encrypt individual mailboxes?

Started by pierce inverarity, October 22, 2011, 08:49:59 AM

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pierce inverarity

Hi - I am wondering if it is possible to encrypt individual mailboxes, rather than encrypting my entire Library/Mail folder.  The reason is that I really only have a need to encrypt client-related email, and if I could just do that, backing up my mail would be a lot leaner/faster because it wouldn't involve a giant 6GB sparse bundle.

Would I do this by just creating an application association from Mail.app to those individual mailbox files?  Is that the intended use of application associations?  I just want to double check this question because I am kind of paranoid about getting it wrong and somehow messing up backups...

Thanks!

greg

#1
Quote from: "pierce inverarity"Hi - I am wondering if it is possible to encrypt individual mailboxes, rather than encrypting my entire Library/Mail folder.  The reason is that I really only have a need to encrypt client-related email, and if I could just do that, backing up my mail would be a lot leaner/faster because it wouldn't involve a giant 6GB sparse bundle.

Would I do this by just creating an application association from Mail.app to those individual mailbox files?  Is that the intended use of application associations?  I just want to double check this question because I am kind of paranoid about getting it wrong and somehow messing up backups...

Thanks!

It's not possible to safely encrypt just one mailbox, however, with respect to backups, if you're using Espionage's built-in backups, there should be little difference in speed between backing up a 6GB sparsebundle and a 1GB sparsebundle (once the initial backup is done) as only the changes are backed up. We're working on enhancing Espionage's compatibility with other backup software as well, so stay tuned. ;)
Follow @espionageapp@twitter.com or @espionage@mstdn.io for news and updates!

pierce inverarity

#2
Thanks for the answer Greg.  I realize that Espionage does incremental backups; the problem comes when I back up my Espionage backup files to Time Machine and my online backup service.  Every time I do an (admittedly quick) Espionage backup of my email, that's a 6GB file that has to go to Time Machine and my online service.  That's what I'm trying to avoid here.  

It's not a huge deal but it would really be nice if I could speed things up by targeting that small minority of mailboxes that actually have sensitive data.  Sounds like that's not an option though... perhaps it's a feature you guys could consider for future versions if it's not too difficult to add.

Thanks!
Rich

greg

#3
Quote from: "pierce inverarity"Thanks for the answer Greg.  I realize that Espionage does incremental backups; the problem comes when I back up my Espionage backup files to Time Machine and my online backup service.  Every time I do an (admittedly quick) Espionage backup of my email, that's a 6GB file that has to go to Time Machine and my online service.  That's what I'm trying to avoid here.

Yes, we understand your concern very well, it is one we share with you, so you can rest assured we're working on it, and all we ask is just a bit of patience, this shall be addressed. Have a great weekend! ;)
Follow @espionageapp@twitter.com or @espionage@mstdn.io for news and updates!

pierce inverarity

#4
Awesome, thanks Greg... I really appreciate the responsiveness.  You have a nice weekend as well...

pierce inverarity

#5
Quote from: "greg"It's not possible to safely encrypt just one mailbox, however, with respect to backups, if you're using Espionage's built-in backups, there should be little difference in speed between backing up a 6GB sparsebundle and a 1GB sparsebundle (once the initial backup is done) as only the changes are backed up. We're working on enhancing Espionage's compatibility with other backup software as well, so stay tuned. ;)

Hi Greg - After having gotten some experience backing up to both Time Machine and Backblaze, I wanted to come back and revisit this thread.  In reading through it, I see that I misunderstood something something in your response.  It seems you were suggesting that only 1GB of a changed sparsebundle would have to be backed up.  That's been exactly what I observed -- that when I back up my mail, Backblaze soon tells me that there is 1GB of new data to download.  (Sorry about the misunderstanding).

That's definitely better than the 6GB I originally was worried about!  

Still, I am in a constant state of doing backups because Backblaze often hasn't finished up backing up the last chunk of data from Espionage's mail backup, before the next one starts.  So, I was just curious if you had an idea as to when you might be making those improvements you mentioned, wherein compatibility with backup programs will be enhanced (presumably so that incremental backups are more efficient?)

Thank you!

Rich

edit: PS Don't mean to stress you out here on the feature request, I'm just curious.  No big rush.   ;)

Butterfly0013

#6
I exported the individual mailbox folders to my desktop and then was able to drag them into Espionage.

zsolt

#7
Hello Butterfly0013,
Thanks for your input.
I tested this too, and I'm not sure why it was originally claimed that this is not possible.
As far as I know, it is not even needed to put the folder on the desktop, you can leave it where it is i.e in ~/Library/Mail
Cheers
Zsolt
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