Exiting Gmail with local mail archive solution - destroying targeted advertising

Dear level1techs, your call to arms was heard re: taking back control from big advertisers. This triggered my long dormant desire to finally get rid of Gmail as my primary email provider.

What I’d like to achieve: download 8Gb worth of Gmail into a local open format copy that handles attachments well. I am thinking mdir at this stage because multiple files have less chance of corruption than a one large file. Also probably more suitable for incremental back ups. Then use a small mail provider with IMAP support that is not advertiser driven to send and receive email while archiving all mail locally. I am thinking gandi.net at this stage because you get a free IMAP mail service with 3Gb when you register a domain with them.

I have attached a block diagram to explain what I am trying to achieve as this will make more sense than trying to word it.

I have some questions around this setup, mainly (pl refer to notes reference on the diagram):

Note 1. I would like to retrieve email to local server via IMAP because:
1.1 I want mobile email clients to be able to read recent emails.
1.2 I want both inbox and sent mail folder contents from external mail server copied into my local mail storage

Note 2. Can fetchmail differentiate between mail already retrieved through IMAP and only download new messages? Can fetchmail get email instantly when they’re received on the external server? Can fetchmail retrieve mail through IMAP for all folders and put into separate folders?

Note 3. I need to ensure that when I send an email directly through the SMTP server from a local or mobile client, that email is copied to the local mail storage for archival. My theory is that sent mail will reside on the external mail server which can be retrieved through IMAP (via fetchmail) into the locals mail storage.

Note 4. dovecot and roundcube should be able to read and delete emails from maildir.

Note 5. Can roundcube be setup with external smtp server for mail sending?

First port of call is to see if this architecture is feasible and see if there any technical or practical hurdles. Cheers!

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Bit of an update. I have been working through this proposed setup and it appears this is entirely possible.

So far I have setup a maildir folder with getmail (instead of fetchmail) utility making a complete local copy of my gmail. Getmail will keep track of already downloaded email and only get new emails.

I have also successfully setup dovecot imap server and now all my local imap clients can access the maildir via thunderbird.

To do: roundcube installation and then go through a transition period to migrate my gmail address with a new email address i have created.

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