Bug 76690 - Backup and restore functionality for all PIM data
Summary: Backup and restore functionality for all PIM data
Status: CONFIRMED
Alias: None
Product: kontact
Classification: Applications
Component: general (show other bugs)
Version: unspecified
Platform: Compiled Sources Linux
: NOR wishlist
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: kdepim bugs
URL:
Keywords:
: 50147 79005 150496 197286 214278 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2004-03-03 20:56 UTC by nagytam
Modified: 2022-07-03 07:22 UTC (History)
17 users (show)

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Description nagytam 2004-03-03 20:56:08 UTC
Version:            (using KDE Devel)
Installed from:    Compiled sources

A unified backup / restore (export/import) functionality is missing, which could handle all PIM data together... 

A simple solution could be a tar/bz file  including all components' data...
Comment 1 Casper Planken 2004-04-02 00:42:51 UTC
It would also be great if at least the backup process could be triggered from a konsole - to put in a cronjob!
Comment 2 Michael Jahn 2004-07-25 15:03:32 UTC
Wow. These are all very similar, yet not similar enough to be dupes (IMHO): bug 55827, bug 77744, bug 85656, bug 34382 and bug 76690.
Comment 3 Michael Jahn 2004-07-25 20:12:53 UTC
*** Bug 79005 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 4 Andrius Kazimieras Kasparavičius 2005-08-02 02:39:29 UTC
any news after more than year time? :)
Comment 5 Halim I 2006-05-07 14:31:02 UTC
Please re-open / re-vitalize this request!

KDE-PIM currently stores contacts, dates/events and emails in various different places. It is imperative that normal users get a simple way to backup and restore their own user-data, both from command line and from the GUI.

While Kaddressbook can export all contact data (except photo), what the users need is ONE backup-option that stores 100% of the information in kontact/KDE-PIM in *one* compressed file that can be easily imported after a crash or mishap.
Similarly, it should as previously stated be possible to run this from the commandline as (for instance) "kdepimbackup -all -file kdepimbackup.tgz"

Please look into this again. In outlook one can "simply" just copy the outlook.PST file, but in KDE which should be easier, one have to create multiple scripts etc to get only close...

Thanks much for re-opening / re-vitalizing this popular request!
Comment 6 S. Burmeister 2006-05-07 15:13:20 UTC
Aaron Seigo once metioned, that he plans to develop a backup-tool for KDE4, so maybe you could contact him.

IMHO, it would make more sense to follow the idea of a general backup-tool that applications can register with than have one in each application. That way apps would only have to care about and put ressources into which data can be backed up and where it is stored, rather than developing their own backup-tool.

Apps register to the backup-tool and have nothing to do with the backing-up itself. They can even change the places and filenames with every new version without causing any hassle.

All the user would have to do is open one backup-tool and tick the apps and data s/he wishes to export, be it email, addresses, bookmarks, kopete-contact etc.
Comment 7 Thiago Macieira 2006-05-14 18:02:09 UTC
That tool should be Kamion.
Comment 8 Jean-Philippe Monteiro 2007-06-07 11:51:10 UTC
I've only had 91 votes for this one, which I believe covers up pretty much the present request & the comments on File 'spreading' & about _not_ creating 1 Backup-system per each app:

Bug 135029: Give Kontact a centralized, All-Files-in-same-folder, architecture.

We all share in common the concern about the 'spreading' of files around many places, following a global KDE pattern rather than a Per-App pattern. I don't know about Kamion, and be probably far away from KDE4 for a while (old hardware) but I understand that a Backup utility able to register apps should appear in the said app - 'settings' menu maybe ?

And still think that a centralized 'filesystem' for kontact is the way for all type of users easy management of backup. Who said Cron ? I can't get cron to work here, too complicated for me as it is, but Konserve is good for me, if only I had a single target to define...

Backup startegy is up to everyone liking; Kontact should help more in this.

Cheers.

Jean-Philippe
Comment 9 Thomas McGuire 2007-07-17 14:47:15 UTC
Similar bugs: 
 bug 34382 
 bug 55827 
 bug 76690 
 bug 77744 
 bug 85656 
 bug 89100 
 
 According to some people, these bug reports differ slightly in details, so I won't mark them as duplicates now. 
Comment 10 FiNeX 2007-12-11 17:40:18 UTC
*** Bug 50147 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 11 FiNeX 2007-12-11 17:41:01 UTC
*** Bug 150496 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 12 George Tsiamis 2008-12-30 20:35:42 UTC
It is extremely necessary to get a unified and easy to use backup and restore option as soon as possible. Please this should be addressed and be solved quickly.
Comment 13 FiNeX 2009-05-23 15:40:53 UTC
Will "akonadi" help to implement this feature?
Comment 14 yusuf.martin 2009-09-05 18:49:44 UTC
Evolution has a simple backup/restore system that works very well, using tar I think, especially when one wants to do a clean install of a new distro. It is very difficult and tiresome to do a backup and restore with Kontact. I think Kontact needs something like the system used in Evolution.
Comment 15 Juha Tuomala 2009-09-05 19:10:42 UTC
Me and my mom also have some Openoriffice documents in my home directory, could kontact backup them too? This could be the great feature!!!!!1
Comment 16 FiNeX 2009-09-05 19:45:48 UTC
@Juha: no, it is out of the scope of kontact.
If you need to backup files on your home directory, please use specific software.
Comment 17 FiNeX 2009-11-13 10:54:35 UTC
*** Bug 214278 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 18 gerryd 2009-11-22 21:18:18 UTC
I agree with Yusuf,  Evolution has a simple backup/restore system that works very well, when one wants to do a clean install of a new distro or keep other installations sychronized. 
Kontact is great but I also agree that it is very difficult and tiresome to do a backup and restore with Kontact. 
Today, people expect and rightly so that software should be user friendly and Kontact definitely needs something like the system used in Evolution.
Comment 19 Christophe Marin 2010-09-20 01:30:28 UTC
*** Bug 197286 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 20 Dj YB 2011-05-27 18:50:44 UTC
wow this request is still open after 7 years!!
anyone know if this is being done?
Comment 21 FiNeX 2011-05-27 19:11:54 UTC
The wish is still valid :-(
Comment 22 George L. Emigh 2011-07-30 21:58:14 UTC
With kmail2 and friends using akonadi this would seem mandatory now.
Comment 23 FiNeX 2011-07-31 09:28:47 UTC
Does already exist a tool or a procedure which allows to create akonadi backup? (manually dumping the akonadi DB is not valid :-) )
If it doesn't exists I suggest to open a new wish against Akonadi for adding a backup functionality and set this as duplicated (remember to move the votes between the two bugs)


bye :-)


P.S: Anyway Kmail 2 is still an alpha so it shouldn't be considered :-P :-P :-P
Comment 24 John Hamilton 2013-10-11 23:29:47 UTC
Please raise this issue again.  On my old system, I did a complete backup to a zip file (about 380Mbyte) and I can see it contains a lot of stuff (I keep my old emails).  Moving to a new installation, I attempted to restore via Tools/ExportKmailData/File/Restore Data/Do you want to continue (really... I do a restore via the backup menu ???) Select the .zip file, tick all the boxes: Resources, Mail Xport, Config, Identify, Mails, Akonadi and...
I get a log of lots of stuff that has been restored (except for filters... but I don't think I had any).
But when I look I have lots of identities but no contacts and no mail... just a series of entries in mail that say akonadi_maildir_resource_0rc and they're empty and I can only get rid of them by deleting some strange identities that have been invented (along with other identities where all the important stuff has been lost).
But here's an interesting sidebar: I got here because I wanted to do it cleanly.  But before, I tried a dirty way: copying the .kde and .local directories across.  That didn't work, but when I added a restore, I did get my emails and contacts, but also a lot of odd effects.
So... there is a bug in the backup/restore process and the restore level is 4.10.5 (not sure what version of backup I used).
And... how do I get my contacts and emails back ?
Comment 25 brice83 2013-10-12 12:56:51 UTC
same here, i also et a lot of dialog windows about my imap "sent", "draft".... folders, and i can't select the right one because only local folder appear.
Comment 26 John Hamilton 2013-10-16 10:29:48 UTC
Despaired... Kontact and Kate were the two things that kept KDE alive for me.  Now using Thunderbird on Unity.  Sorry.