AKICILJ: How to get the Songbird her old E-mails

[thatcrazycajun]

The problem: My Songbird, singing_phoenix, and I share an EarthLink account (or rather, I allow her to use one of the five screen names allowed to my account; I signed up years before meeting her). Through some error of mine in establishing settings on the e-mail clients for the various computers she and I both use, all of the e-mails prior to about two months ago for her address seem to have been removed from the ELN servers and downloaded to one or both of my computers (an Apple Mac mini and a Dell WinXP laptop). She cannot access her old e-mails from ELN's Web Mail service or her home/work mail clients, since they are apparently no longer extant on the servers.

Now I have to figure some efficient and cheap way to (a) copy all those old e-mails to a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM and send them to her in Kenya, and (b) organize said disc copies in such a way that she doesn't have to spend endless hours searching for a particular individual e-mail she needs to see/forward/act on by repetitively opening, reading, closing etc.? (I should probably mention that my machines use either Mozilla's Thunderbird [WinXP] or Apple's Mail [Mac]. I think she's been using M$ LookOut! Outlook since she got her new HP laptop last month, but I can't swear to it.)

Is there a software program out there for either Windows or Mac OS that will automagically copy down batches of old e-mail and preserve headers, folder structures, etc. as they currently exist on their originating computer? Or am I simply going to have to set aside Ghu alone knows how many hours to individually save each of several hundred old e-mails to a folder or set of folders and filename them uniquely so she can identify them? Any suggestions on how to deal with this problem welcomed.

Comments

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

Thunderbird stores mail in plain old fashioned mbox format. Just copy the files onto a CD, and she can copy them right into her mail program and fire it up.

I don't know what Outlook does, but i'd not be surprised if it did the same thing.

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

Okay, which files exactly do I have to copy?

M$ $uck$. it's $o damn complex..

[a-phoenix-afire.livejournal.com]

Copy the directory which hold$ the .dbx file$ from Outlook to a CD. (Try to be $ure to copy the Pop3uidl.dbx file along with the re$t.)

Then in the $etting$ for Outlook on the de$tination machine, $et the working directory to the directory on the CD.

The true horror of it all i$ that you can't combine two $et$ of mail by copying them to the $ame directory, although you can copy the directory on the CD to a hard drive, $et the read-only permi$$ion$ to read/write, and $tart adding to it a$ if you had never $topped u$ing it.

Damn you Gate$, damn you to hade$. Thank God that after only twenty year$ of trying, open $ource i$ about to replace you and your $ini$ter empire. Linux ha$ numbered your day$ you incompetent hack.

-$nicker-

Re: M$ $uck$. it's $o damn complex..

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

This would help me if Outlook were the *originating* program, which sadly it is not. Mary has it on her end, but I do not on this end (well, actually I do have it since I bought Office 2007 for the Wintel laptop, but I use TB instead).

Re: M$ $uck$. it's $o damn complex..

[(Anonymous)]

This would help me if Outlook were the *originating* program, which sadly it is not. Mary has it on her end, but I do not on this end (well, actually I do have it since I bought Office 2007 for the Wintel laptop, but I use TB instead).

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http://www.mozilla.org/support/thunderbird/faq.html#export

How do I import e-mail messages from another mail program?

Go to Tools > Import, which will bring up a dialog to guide you through the process.


How do I export e-mail messages to another mail program or computer?

Thunderbird's mail files are in the standard plain text "mbox" format, which almost all mail programs can use or import. Many proprietary mail programs have a function to import from Eudora, which also uses the "mbox" format; this function should read your Mozilla mail files properly.

Your mail files are inside your profile (see the Profile Folder), in the Mail and (if you use IMAP) ImapMail folders. Each mail folder (Inbox, Sent, etc.) is stored as two files — one with no extension (e.g. INBOX), which is the mail file itself (in "mbox" format), and one with an .msf extension (e.g. INBOX.msf), which is the index (Mail Summary File) to the mail file. Tell the other program to import mail from the file with no extension.

If you want to transfer a mail file to another Mozilla profile or another installation of Mozilla, simply put the mail file into the other installation's Mail folder.
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Outlook can still import TB mbox format files from a CD, even if the evil Mr Gate$ hate$ open $ource, and you hate Mr Gate$ for hating it. Naaa$ty little open $ource programmer$. We hate$ them preciou$$$ we want$ to $qeeze there na$ty little neck$ we do.


This is what happens when an idiot like Gate$ creates something that allows the common person to do something so complex (operating a computer), so easily, that they forget that it's complex.

Good luck dude. Hope this helps.