Email Archive Requests

[Christopher 1,393]

Migration from Google Apps - February 2022

For those who might not remember, in February 2022, the New Team of Weapons and Tactics migrated away from our cloud provider at the time, Google Apps. We had a suite of services with them including email. For a variety of reasons, some of which included improved security, better control of our own data, and cost savings, we migrated away from this to our own self-hosted "suite" of solutions, email included.

 

Prior to leaving Google, we halted the receiving of emails and exported all of our data into separate per-user archives on February 25, 2022. All individual files have already been restored to our member's new personal drives, but please note that emails will remain in archived format to save space and hassle with importing into the new system. For security and privacy reasons, we will not be reading or inspecting these, and will keep these archives around for a while in case anyone needs them.

 

Email Archives

If you would like an archive of your mailbox, please let us know by replying to this thread.

Once done so, we will organize your things into a download for you to retrieve them.

Email archives will be provided in the exactly the same native format that Google provided to us when we initially exported the data -- an MBOX file. MBOX files are a container for multiple, compressed email files. The simple format is an excellent organizational tool for exporting and delivering a large group of emails -- all while keeping those emails' attachments. MBOX files are a convenient and flexible file format that can be opened in any text editor -- including Microsoft Notepad, Apple TextEdit or GitHub Atom. They can also be opened in through email client applications on both MacOS and Windows. --Courtesy of CNET

In case anyone needs some assistance with opening MBOX files, here's how to open them with Mozilla Thunderbird, Apple Mail, and Outlook, also courtesy of CNET.

Open MBOX files in Mozilla Thunderbird

1. From inside the Thunderbird app, select Menu and choose Account Settings.
2. When the Account Settings screen opens, click Local Folders on the left.
3. Under the Message Storage header, select the Browse button on the bottom-right corner.
4. In the new pane that opens, navigate to the folder where you've previously saved your MBOX file and click Select Folder. When Thunderbird asks you for a restart, oblige it.

When Thunderbird re-opens, your MBOX file will appear in your inbox's Local Folders section and you'll be able to browse its full contents and attachments.

Open MBOX files in Apple Mail

1. On your Mac, open the Mail application.
2. In the File menu, select Import Mailboxes.
3. In the new pane that appears, select Files in mbox format from the option list, and hit Continue.
4. In the next window that appears, navigate to your previously saved MBOX file, select it and hit Choose.
5. In a new window, Apple Mail will confirm where you can find the newly imported MBOX file, and you can select Done to close the window.

 

How to open MBOX files in Outlook

Outlook's version of the MBOX file is the PST file. So for Outlook to read your imported file, you'll first need to convert it to PST. We advise a bit of caution if you're searching for an easier way around this common inconvenience. Less-than-reputable tools are floating around which promise to easily import your MBOX email contents. Luckily, Microsoft's own suite of apps includes a helper app for this, called Convert To Outlook: https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9pp2r0j98d0x?hl=en-us&gl=US

 

Future Plans and Recommendations

Going forward, because of the complications and resources required to host email, as well as the potential for abuse, NTWT will not be providing emails as a standard service to all members. Instead, emails will be provided as a courtesy to administration, staff, and senior members who wish to opt-in to have an email account. This will help us keep the service reliable while keeping our overall cost of operations reasonable.

Using Our Email Services for Personal Use

Please remember that as always - email at NTWT is provided as a luxury and is not a guaranteed service. Due to the high costs and the complications of hosting email, it is imperative for everyone to understand that email service may be suspended organization wide altogether at anytime and is not guaranteed to always exist. While we do not mind anyone using their NTWT email for personal reasons, we do recommend that anyone doing this be cautious of such use due to the aforementioned nature of the service.

Anyone who is using their email as a point of contact for any services that they purchase or subscribe to is strongly recommended to switch/update the email to their own personal emails for their own safety and convenience. That way, in case NTWT Email ever does go away either temporarily or permanently, members are not stuck with not being able to access a specific service simply because of an email account that no longer exists.