How can I unobstrusively backup a few client's email?

Question

This is a small office. Our web/email server is a shared host. In the office we have a windows 2008 box up all the time that runs our NAS and a couple other services. I don't have access to the ISP admin stuff, but I assume it has cpanel or something like that. I can get access if I ask.

I want to get email backed up from the server to our NAS without the users having to do anything.

I suppose I could set up Outlook on that server with everyone's account, but that's a terrible idea, maybe (would sent mail. The boss uses outlook, but we have Apple Mail and Thunderbird clients too. I guess the important thing is that outlook look at the backups, so boss is happy. Then again, maybe it should be stored in whatever is the most portable format (that will work on NTFS)

This is for about 10 users.

Answer 1

This would be trivial if you had your own mail server (and it's one of the reasons people have them) - unfortunately you only have two options in this situation.

Either your mail provider offers this functionality (we can't say without knowing who it is), or you'll have to do it client-side. Client-side means either pushing the mail from the individual workstations to a central location (horrible) or setting up a mail client with everyone's username/password to fetch copies of their mail from the server at regular intervals (slightly less horrible).

The only good solution to this is to host your own mail, if your host doesn't offer it. Or switch to a mail host with the features you need.