JetBackup Community Forums

I did a download of a Jetbackup of several GB of several years of my email after previously downloading the mail, deleting it on the rented server-space, then losing the disk it was downloaded to before it could be backed-up locally. I doubt the backup exists on the server any more, and additionally, the reason for downloading it was having exceeded the server space I could afford.

My assumption was the Jetbackup download would be readable by a mail client, or at least be searchable or readable with a text editor.
I then discovered that the file-structure was that of mailDir + Dovecot dbox. The directories and Dovecot structure are, indeed, all readable. And Dovecot's comprehensive online info says that even if the files are compressed using its own plug-ins, they can be expanded using the appropriate generic decompression tool.

Well, I searched several of the files for all know magic numbers and they are not compressed by any well-known algo, plus the Dovecot index files are unreadable too, so now I'm suspecting that somehow Jetbackup has kept the file structure but compressed or encrypted the file contents with some proprietary tool.

In the download directory are a
/backup/jetbackup.index
/backup/email/...
/backup/jetbackup.configs/...

So, is this a Jetbackup issue, and is there any way I can reconstruct the files locally?

Thanks for any help you can offer this nerdy pensioner, Trev

Hello TrevM,

From what I understand, you are trying to retrieve emails from a downloaded backup created in JetBackup.

To clarify, JetBackup makes a copy of the files in the `/home/{ACCOUNT}/mail/` directory and it is stored in the `/backup/email` directory contained in the downloaded `backup.tar.gz` file. Any read/old emails would be in the `cur/` directory and any unread/new emails would be in the `new/` directory. The structure of the emails are kept in the original Maildir format, and you can paste the email files into a currently active account's `home/{ACCOUNT}/mail/cur` or `home/{ACCOUNT}/mail/new` directories to view the emails from the backup on the active account's email. You can also open the files directly using a text editor, but the format may make the email difficult to read.

If you are trying to import the emails to another format, you will need convert the emails from the Maildir format to the format used in the client. Since this is out of our scope, we do have any guides for this process.

I hope I was able to clarify and answer your questions. If you are still unable to resolve your issue, please open a ticket with our 24/7/365 helpdesk by sending an email to [email protected].

Best Regards,