constitutes a full round-trip test.
#3Submitted by smap (not verified) on 8. July 2008 - 20:58.

Almost

When opening the .eml files in the latest Thunderbird on XP, some attachments are named "winmail.dat" while other's names are preserved fine. I have verified that (2 of) the "winmail.dat" files are named properly (NOT "winmail.dat") inside Gmail's UI.

I tested saving one of the "winmail.dat" files from the .eml. The file was actually a .mp3 file. I renamed the file to test.mp3 and it plays fine ... so at least the files are preserved but seemingly their file names are lost.
#4Submitted by jan.svec on 9. July 2008 - 11:35.

Hi

Hi,
the problem is maybe in the e-mail with mp3. It doesn't specify the filename, co both the Thunderbird and GMail have to guess which filename it is. Thunderbird guesses 'winmail.dat', GMail tries to look at the content of the file and chooses the filename based on the ID3 tag.

It is not problem of GMail Backup, because we don't touch the body of e-mail, we only store the message which we get via IMAP from GMail.

Jan
#5Submitted by smap (not verified) on 9. July 2008 - 14:45.

I'll double-check

Hi Jan - thanks for the reply. I only spot-checked 2 emails with large attachments ... the other attachment I checked however was a Camtasia recording with a .rec extension. I'm not sure if any meta-data is stored in those types of files or not? The file name of that file was also preserved in Gmail OK.

I think also with the latest version, resuming a download doesn't seem to be working. My Gmail account is fairly large (1651 MB) so typically running Gmail Backup for one reason or another takes 2-3 tries before the entire account is downloaded. With the last version I was using (.10) I would just re-run the same command and it would sense what emails were already downloaded and skip those. With .12 it seems to start over each time.
#6Submitted by jan.svec on 9. July 2008 - 15:25.

Download resume not working

Hi smap,
can you try to configure Thunderbird to directly connect to GMail IMAP and look at the problematic attachments? They should look the same as in EML file, because we only save the binary stream sent by GMail IMAP server.

The second problem you are reporting is with the download resume feature. Have you any details for the problems you observe? What does it mean "it seems to start over each time". It happens during the backup or restoration of your GMail account? And what is the difference in the behavior of 0.10 and 0.12 version?

Thank you for details
Jan
#7Submitted by smap (not verified) on 9. July 2008 - 15:31.

I will try connecting to

I will try connecting to Gmail through Thunderbird later today. I'm doing a full backup now and I'm only at about 9%. I'll report back here when I am able to test that.

As for the download resume issue, it happens during backup (not restore). What I mean is ... previously (0.10 version) if I was doing a full backup of the Gmail account, and say I got to 10% but the backup was interrupted for some reason (maybe the network goes down). If I issued the backup command again, Gmail backup would see all the emails downloaded so far and skip them and resume the download after 10%. Now (version 0.12) the download process starts all over at 0%. Make sense?
#8Submitted by smap (not verified) on 9. July 2008 - 18:12.

Looks like the Thunderbird

Looks like the Thunderbird test went as you suggested. Several different types of attachments (even .jpgs) sometimes come through in TBird (either direct IMAP access or by opening the .eml files) as winmail.dat files -- yet Gmail figures out their content-type. I am hopeful that restoring Gmail Backup .eml files in to a new Gmail account "preserves" Gmail's ability to know the file type.
#9Submitted by jan.svec on 9. July 2008 - 18:33.

Good question

It is good question :-) Can you try to backup these emails and then restore them into other GMail account or edit the EML file (you have to change the Message-ID and X-Gmail-Recieved headers) and restore them into the same account and look at the attachments. I guess that GMail preserves it's "magic" behavior for restored emails too.

Jan
#10Submitted by smap (not verified) on 9. July 2008 - 18:43.

I'm hoping to get a full

I'm hoping to get a full backup done today with 0.12. If I do, I will attempt a full restore tonight. I have never made it this far though - so we'll see what happens! ;)
#11Submitted by jan.svec on 9. July 2008 - 18:52.

Be prepared for errors

Be prepared for errors during restoration, because it seems that GMail IMAP closes the connection after upload of few megabytes of emails. The upload simply freezes and nothing happens.

The solution will be included in the next release (it will be released in a week), we have to add some timeout to all network operations and possibly reconnect to GMail server if it closes the connection.

Jan
#12Submitted by smap (not verified) on 9. July 2008 - 18:54.

Aha - I will wait for the

Aha - I will wait for the next release then. My goal then tonight is just to get a full backup AND get tag information (which I was previously unable to get). Thanks!
#13Submitted by jan.svec on 10. July 2008 - 20:24.

New relase

Hi smap,
could you try the new 0.97 release of GMail Backup?

Thanks!
Jan
#14Submitted by smap (not verified) on 10. July 2008 - 20:30.

Testing now Jan. :)

Testing now Jan. :) Download resume seems to work again! GUI is nice and it looks like the CLI is still available which I appreciate as well. I'll let you know how I make out ... it takes a LONG time for me to test a full backup so I probably will not complete it today.
#15Submitted by Brad (not verified) on 17. December 2008 - 3:36.

10061 error...

Is this a Gmail setup problem? This is happening on both my laptop and desktop.
#16Submitted by Anonymous on 3. February 2010 - 19:03.

I vve tasted one of the eml

I vve tasted one of the eml format. And do not think that this is very useless. Cause many people are working with it with great succes. I wrote an essay on this topic.