Any idea on read the backup of mailboxes out of imap server

[Zhu Zhixin]

Hello all,

     When a user is not valid anymore, i usually compress all the user's
mails to an .tar.gz file and then delete the user account from the imapd
server.

    Well, there is situation which i need to read the old mail of the
deleted user. So, before, i restore it from the backup to an
experimental imapd server. It is not convenient.

   I guess there must be other solutions on this. Please help!

regards,
Zhu Zhixin