Question for frequent restorers

Haydon · Apr 30, 2023

Say the scenario is like the following.

Day -1: you make a backup.

Day 0: you have a WU that apparently went well, and you use your machine normally, including sending and receiving emails.

Day +1: you don't like the WU after all, and you decide to restore.

How do you deal with your emails? Are they all in the cloud? What if they are not? Between day -1 and day +1 may be 100 emails!

(same issue with new or changed files)

Ghot · Apr 30, 2023

Haydon said:
Say the scenario is like the following.

Day -1: you make a backup.

Day 0: you have a WU that apparently went well, and you use your machine normally, including sending and receiving emails.

Day +1: you don't like the WU after all, and you decide to restore.

How do you deal with your emails? Are they all in the cloud? What if they are not? Between day -1 and day +1 may be 100 emails!

(same issue with new or changed files)

@Haydon
Use web mail instead.

DigitalGoat · Apr 30, 2023

As far as emails are concerned I believe there are two types of service, one deletes the mails from the server as you download them, the other keeps the mails for several weeks (depends on service provider), so depending on the type of server you are using will determine how you handle the situation. I have clean installed Windows before, setup the mail client and recieved all the mail from the previous month or so.
Personaly if a mail is worth keeping I will save it to a local folder outside the mail program and/ or print it out.

idgat · Apr 30, 2023

Haydon said:
How do you deal with your emails? Are they all in the cloud? What if they are not? Between day -1 and day +1 may be 100 emails!

Depends entirely on your email service - Web mail based ? Service provider based ? POP ? SMTP ? Exchange ?

Fabler2 · Apr 30, 2023

I also just use web mails. Any very important mail I print as PDF if I need to. The oldest email saved in the 'cloud' is dated 2005.

Steve C · Apr 30, 2023

Haydon said:
Say the scenario is like the following.

Day -1: you make a backup.

Day 0: you have a WU that apparently went well, and you use your machine normally, including sending and receiving emails.

Day +1: you don't like the WU after all, and you decide to restore.

How do you deal with your emails? Are they all in the cloud? What if they are not? Between day -1 and day +1 may be 100 emails!

(same issue with new or changed files)

There are no problems with emails if you use the IMAP mail server which is normally assigned by default and keep all your mail in IMAP linked folders. IMAP will synchronise your emails across all devices.

Haydon · Apr 30, 2023

Thanks for the comments, folks! I quote myself

Haydon said:
How do you deal with your emails? Are they all in the cloud? What if they are not? Between day -1 and day +1 may be 100 emails!

Webmail, IMAP, etc. are all in the cloud. It appears that all emails that are not in the cloud, e.g. POP emails that clear the server, are lost with a restore on day +1 which could be a restore on day +3 for example, depending on when you dislike the WU and do a restore.

Unless you make a separate backup for your emails (which could be 300 emails on day +3) before doing a restore.

Haydon said:
(same issue with new or changed files)

New or changed files are lost too, unless you make a separate backup before doing a restore.

I never heard of anyone doing or recommending doing a separate backup before restoring the backup created on day -1 hence my curiosity.

The 'hole' also appears for people like me who are the opposite of 'frequent' restorers (I am a 'very infrequent' restorer) I do a daily file and folders backup, but I can still incur a 'hole' for that unlucky one day.

Real-time 'sync' (with the cloud or local mirror) closes the 'hole' but opens a vulnerability against malware as both (or all) copies are affected, which is even worse than the 'hole' IMHO.

I know that some people are doing both daily backups and sync, bravo for the diligence

jimbo45 · Apr 30, 2023

Just copy your emails as and when you want them to a local folder fro the server and save to external device / NAS server / your cloud account etc.

Unless you are running a business it seems to me that if you are getting over 100 emails every other day -- far be it from me to judge the way people choose to conduct their social affairs but for private or domestic use --seems IMO that the voluime of emails is really large.

cheers
jimbo

Haydon · Apr 30, 2023

@jimbo45 You forgot to make a separate backup for new and changed files before restoring the backup from day -1.

jimbo45 · Apr 30, 2023

Haydon said:
@jimbo45 You forgot to make a separate backup for new and changed files before restoring the backup from day -1.

I run DATA backups from Windows to a Linux NAS server usually daily -- then every so often send those to offline storage.

For Windows System images I use Macrium.

What Windows needs is something like the old IBM mainframe cataloging system : "Generation data groups"

So day 0 would be backup.g(0).
next day backup.g(0) becomes backup.g(-1)
new current backup becomes backup.g(0).
you could nest this to as many levels as you need --typically 3 was standard the ol;d "Grandad, Dad, and son principle.

on Day 4 backup.g(-3) is removed from catalog and optionally details sent to an archive history list.
backup.g(-2) becomes backup.g(-3)
backup g(-1) becomes backup.g(-2)
previous backup.g(0) becomes backup.g(-1)
new current backup becomes backup.g(0).
All this done under the catalog / data manager in the OS

If somebody on Windows could replicate this sort of thing they'd make a fortune in flogging it. One thing about any sort of PC OS is that catalog management is totally non existent. With decent large HDD's now of many TB this type of thing is really needed.

On Linux this can "sort of be done" via logrotate. Not quite the same but can be "fixed" for other than log files.

Understanding logrotate utility

Logs are useful when you want to track usage or troubleshoot an application.As more information gets logged, however, log files use more disk space. Overtime a log file can grow to unwieldy size. Running out ofdisk space because of a large log file is a problem, but a large logfile can also slow...

docs.rackspace.com

Cheers
jimbo

Haydon · Apr 30, 2023

@jimbo45 You are missing the 'hole' issue, on that unlucky day, you could miss a day worth of user data.

FWIW, I used to like File History because the 'hole' was only 1 hour, but File History does not work.

pparks1 · Apr 30, 2023

all of my email is in Gmail. I never bother bringing anything local to my machine. I do 99% of my email on my cell phone these days.

and I also rarely ever restore. I experience very few problems on my machine, including things i do as well as windows updates.

LeLibran · Apr 30, 2023

Anyone with concerns about the potential for data loss due to a 'problem' arising between scheduled backups should be able to reduce that possibility by using a real time synchronisation solution, either via a cloud service or by using a desktop application which mirrors immediately new/changed files to an external source.

MiguelAngel11 · Apr 30, 2023

In my case I use web based e-mail client like Windows Mail. So I'll never lose an e-mail

TairikuOkami · Apr 30, 2023

I use webmail as well as a browser extension and browsers are in ramdisk on a separate partition, always recent regardless of backups.

P.S.: There is IMAP you can use instead of POP, which is obsolete and insecure.

Winuser · Apr 30, 2023

Haydon said:
Say the scenario is like the following.

Day -1: you make a backup.

Day 0: you have a WU that apparently went well, and you use your machine normally, including sending and receiving emails.

Day +1: you don't like the WU after all, and you decide to restore.

How do you deal with your emails? Are they all in the cloud? What if they are not? Between day -1 and day +1 may be 100 emails!

(same issue with new or changed files)

I only download my emails and keep the originals online. Because they are still online they redownload when I start my email client.

Wynona · Apr 30, 2023

Haydon said:
Say the scenario is like the following.

Day -1: you make a backup.

Day 0: you have a WU that apparently went well, and you use your machine normally, including sending and receiving emails.

Day +1: you don't like the WU after all, and you decide to restore.

How do you deal with your emails? Are they all in the cloud? What if they are not? Between day -1 and day +1 may be 100 emails!

(same issue with new or changed files)

I have a subscription to Microsoft 365 (Office) and use Outlook for email.

If I've had to do a clean install (just had to take the 'puter to bare metal), I have to reinstall all my apps, including MS 365.

When I add my email addresses back to Outlook, all my emails are intact, except for those I've deleted. So, I'm safe.

Caveat . . . I don't know if the same will hold true for the online? other? version of Outlook.

Haydon · Apr 30, 2023

Thanks to all who mentioned email in the cloud in some form or another, but I already mentioned that in my OP, though. Perhaps I can add that I auto-forward my Gmail to a POP account. I also export my MS Exchange emails to a spare .pst folder. That way I can backup all my emails locally, under my own control, leaving as few emails as possible as short as possible on the servers. Note that email is not a very secure technology (plain email technology that is, there are ways to make emails more secure) the most insidious that can happen is an interloper getting at the info in your emails without you ever noticing it.

I also mentioned mirroring (cloud or local) further above, the downside being that all copies are affected by malware, possibly leaving you with nothing if you only have that. You can thus do both backup and mirror, also mentioned further above.

Edit: Advance the discussion, folks

Edwin · Apr 30, 2023

Haydon said:
How do you deal with your emails?

I read 'em, then I delete 'em!

The ones I have to save, I drag into a folder as a .eml

Winuser · Apr 30, 2023

Edwin said:
I read 'em, then I delete 'em!

I do the same. The difference is that I only delete the ones that are downloaded to my computer. If I need to I can still access them on my Comcast and Gmail accounts.

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