AOL mail acquisition

[Kathleen O'Neill]

Does anyone have any experience or advice for acquiring an AOL mail account?

I am trying to develop a workflow for acquiring an AOL mail account-- spans 20 years and approximately 45,000 emails. The donor uses a Macbook Air and accesses AOL in browser, no desktop application. There's no bulk export of AOL accounts or by folders so I'm trying to determine which tool or tools to use.

• AOL Desktop Gold is not an option for the donor.
• SysTools AOL Email Backup seemed promising but in the end it never recognized or connected the donor's account, despite changing the settings to allow pop-ups and IMAP and POP protocols, etc.
• Tried migrating the account to Gmail, but similar to SysTools it never connected to the account.
• Thunderbird shows some promise (it recognized and connected to the account) but then it asked me it whether I wanted to use the IMAP or POP protocol-- anyone want to weigh in on the pros and cons of using either protocol? I'm am trying to acquire the Inbox, Sent box, and some locally folders created by the donor.

I do not have the ability to purchase a tool at this point.

Any insight would be appreciated!

Kathleen O'Neill

Library of Congress

[Dorothea Salo]

I'd stick with Thunderbird and IMAP here, since Thunderbird seems
promising. Once you get the email you're after into Thunderbird, you
should have pretty much any reasonable choice of email export format
available.

IMAP downloads a copy of the mail, leaving everything on the server. POP
can be configured to download-then-delete, which is emphatically not
what you want here.

(For clarity: POP doesn't absolutely have to work that way... but why
risk it?)

Dorothea

On 8/1/22 11:43 AM, Kathleen O'Neill wrote:
> Does anyone have any experience or advice for acquiring an AOL mail account?
>
> I am trying to develop a workflow for acquiring an AOL mail account--
> spans 20 years and approximately 45,000 emails. The donor uses a Macbook
> Air and accesses AOL in browser, no desktop application. There's no bulk
> export of AOL accounts or by folders so I'm trying to determine which
> tool or tools to use.
>

> * AOL Desktop Gold is not an option for the donor.
> * SysTools AOL Email Backup seemed promising but in the end it never

> recognized or connected the donor's account, despite changing the
> settings to allow pop-ups and IMAP and POP protocols, etc.

> * Tried migrating the account to Gmail, but similar to SysTools it

> never connected to the account.

> * Thunderbird shows some promise (it recognized and connected to the

> account) but then it asked me it whether I wanted to use the IMAP or
> POP protocol-- anyone want to weigh in on the pros and cons of using
> either protocol? I'm am trying to acquire the Inbox, Sent box, and
> some locally folders created by the donor.
>
> I do not have the ability to purchase a tool at this point.
>
> Any insight would be appreciated!
> Kathleen O'Neill
> Library of Congress
>

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "Digital Curation" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send
> an email to digital-curati...@googlegroups.com
> <mailto:digital-curati...@googlegroups.com>.
> To view this discussion on the web visit
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/digital-curation/5e749edc-1f9d-4b00-bd2e-ab8fe7c88872n%40googlegroups.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/digital-curation/5e749edc-1f9d-4b00-bd2e-ab8fe7c88872n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[Prom, Christopher John]

What Dorothea suggests should work, and I completely agree with using IMAP vs. POP. If that does not work, Aid4Mail claims to support direct connections to AOL accounts. While I haven’t used it for that and can’t vouch for it, Aid4Mail has worked well for us with other formats, so it would be worth a shot.

Chris Prom
University of Illinois

>> To view this discussion on the web visit https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/digital-curation/5e749edc-1f9d-4b00-bd2e-ab8fe7c88872n*40googlegroups.com__;JQ!!DZ3fjg!6g3LqTYQInTPWz8m5GiPJu0WKkmdoH1fPsAWTd2C7FvMt8UXn1p0XibDEM-WfTyxbxfe3tGDVGfS_5almO_O$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/digital-curation/5e749edc-1f9d-4b00-bd2e-ab8fe7c88872n*40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer__;JQ!!DZ3fjg!6g3LqTYQInTPWz8m5GiPJu0WKkmdoH1fPsAWTd2C7FvMt8UXn1p0XibDEM-WfTyxbxfe3tGDVGfS_3qfNk5N$ >.

>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Digital Curation" group.

> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to digital-curati...@googlegroups.com.
> To view this discussion on the web visit https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/digital-curation/5b7b1fb6-df9f-c75a-135b-8642697eab6b*40dsalo.info__;JQ!!DZ3fjg!6g3LqTYQInTPWz8m5GiPJu0WKkmdoH1fPsAWTd2C7FvMt8UXn1p0XibDEM-WfTyxbxfe3tGDVGfS_4MxEfGA$ .

[Tallman, Nathan]

Good advice from Dorothea, I'll through another IMAP option out there. There's a Linux utility called mbsync that can be used to harvest an account via IMAP without using a GUI program like Thunderbird, helpful for automation. https://linux.die.net/man/1/mbsync

Also, when you do get that email harvested, consider using Mailbag to aid in preservation. https://archives.albany.edu/mailbag/

Thanks,
Nathan
 
-- 
Nathan Tallman (he/him)
Schedule a Meeting
Chat with me on Teams

> https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgrou
> ps.google.com%2Fd%2Fmsgid%2Fdigital-curation%2F5e749edc-1f9d-4b00-bd2e
> -ab8fe7c88872n%2540googlegroups.com&amp;data=05%7C01%7Cntt7%40psu.edu%
> 7Ca83d933d11264c9d904408da73ff18dd%7C7cf48d453ddb4389a9c1c115526eb52e%
> 7C0%7C0%7C637949836730749993%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwM
> DAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&amp;
> sdata=LDrR8OpFa51MJvxh7Q%2FtenzblCxopoNU49yl9W71q8s%3D&amp;reserved=0
> <https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgroups.google.com%2Fd%2Fmsgid%2Fdigital-curation%2F5e749edc-1f9d-4b00-bd2e-ab8fe7c88872n%2540googlegroups.com%3Futm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dfooter&amp;data=05%7C01%7Cntt7%40psu.edu%7Ca83d933d11264c9d904408da73ff18dd%7C7cf48d453ddb4389a9c1c115526eb52e%7C0%7C0%7C637949836730749993%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=DbxMcCji41UJqcGGs7Idh4WbFYUs5cxVck1bjC2Z54w%3D&amp;reserved=0>.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Digital Curation" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to digital-curati...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgroups.google.com%2Fd%2Fmsgid%2Fdigital-curation%2F5b7b1fb6-df9f-c75a-135b-8642697eab6b%2540dsalo.info&amp;data=05%7C01%7Cntt7%40psu.edu%7Ca83d933d11264c9d904408da73ff18dd%7C7cf48d453ddb4389a9c1c115526eb52e%7C0%7C0%7C637949836730749993%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=gpSN39a4OzDseGIvhfJcXd7wBA3fFwYe5ITGlUMtqsc%3D&amp;reserved=0.

[Kathleen O'Neill]

Thank you all!

This input is so helpful! I will test both Thunderbird and mbsync and once I complete the transfer, I'll report back. Unfortunately, Aid4Mail is not a option for us at the Library.

Kathleen

[rnma...@gmail.com]

Hi Kathleen,

I had a similar situation back in 2018 that involved 20+ years of AOL email. I chose the Thunderbird route, and it worked well. The biggest hurdle I encountered was syncing the AOL client to Thunderbird. The donor was not comfortable providing remote access to her account, and I had to work directly on her computer in her home office. It timed out on multiple occasions and required several return visits to the her residence to ensure I had acquired everything. It's about time for a return visit, and I look forward to learning from your experience. 

Robert