Most sensible way to archive email to a tar.xz

Question

I would like to archive all my old email in a way that I could easily restore it later if I need to reference it.

What is the most sensible format to export/store my email before I then tar it?

eg. mbox format, or some other standard UNIX mail directory format.

Answer 1

Simply: Maildir

Reasons:

• Emails in separate files.
• Generic.
• Standardised.
• Easy to merge into existing setup.