A simple way to be able to access my old Eudora mailbase?

[Peter Ceresole]

I have, in the past, been running Eudora 6.2.4 in MacOS 10.6.8. For
several reasons, mainly that Demon (my ISP) have outsourced their mail
service to an Outlook system, and Eudora cannot connect, however much I
try with ports etc, with the new POP3 server. It works with IMAP, but
that's not what I want.
So I have switched to Apple's Mail, and it works very well for the
simple use I make of it.
It now looks like a good idea to switch OS to 10.9.3, but I will then
lose Eudora, and access to my historic mailbase, which occasionally
comes in useful, and to the Eudora address book.
So, a simple (I hope) question.
How can I retain access to my Eudora mailbase. Not to send or receive
mail, but only to read the historic mail, and access the Eudora address
book?
Is there an application I can install, simply, which will do this? And
run under Mavericks?
If possible, I'd like to avoid any deep fiddling.
Thanks...
--
Peter

[Joe Gwinn]

In article <1llt36m.zb74hv1ac1yo0N%pe...@cara.demon.co.uk>, Peter

I too am on MacOS 10.6,8, and will need to migrate to a later version.

I have not as yet tried this, but I was wondering if one can run Eudora
for PC under Win 7 under Parallels?

Joe Gwinn

[J.P. Kuypers]

In article (Dans l'article) <170520141639078820%joeg...@comcast.net>,
Joe Gwinn <joeg...@comcast.net> wrote (�crivait)�:

> I have not as yet tried this, but I was wondering if one can run Eudora
> for PC under Win 7 under Parallels?

I don't know.
But I'm able to run Eudora for Macintosh under Mac OS X 10.6.8 (Snow
Leopard) under (free) VirtualBox.

--
Jean-Pierre Kuypers

[Peter Ceresole]

J.P. Kuypers <Jean-Pier...@adresse.invalid> wrote:

> > I have not as yet tried this, but I was wondering if one can run Eudora
> > for PC under Win 7 under Parallels?
>
> I don't know.
> But I'm able to run Eudora for Macintosh under Mac OS X 10.6.8 (Snow
> Leopard) under (free) VirtualBox.

Do you really mean under 10.6.8? I'm not sure what you mean. Are you
running Virtualbox in MacOS 10.9.3 (Mavericks) and running 10.6.8 within
that? Because then, of course, as it has Rosetta, Eudora will run in
that virtual setup...
--
Peter

[David Empson]

Tim Streater <timst...@greenbee.net> wrote:

> In article <1lltbh3.1fhqv7v19pcy86N%pe...@cara.demon.co.uk>, Peter

> It might need to be 10.6.8 Server, which you can buy by phoning the
> Apple Store. You'll get 10.6.3 which you can then update. It seemed to
> run OK under VirtualBox except it couldn't drive my slide scanner. I
> haven't tried Eudora.

I have a "just in case" archival copy of Eudora running in OS X 10.6.8
Server in VMware Fusion. It works fine, but I've never needed to run it
because I also converted the mail using Emailchemy and I have all of it
in a folder in Apple Mail.

> Alternatively, you could buy emailchemy, and run that to convert your
> Eudora mailbox to Mail format. Don't forget to compress it before
> running it through emailchemy.


--
David Empson
dem...@actrix.gen.nz

[Patty Winter]

In article <170520142243360311%Jean-Pier...@adresse.invalid>,

J.P. Kuypers <Jean-Pier...@adresse.invalid> wrote:
>
>I don't know.
>But I'm able to run Eudora for Macintosh under Mac OS X 10.6.8 (Snow
>Leopard) under (free) VirtualBox.

If you're running Snow Leopard, why can't you run Eudora natively??


Patty

[Patty Winter]

In article <1llt36m.zb74hv1ac1yo0N%pe...@cara.demon.co.uk>,

Peter Ceresole <pe...@cara.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>How can I retain access to my Eudora mailbase. Not to send or receive
>mail, but only to read the historic mail, and access the Eudora address
>book?

Eudora Mailbox Cleaner:

http://www.andreasamann.com/MacOSX/Eudora_Mailbox_Cleaner

>Is there an application I can install, simply, which will do this? And
>run under Mavericks?

Oh, that's a problem. EMC won't run under Mavericks. Umm, do you know
anyone who still has OS 10.6 or lower who could run EMC for you? I
assume that once you have the resulting file, you could move it to your
computer and open it in Apple Mail. I did it all on the same machine,
but it should work this way, too...


Patty

[J.P. Kuypers]

In article (Dans l'article)

<1lltbh3.1fhqv7v19pcy86N%pe...@cara.demon.co.uk>, Peter Ceresole
<pe...@cara.demon.co.uk> wrote (�crivait)�:

> J.P. Kuypers <Jean-Pier...@adresse.invalid> wrote:
> > But I'm able to run Eudora for Macintosh under Mac OS X 10.6.8 (Snow
> > Leopard) under (free) VirtualBox.
>
> Do you really mean under 10.6.8? I'm not sure what you mean. Are you
> running Virtualbox in MacOS 10.9.3 (Mavericks) and running 10.6.8 within
> that?

I run Mac OS X 10.8.5 (Mountain Lion) on my MacBook Pro.
Then VirtualBox where I have a virtual machine with Mac OS X 10.6.8
(Snow Leopard).

I think this is equivalent to:

> In article (Dans l'article) <170520141639078820%joeg...@comcast.net>,
> Joe Gwinn <joeg...@comcast.net> wrote (�crivait)�:

> > ... run Eudora for PC under Win 7 under Parallels?

--
Jean-Pierre Kuypers

[J.P. Kuypers]

In article (Dans l'article)

<170520142352353521%timst...@greenbee.net>, Tim Streater
<timst...@greenbee.net> wrote (�crivait)�:

> In article <1lltbh3.1fhqv7v19pcy86N%pe...@cara.demon.co.uk>, Peter
> Ceresole <pe...@cara.demon.co.uk> wrote:

>
> > J.P. Kuypers <Jean-Pier...@adresse.invalid> wrote:
> > > But I'm able to run Eudora for Macintosh under Mac OS X 10.6.8 (Snow
> > > Leopard) under (free) VirtualBox.
> >
> > Do you really mean under 10.6.8? I'm not sure what you mean. Are you
> > running Virtualbox in MacOS 10.9.3 (Mavericks) and running 10.6.8 within
> > that? Because then, of course, as it has Rosetta, Eudora will run in
> > that virtual setup...
>

> It might need to be 10.6.8 Server

I don't use the 10.6.8 Server. I'm using the common Mac OS X 10.6.8
(Snow Leopard) in the virtual machine in VirtualBox.

--
Jean-Pierre Kuypers

[Dan Kozar]

Peter,

Before you upgrade 10.6.8, use Eudora mailbox cleaner to migrate your
eudora mailbox or boxes into Mail. Then when you upgrade to 10.9, they
will be there. I just did this when I got a newer (used) powerbook pro.
I was switching between machines which made it necessary to get the
eudora mailboxes into mail, on the old machine then copy the Mail
mailboxes (they will be labeled import) on to a thumb drive, then import
them from the thumb drive into Mail on the new machine.

[Dan Kozar]

Peter,

Forgot to mention that you can move your eudora address book into the
address book in the dock with Eudora mail cleaner also. The unclear (to
me) thing about EMC is that when it tells you to drag what you want onto
the program's icon, they mean EMC not Mail. And it is the icon in the
dock, not the icon in the window. Also, don't click the OK button in the
dialog box until after you have done your transfers, because when you
click ok, it shuts down EMC.

[R. Millstein]

In article <1llt36m.zb74hv1ac1yo0N%pe...@cara.demon.co.uk>,

Use a text editor?
--
Roberta Millstein
use...@spamaway.rlm.net
Remove "spamaway" to reply

[Peter Ceresole]

R. Millstein <use...@spamaway.rlm.net> wrote:

> > How can I retain access to my Eudora mailbase. Not to send or receive
> > mail, but only to read the historic mail, and access the Eudora address
> > book?
> > Is there an application I can install, simply, which will do this? And
> > run under Mavericks?
> > If possible, I'd like to avoid any deep fiddling.
> > Thanks...
>
> Use a text editor?

Yes; I've looked with TextWrangler and TextEdit, and it's doable but
very far from pleasant. It would be nicer by far to be able to see stuff
presented in a simple way.
I think that Eudora Mailbox Cleaner and Mail will probably be the
answer.
Thanks to everybody who has replied...
--
Peter

[David Sankey]

Another vote for EMC from me.

As I said last time!

As Patty implies, run EMC while you still can and then import into Mail.

I did this at the transition that killed Eudora and have never looked back.

Dave

[Martin-S]

In article <1llt36m.zb74hv1ac1yo0N%pe...@cara.demon.co.uk>,
pe...@cara.demon.co.uk (Peter Ceresole) wrote:

> It works with IMAP, but that's not what I want.

Why not?

IMAP would solve this problem very elegantly. With IMAP it doesn't
matter what mail client you use. Your mail lives on the server and there
are no different mailbox formats to worry about any longer. You could
even use Eudora on an old Mac for those authentic trips 'down memory
lane' :)

In the past I archived Eudora's mailboxes simply by selecting all
messages and then do a "print to PDF". That gives you a searchable
archive.

Re the addresses I slowly migrated them manually to Apple's address book
over the years. That's where they need to be for synching across all
devices which is one of the features I absolutely love.

--
Martin

[David Morrison]

In article <170520141639078820%joeg...@comcast.net>,

Joe Gwinn <joeg...@comcast.net> wrote:
> I have not as yet tried this, but I was wondering if one can run Eudora
> for PC under Win 7 under Parallels?

I have tried it. It will definitely run. However, it looks quite
different to Eudora for Mac, and as I recall, the file formats are
different so it may not be able to import Eudora Mac files.

[David Morrison]

In article <1llt36m.zb74hv1ac1yo0N%pe...@cara.demon.co.uk>,
pe...@cara.demon.co.uk (Peter Ceresole) wrote:

There used to be a mail archiver program that used Filemaker as a
database to store mail. If you already had Filemaker, this might be an
option.

[Peter Ceresole]

Martin-S <i...@lid.invalid> wrote:

> > It works with IMAP, but that's not what I want.
>
> Why not?

Becasuse, quite simply, Demon wipe material after 30 days. So my old
mailbase is no longer there- and it's on my Mac.

> Re the addresses I slowly migrated them manually to Apple's address book
> over the years. That's where they need to be for synching across all
> devices which is one of the features I absolutely love.

In practice here I can open 'Eudora Nicknames' in TextEdit or
TextWrangler, and do a 'find' on the name. Not the most elegant, but
certainly simple. The addresses I use a lot are in Mail anyway...
--
Peter

[David Morrison]

In article <1lm3sel.zqmelf17t54dnN%pe...@cara.demon.co.uk>,

pe...@cara.demon.co.uk (Peter Ceresole) wrote:

> > Re the addresses I slowly migrated them manually to Apple's address book
> > over the years. That's where they need to be for synching across all
> > devices which is one of the features I absolutely love.
>
> In practice here I can open 'Eudora Nicknames' in TextEdit or
> TextWrangler, and do a 'find' on the name. Not the most elegant, but
> certainly simple. The addresses I use a lot are in Mail anyway...

You can import a CSV text file into Apple's address book. Can you
manipulate your Eudora nicknames file into being CSV format? Import into
Excel, use the formulas to deconstruct the entries and form suitable
ones for address book, save those columns, export as CSV and go for it.

[Peter Ceresole]

David Morrison <davi...@excite.com> wrote:

> You can import a CSV text file into Apple's address book. Can you
> manipulate your Eudora nicknames file into being CSV format? Import into
> Excel, use the formulas to deconstruct the entries and form suitable
> ones for address book, save those columns, export as CSV and go for it.

I thought about this, but note the word 'simple' in the thread title.

--
Peter

[David Morrison]

In article <1lm617k.1x6h9di1prs72gN%pe...@cara.demon.co.uk>,

But you were referring to your old mailbase. The question about the
address book was separate. And you only have to do it once, so perhaps
worth a little effort for the benefits it brings.

Actually, about 2 mins work in TextWrangler.

1. Delete the bottom lines beginning with "note"

2. Replace all "alias " with ""

3. Replace all "_" with ","

4. Replace all " " with ","

You now have a csv file with three fields per line: first name, last
name, e-mail address.

Check for any anomalies, eg, the name part has more or less than 2
fields:

alias Mark_Luis_Gov mg...@xxxx.com

or

Mark,Luis,Gov,mg...@xxxx.com

Adjust as necessary so there are two fields for the name

Mark Luis,Gov,mg...@xxxx.com

Import into address book.

Done!

[tam...@racsa.co.cr]

Hello, just found your thread. Am in the exact same position right now - upgrading, switching to Mail for sending/receiving, but want to retain access to 20 years of emails . What did you end up doing and how did it work out? Thank you for your reply! -Petra Schoep

[Patty Winter]

In article <6cd22417-7f60-4aab...@googlegroups.com>,

<tam...@racsa.co.cr> wrote:
>Hello, just found your thread. Am in the exact same position right now -
>upgrading, switching to Mail for sending/receiving, but want to retain
>access to 20 years of emails . What did you end up doing and how did it
>work out? Thank you for your reply! -Petra Schoep

Petra, I haven't upgraded from Snow Leopard yet, but I'm about to do
so. I've already run a test conversion with Eudora Mailbox Cleaner and
am going to run one with Emailchemy. I suggest that you investigate
both of those programs for switching from Eudora to Mail.


Patty

[Kathy Morgan]

Another thing to remember is that if you retain a copy of the Eudora
mailbox(s) in their original form, you can always open it with a text
editor, such as Text Wrangler, to read the contents. It's hideously
inconvenient, but it is an option for anything lost in converting.

--
Kathy

[Patty Winter]

In article <1n2bs1f.7y8khh1nyibz6N%kmo...@spamcop.net>,
Kathy Morgan <kmo...@spamcop.net> wrote:

>Patty Winter <pat...@wintertime.com> wrote:
>
>> Petra, I haven't upgraded from Snow Leopard yet, but I'm about to do
>> so. I've already run a test conversion with Eudora Mailbox Cleaner and
>> am going to run one with Emailchemy. I suggest that you investigate
>> both of those programs for switching from Eudora to Mail.
>
>Another thing to remember is that if you retain a copy of the Eudora
>mailbox(s) in their original form, you can always open it with a text
>editor, such as Text Wrangler, to read the contents. It's hideously
>inconvenient, but it is an option for anything lost in converting.

Good point. And I am indeed keeping all of my original Eudora mailboxes.

BTW, tomorrow will be the big day. I'm finally upgrading my iMac past
Snow Leopard. Farewell to Eudora. :-(


Patty

[Jean-Pierre Kuypers]

In article (Dans l'article)

<1n2bs1f.7y8khh1nyibz6N%kmo...@spamcop.net>, Kathy Morgan
<kmo...@spamcop.net> wrote (écrivait) :

> Another thing to remember is that if you retain a copy of the Eudora
> mailbox(s) in their original form, you can always open it with a text
> editor, such as Text Wrangler, to read the contents. It's hideously
> inconvenient, but it is an option for anything lost in converting.

An other way may be to use "mail -f filename" in the Terminal, where
"filename" is the name of the mailbox file.

Caveat !
The end-of-line characters must first be changed from Legacy Mac OS
(CR) to Unix (LF), using TextWrangler as example.

--
Jean-Pierre Kuypers

[Jean-Pierre Kuypers]

In article (Dans l'article)

<6cd22417-7f60-4aab...@googlegroups.com>,
<tam...@racsa.co.cr> wrote (écrivait) :

> Hello, just found your thread. Am in the exact same position right now -
> upgrading, switching to Mail for sending/receiving, but want to retain access
> to 20 years of emails . What did you end up doing and how did it work out?

In 2013 I was switching from Eudora to Apple Mail.

I carefully read "Converting Email from Eudora: Why I No Longer Live at
the P.O." by Adam C. Engst <http://tidbits.com/article/12382>

I did the "Pre-conversion Clean Up Tasks."
I used "Eudora Mailbox Cleaner."

After 25 years using Eudora, I had about 1,350,000 messages in the
mailboxes of my Eudora "Mail Folder."

I still have access to my (old) emails transfered from Eudora to Apple
Mail.

--
Jean-Pierre Kuypers

[Patty Winter]

In article <060320172008004517%Kuy...@address.invalid>,

Jean-Pierre Kuypers <Kuy...@address.invalid> wrote:
>
>In 2013 I was switching from Eudora to Apple Mail.
>
>I carefully read "Converting Email from Eudora: Why I No Longer Live at
>the P.O." by Adam C. Engst <http://tidbits.com/article/12382>

Hah, that's a very cute article name. A nice nod to Eudora Welty.

I just read Adam's article and his problems with Emailchemy. Now, I
only had to convert 16,000 messages, not the nearly 1 million that
Adam had. Nonetheless, I suspect that the situation has changed since
he wrote about his experiences in 2011. For one thing, I didn't have
to save my Eudora mail as a UNIX mailbox; I was able to convert directly
to Apple Mail format.

I forgot to compress my Eudora mailbox before quitting Eudora for the
last time. I think Emailchemy ignored the deleted messages, because
my converted In mailbox is only 1/3 the size it was in Eudora.

After doing a successful demo conversion on El Capitan, I just purchased
Emailchemy and did a real conversion. It was fast and went fine.


Patty

[Jean-Pierre Kuypers]

In article (Dans l'article) <o9ke0d$v5c$1...@dont-email.me>, Patty Winter
<pat...@wintertime.com> wrote (écrivait) :

> In article <060320172008004517%Kuy...@address.invalid>,
> Jean-Pierre Kuypers <Kuy...@address.invalid> wrote:

> >... "Converting Email from Eudora: Why I No Longer Live at

> >the P.O." by Adam C. Engst <http://tidbits.com/article/12382>
>
> Hah, that's a very cute article name. A nice nod to Eudora Welty.

Maybe could you read
<http://tidbits.com/article/800>

--
Jean-Pierre Kuypers

[David Morrison]

In article <o9g9aj$t2c$1...@dont-email.me>,

Did all of you go to Apple Mail? Did you look at any other mail clients?

I am in the same situation with Eudora, and have found Apple Mail to be
so limited as to be unusable. I am particularly annoyed that each new
version of OS X removes features from Mail, features that I would use.

So I am planning to migrate to Thunderbird, even though it is ugly. It
does have the advantage that there are lots of useful plugins which can
extend its functionality, eg, delete duplicate e-mails in a mailbox,
something that Eudora could do.

I am also planning to migrate my accounts to IMAP since it is convenient
to be able to access them from a phone or tablet. I think this can be
done from within Eudora, since Eudora supports IMAP properly. The only
disadvantage of this is that you cannot drag a mailbox over to an IMAP
account. It looks like you have to create the mailbox, then drag the
messages over. It is going to be tedious, but hopefully will work. I
just have to find a couple of days when I can do it all.

David

[Patty Winter]

In article <davidmor-03BAAD...@news.internode.on.net>,

David Morrison <davi...@excite.com> wrote:
>
>Did all of you go to Apple Mail? Did you look at any other mail clients?

I went to Apple Mail, which I've used parttime for years.

>I am in the same situation with Eudora, and have found Apple Mail to be
>so limited as to be unusable.

What limitations are affecting you?

>I am particularly annoyed that each new
>version of OS X removes features from Mail, features that I would use.

??? Like what?


Patty

[Jean-Pierre Kuypers]

In article (Dans l'article)

<davidmor-03BAAD...@news.internode.on.net>, David Morrison
<davi...@excite.com> wrote (écrivait) :

> ... I am particularly annoyed that each new version of OS X removes

> features from Mail, features that I would use.

I was updating Lion -> Mountain Lion -> Mavericks -> Yosemite -> El
Capitan -> Sierra, without any trouble with Mail and my emails.

> ... delete duplicate e-mails in a mailbox

Do you know "Remove Duplicates (Mail)" in
<http://www.andreasamann.com/MacOSX/Mail_Scripts>?

> I am also planning to migrate my accounts to IMAP since it is convenient
> to be able to access them from a phone or tablet.

I'm using POP everywhere.

On my smartphone and iPod, I uncheck the "Remove copy from server after
retrieving a message:" checkbox".

On my (main) desktop MacBook Pro, I check this box.

But of course i can no more see my (old) messages when they are already
read using my main Mac.

--
Jean-Pierre Kuypers

[rijk]

In article <davidmor-03BAAD...@news.internode.on.net>,
David Morrison <davi...@excite.com> wrote:

[…]

> Did all of you go to Apple Mail?

No.

I did so initially. But in the end I upgraded to MailMate:
<https://freron.com/>.

MailMate is different from Eudora. But it is the same as Eudora, in that
it lets me configure things how I like, unlike any other mailclient I
tried. Plus the author is responsive to bug reports and feature
requests. Good luck finding that anywhere these days… (For example,
MailMate supports delayed sending, a la Eudora, upon my request.)

> Did you look at any other mail clients?

At the time, I tried everything that did IMAP and was free to try. I
hated all, except for MailMate and Mail.app.

Initially I found Mail.app OK-ish, but in the long run its lack of
configurability started to really annoy me. I also dislike that OS
updates tend to include changes to Mail.app. That's too many changes at
once, for my taste.

[…]

> I am also planning to migrate my accounts to IMAP since it is convenient
> to be able to access them from a phone or tablet. I think this can be
> done from within Eudora, since Eudora supports IMAP properly.

I'm no specialist, but as I understand it, Eudora's IMAP support was
"limited". Still, for me, it worked well enough with the server that I
used at the time.

If your IMAP server works well enough with Eudora, I would suggest using
Eudora to switch to IMAP, because then IMAP will be the only thing new
for you. Easier to get used to while still using the mail client you
already know.

Once you have moved to IMAP, and thus have all your mail stored
server-side, it will be easy to try different mail clients, even
simultaneously. Just add the account to the mail client, and it will see
all your mailboxes and their content on the server. No need to convert
local mailboxes. (Things like address books and filters are a different
story, obviously.)

Do consider privacy though: storing all your mail indefinitely on a
server that is not under your control adds some risk, of course.

--
"-- \n"

[Patty Winter]

In article <rijk-1AC37A.0...@news.xs4all.nl>,

rijk <ri...@blah.invalid> wrote:
>
>MailMate is different from Eudora. But it is the same as Eudora, in that
>it lets me configure things how I like, unlike any other mailclient I
>tried. Plus the author is responsive to bug reports and feature
>requests. Good luck finding that anywhere these days… (For example,
>MailMate supports delayed sending, a la Eudora, upon my request.)

I miss that feature now that I've left Eudora! Not that I'm prone to
wishing that I could take back messages; simply that I sometimes think
of something I want to add after I've sent them. I know I could just
leave messages in my Drafts folder for a while. I may start doing that.


Patty

[Bernd Fröhlich]

rijk <ri...@blah.invalid> wrote:

> I did so initially. But in the end I upgraded to MailMate:
> <https://freron.com/>.
>
> MailMate is different from Eudora. But it is the same as Eudora, in that
> it lets me configure things how I like, unlike any other mailclient I
> tried. Plus the author is responsive to bug reports and feature
> requests. Good luck finding that anywhere these days… (For example,
> MailMate supports delayed sending, a la Eudora, upon my request.)

Wow, nice one. Never heard of it. Thanks for the hint.

[David Morrison]

In article <o9t9gt$tlv$3...@dont-email.me>,

Patty Winter <pat...@wintertime.com> wrote:

> >I am particularly annoyed that each new
> >version of OS X removes features from Mail, features that I would use.
>
> ??? Like what?

The only one I can think of immediately is the priority. The Internet
standards for e-mail specify that there should be five levels. Apple
used to allow five levels, but in some recent update reduced it to
three. I do not know many people that use the priorities, but I can
imagine some would be p*ssed off.

As for others, I come across them every time I try to use Apple Mail and
they confirm that I do not want to be dependent on Apple.

I have experienced myself, and also hear too many horrendous tales of
corrupted mailboxes for Apple Mail to trust 20 years of e-mail to it.

Cheers

David

[Jean-Pierre Kuypers]

In article (Dans l'article)

<davidmor-7332E7...@news.internode.on.net>, David Morrison
<davi...@excite.com> wrote (écrivait) :

> The Internet standards for e-mail specify that there should be five
> levels.

What standards?
Could you tell the RFC please?

--
Jean-Pierre Kuypers

[Patty Winter]

In article <220320171025069651%timst...@greenbee.net>,
Tim Streater <timst...@greenbee.net> wrote:
>In article <davidmor-7332E7...@news.internode.on.net>,

>David Morrison <davi...@excite.com> wrote:
>
>>The only one I can think of immediately is the priority. The Internet
>>standards for e-mail specify that there should be five levels.
>

>What makes you think that any part of the mail system pays any
>attention to the priority?

AFIK, priority was never intended to affect how a message is handled.
It's only intended as an alert for the recipient.

I just tried it in Apple Mail and discovered that setting a message's
priority to High inserts an X header: "X-Priority: 1". However, Mail
doesn't display that when you receive the message! I think you have
to set up a Mail rule in order for message priority to be acted upon
(put in a Smart Mailbox, flagged, whatever). Mail's help system doesn't
even explain how the priority setting is supposed to work.


Patty

[David Morrison]

In article <220320171025069651%timst...@greenbee.net>,
Tim Streater <timst...@greenbee.net> wrote:

> What makes you think that any part of the mail system pays any

> attention to the priority? When you send a mail, it is immediately sent
> to the mail host you specified in your configuration (unless you choose
> to queue the mail, if your mail client supports that).

Ok, there are two parts to the priority. One is that it can signal to
the receiver which messages the sender thinks are more important than
others. Eudora definitely had a priority column in which you could see
the priority and deal with those messages first. Other mail clients may
or may not display this.

Secondly, bulk mail always used to be set to lowest priority. This was
typically generated automatically by mailing list handlers irrespective
of the priority set when the message was first created. MTAs like
Sendmail would use the priority to manage queues of outgoing mail.
Things marked high priority would be sent first, and low priority items
held until the higher priority queues were all sent.

I have no idea whether mailing list handlers still use this
functionality, or whether it has been superseded by some other method of
prioritising e-mail. I note that many of the mailing lists I subscribe
to have a header:

Precedence: list
or
Precedence: bulk

Yahoo Groups, however, seems to have no priority-related header.

From a quick scan of Google, it seems the whole concept of e-mail
priority is pretty vague.

But anyway, I was not debating the value of the priority setting, but
giving an example that Apple removes functionality from its software.