Taking your data with you — how to get everything out of Oneva

We wrote a while back about bringing your data into Oneva — and noted, in passing, that getting out is just as easy. This is the post that makes good on that, with practical steps.

Here's the thing worth saying first, because it's the whole point: you don't need our permission, our cooperation, or any special tool to leave. Your Oneva password is a standard login that works with standard apps — the same protocols that have moved mail, calendars and contacts around the internet for twenty years. The apps that sync your data are the same ones that can take it away.

That's not an accident, and it's not generosity. It's the opposite of how a walled garden works. Google Takeout and Microsoft's exporters exist because their normal interfaces are designed to keep you in; you need a special escape hatch. Oneva has no walls to escape — the front door and the exit are the same door.

Below is the practical version, one data type at a time. None of it requires anything from us.

Your one login, everywhere

Your workspace address — you@yourdomain — and your password are the credentials for all of it: webmail, IMAP, SMTP, calendar (CalDAV), contacts (CardDAV), and files (WebDAV). One identity. So every step below uses the same username and password you already know.

Mail — any IMAP client

Your mailbox speaks IMAP, the standard every serious mail app understands.

• Server: mail.yourdomain, port 993, SSL/TLS.
• Username: your full address. Password: your normal password.

Point Thunderbird, Apple Mail, or Outlook at that and you have a live, complete copy of your mail. To turn it into a portable archive you can keep forever:

• In Thunderbird, create a Local Folders folder and drag your mail into it — that writes standard mbox/.eml files to your own disk. The free ImportExportTools NG add-on can export an entire folder tree to .eml or mbox in one go.
• In Apple Mail, select mailboxes and Mailbox → Export Mailbox… for .mbox files.

Those files open in practically any mail program, anywhere, with no Oneva involved.

Files — WebDAV, or just download

Your files are stored as plain files — a PDF is a PDF, a spreadsheet is a spreadsheet. Nothing is wrapped in a proprietary container. Three ways to take them:

• Download from the web. In the Files app, select a folder (or everything) and download — folders come down as a standard .zip.
• The desktop sync app. The Nextcloud desktop client keeps a full, continuously-updated copy of your files in a normal folder on your Mac or PC. Install it once and your data already lives on your own machine; uninstalling Oneva changes nothing about that local copy.
• WebDAV directly. Any WebDAV client (or Finder / Windows Explorer) can mount https://yourdomain/remote.php/dav/files/you@yourdomain/ and copy everything off.

Documents you made in the built-in office suite are saved as OpenDocument (.odt, .ods, .odp) by default — an ISO standard — and can be downloaded as .docx/.xlsx/.pptx or PDF too. No format you can only open with us.

Calendar — export to .ics

Calendars use CalDAV, and the Calendar app has a one-click export: open Calendar settings → the ⋯ menu next to a calendar → Export, and you get a standard .ics file that imports straight into Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, or anything else. Or keep it live by syncing the same CalDAV account into your phone (via DAVx⁵ on Android, or natively on iPhone/Mac).

Contacts — export to .vcf

Contacts use CardDAV. In the Contacts app, Settings → Export gives you a standard vCard (.vcf) file — the universal contacts format every phone and address book reads. Same as calendars, you can also just keep syncing CardDAV into a new home.

Tasks, notes, photos, documents — already on the same rails

You don't need separate steps for these — they ride the exports above:

• Tasks are part of your calendar (they're standard VTODO entries), so they come out inside the same .ics export.
• Notes are saved as plain .md text files in a Notes folder in your Files — so they leave with your files, readable in any text editor.
• Photos are just files in your Files; documents made in the office suite are OpenDocument files. Both come down with the file steps above.

The honest part: two things you can't self-export yet

We'd rather tell you than have you discover it. We won't offer a "we'll dump the server for you" escape hatch — the whole point is that you don't need us. But two apps store their data in a way that doesn't (yet) have a clean self-service export:

• Talk chat history. The files you shared in a conversation and any call recordings are saved into your Files, so those come out with the file steps. The message text itself has no tidy "download my chats" button today. If a conversation matters, copy it out before you go.
• Deck boards. Your kanban boards don't currently have a one-click personal export. Cards that reference files point at your Files (which you keep), but the board structure itself doesn't export cleanly yet.

Both are honest gaps we want to close — and we'd rather name them than pretend everything is one tap.

A leaving checklist

1. Mail: connect Thunderbird / Apple Mail over IMAP, export folders to mbox / .eml.
2. Files (incl. notes, photos, documents): install the desktop sync app, or download as .zip, or mount WebDAV.
3. Calendar (incl. tasks): export each calendar to .ics.
4. Contacts: export to .vcf.
5. Talk: copy out any chat text you need to keep (shared files come with step 2).

That's it. Every step is something you do yourself, today, with free software, without telling us — and that's the point. Data you can only leave with permission was never really yours. Yours is the kind you can pick up and walk out with.