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Show HN: Horcrux, a Mac app to back up or move your IMAP emails (thehorcrux.com)

54 points by suhastech ↗ HN
Hi,

Creator here. I'm sort of reposting the same thing from about 208 days ago. The first version kinda sucked. I guess this is my first lean not-really-a startup experience. The new version is much better. http://thehorcrux.com/why-i-built-horcrux-app/

Let me know what you think,

Here are some promo codes: 97HNR6HW4EPH K9R7KTWPTJJ6 WPM3MK4WXNHY 3P7N9RNPF4M4 3N49NP9P7TR6

Cheers, Suhas Sharma

20 comments

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suhastech
Hi,

Creator here. I'm sort of reposting the same thing from about 208 days ago. The first version kinda sucked. I guess this is my first lean not-really-a startup experience. The new version is much better. http://thehorcrux.com/why-i-built-horcrux-app/

Let me know what you think,

Here are some promo codes (Mac App Store):

97HNR6HW4EPH K9R7KTWPTJJ6 WPM3MK4WXNHY 3P7N9RNPF4M4 3N49NP9P7TR6

Also, I haven't done any marketing really. If you want to blog about it and need promo codes be sure to mail me at suhas AT thehorcrux

Cheers,

Suhas Sharma

toomuchtodo
Thank you.

I've been using a combination of imapsync, offlineimap, and a windows utility called MailStore.

If it works well, consider it bought. Testing now.

rb2k_
Just to spare people the copy/paste: all codes redeemed
hundchenkatze
Hi Suhas,

First off, I was lucky enough to use one of the promo codes, thanks! This exactly what I've been looking for. I'm trying my best to leave gmail, but all my emails are stuck on big G's servers. Thus, causing me login just to search old messages.

My only problem so far was the fact that I use Two-Factor Auth. Once I remembered this, there was no problem, haha. I just went and generated a new app specific password. But, I forgot, and failed three or four times trying to use my regular password. So no problem with the app. Maybe just adding a reminder to your support docs, or display a tip in the app after several failed attempts to help forgetful users like me. =)

cjensen
Great web site. It's very clear about what your software does.

At first I thought "but Time Machine already backs up my email, and Mail.app can already copy email to a new account." But then I realized there's a niche for everything: not everyone uses Mail.app; not everyone uses Time Machine.

There's a good lesson there: just because a problem is solved doesn't mean there isn't still a niche market still available.

jwr
Plus, Mail.app has a bug that corrupts E-mails with attachments. Just google for it, you'll find dozens of reports going back several years. This means that your local Mail.app storage is not a reliable backup.
recuter
The people here who use the likes of Mutt and Alpine are also rather comfortable with IMAP backups obviously.

For a more gmail focused crowd there is the excellent Gmvault to consider: http://gmvault.org/

I'm not sure who are the people who can't use the above solutions and yet understand what IMAP is and that backups are desirable AND be willing to spend $15 for a Mac App Store app. Food for thought.

suhastech
Agreed. Maybe I could A/B test a landing page without "IMAP" (just Gmail and service names?)

Currently, looking at the support requests, people who buy it are not quite tech savvy but want to backup their emails from corporate IMAP accounts. Plus, I think the technical barrier is still quite low (select gmail/yahoo, you're done).

yanokwa
I tried gmvault and found it lacking.

I switched to CloudPull ($10) from http://goldenhillsoftware.com and it's by far the best Google backup tool I've found.

It supports Gmail, Google Contacts, Google Calendar, Google Drive/Docs, and Google Reader. The app backs up a max of 10 accounts in the background and all the data is available in standard file formats.

thibaut_barrere
Thank you for mentioning this; I just bought it, it seems to work wonderfully, and I like that they save the data in standard formats.
w1ntermute
Isn't the name "Horcrux" trademarked by JK Rowling? Seems like a bad idea to name your app after that.
suhastech
Yes, when I started this I thought it might be fun. The name seemed perfect for such a thing.

It's not trademarked but the app sucks SEO wise (the realisation came later on).

snoonan
Yes, even if it's not a registered trademark, it is trading on someone else's work. Even if it's not in a industry (in terms of legal trademark enforcement), it's unfair to those who worked hard to put it in the mind of the public.
manuletroll
Well, on the other hand, there are loads of products named after pop culture references.
datr
This is similar to a product I've been thinking about recently. Is there anything I can use to take emails from a server I trust (my company server say) encrypt them and move them to a server I don't necessarily trust (gmail for instance) and have the emails decrypt with the standard gnupg extensions that are available for most email clients?
0x0
If you don't trust the server and you need to use IMAP, remember the headers won't be encrypted, so from+to+subject+date lines (+ approximate message size) would "leak", at the very least.
sdizdar
Shameless Plug: you can continuously backup all your Google email to Dropbox, Google Drive, Box, SugarSync, or SkyDrive via cloudHQ (http://cloudHQ.net). We support txt, html, or eml export. You can also just backup certain types of attachments. And backup is continuous and in real time - as soon as a new email is added it will be transfered and backed up to your Dropbox/Box/Google Drive folder.

Here is a short video on how to setup this: http://vimeo.com/65168186