There are a number of tools available to save your email from disappearing when your Carleton account is deleted.

If you would like help archiving or forwarding your email, please contact the Helpdesk at x5999.

Copy to GMail (Google Mail)
Backup and Restore with Mozilla Thunderbird
Saving to Apple Mail

Copy everything to GMail or another IMAP server

If you don't have a Gmail account, you can sign up for one for free. Do read the User License Agreement before you "agree"! (You're agreeing with that Google that what's yours is shared with them.)  Here's a link to an About.com list of "Top 17 Free Email Services."

Note that your contacts probably won't be directly available in Gmail (or whatever service). They will appear as vCard attachments (with a "Contacts" label).  You can also export them from Zimbra from the Preferences tab, going to Address Book, and at the bottom is the option to export as .cvs file for most standard mail programs.  You can do the same for your calendars, by going into the Calendars section of the Preferences tab.

NOTE: Sometimes there are problems with specific emails, such that this method will not be able to copy these emails. If this is the case, we have come up with a temporary solution that is more complicated but will be able to copy the emails that the above method cannot:

1. Download and install Mozilla Thunderbird. Follow these instructions to set it up for your Carleton email.
2. In your Gmail account, make sure IMAP is enabled.
3. In Thunderbird, go to the Tools menu and click Account Settings.
4. Click Add Account...
5. Choose Email Account and click Next.
6. Enter your name. Under email address, enter your Gmail address.
7. Select the type of incoming server as IMAP. For the name, enter imap.gmail.com. Choose the defaults for the rest of the setup.
8. When this is done, your Gmail account should have been added to the left side of the Thunderbird window. Before you can look at your Gmail inbox, you will need to enable SSL for that account. To do this, go to Tools > Account Settings, choose Server Settings under your Gmail account, and select "SSL" under Security Settings. You can now look at either your Carleton email account or your Gmail email account within Thunderbird. To copy emails, you can simply click and drag emails from your Carleton account to one of the folders in your Gmail account and they will be moved. It is important to note that doing this removes the email in question from your Carleton account completely and moves it to your Gmail account.

Using Thunderbird

The easiest way to backup and restore data from Thunderbird is through MozBackup.  If you don't already have Thunderbird on your computer, but would like to use this method, see these instructions for setting it up.

1. From the MozBackup page, choose Download Now, then choose install program (you can select either site to install from).
2. After the setup file has downloaded, run it. You can simply choose the defaults for each step of the installation process.
3. After it has finished installing, there should be a shortcut to MozBackup on your desktop. Make sure Thunderbird is not currently running, then start the program.
4. Select the "Backup a profile" option and Thunderbird from the list below it. Select the profile you want to back up, and select the directory you want to save the backup in. Be sure to remember where you save the backup to, as you'll need to know where it is when you want to restore the email.
5. Decide whether or not you want to protect the backup with a password.
6. Next you are taken to a components selection screen. The defaults here should be fine, unless you are only backing up something specific.
7. You're done! You should now have a file with an extension of .pcv in the folder you decided earlier.

Once you have backed up your email using MozBackup above, it is a simple process to restore it.

1. Make sure Thunderbird is not currently running, then run MozBackup again.
2. Choose "Restore a profile" and Thunderbird from the menu below it.
3. Choose the profile you want to restore, and the location of the file you are restoring. These should be the same as the ones you choose earlier when backing up.
4. For components selection, choose the defaults. If asked if you want to overwrite files, select yes.
5. That's it! Next time you start Thunderbird your profile will have been restored.

Using Apple's Mail program

Apple has a very good set of instructions on how to copy mail to your local computer.  You can read them here on Apple's Support website.