How to convert Thunderbird mail box into mbox format?

[Michael]

Hi,

Recently my IMAP server's hard drive died with all data. Fortunately I
have local copy of some folders because I selected these folders for
offline synchronization.

Is there any tool to convert the files in ImapMail folder into mbox
format?

Thanks

[Leonidas Jones]

It is in mnox format.

Lee

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[Leonidas Jones]

Leonidas Jones wrote:
> Michael wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> Recently my IMAP server's hard drive died with all data. Fortunately I
>> have local copy of some folders because I selected these folders for
>> offline synchronization.
>>
>> Is there any tool to convert the files in ImapMail folder into mbox
>> format?
>>
>> Thanks
>
> It is in mnox format.
>
> Lee
>

I'll never learn to type, I'll try again for practice:

It is in mbox format.

[Michael]

Leonidas Jones wrote:
>
> It is in mnox format.
>
> Lee
>

Lee,

First of all, I'd like to apologize for the top posting. All my messages
were sent before your first comment.

Now on the topic. I tried mutt and thunderbird (with IMAP) to read this
file. Both attempts failed.

michael@mike-db:tmp$ mutt -f foo
foo is not a mailbox.

Thunderbird can't read this file through IMAP as well. It shows that the
file (IMAP folder) has only one message, the subject the message is the
path to the /home/michael/mail/foo and if I click it, Thunderbird starts
to download the entire file.

The file foo was copied from the thunderbird profile's ImapMail folder.
It had no .msf extension and it really looks like mbox file to me.

Do I miss something obvious?

Thanks,
Michael

[Michael]

>
> Thunderbird can't read this file through IMAP as well. It shows that the
> file (IMAP folder) has only one message, the subject the message is the
> path to the /home/michael/mail/foo and if I click it, Thunderbird starts
> to download the entire file.
>

Well, thinking more about this, it is not Thunderbird, it is my IMAP
server, but it does not change the point that both applications failed
to properly read the file.

[Leonidas Jones]

Thanks for the bottom posting, I was likely a little frustrated over
issues not related to you when I cautioned you. I do appreciate your
attitude!!!

The file is in mbox format, but it has no file extension. You will
likely need to rename it with the appropriate extension for another
application to be able to read it.

Does this help:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mbox

[Michael]

Leonidas Jones wrote:
>
> Thanks for the bottom posting, I was likely a little frustrated over
> issues not related to you when I cautioned you. I do appreciate your
> attitude!!!
>
> The file is in mbox format, but it has no file extension. You will
> likely need to rename it with the appropriate extension for another
> application to be able to read it.
>
> Does this help:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mbox
>
> Lee
>

I see. I think the key from the wiki page is: "The Mozilla family of
MUAs (Mozilla, Netscape, Thunderbird, et al.) use an mboxrd variation
with more complex From line quoting rules."

I guess I will have to dig into the differences and make some sed/awk
script to convert it back to original mbox that can be read by standard
applications like mutt.

I was hoping that such script is available.

Thank you for your help.

Michael

[Leonidas Jones]

I'm not expert enough in this, but look into what file extensions are
required by the programs into which you wish to import them.

The Mozilla files have no extensions. You might be able simply to
rename them with the appropriate file extensions.

[michaeljgru...@fastmail.fm]

Leonidas Jones venit, vidit, dixit 2006-11-02 06:13:

File extensions are a non-issue on linux (which the OP obviously uses).
As has been noted already, mozilla mail apps use a variation of the mbox
format which makes some imap clients choke. I see two solutions:

- Since TB can read the files: Use TB to copy the messages to the IMAP
folders. This doesn't scale well for many folders, though.

- The very first From line (the one without a colon, not the one in the
header) in each message is usually the source of the problem: It's not
clear what the proper date/time format is supposed to be. You can try
replacing each of these lines with a simple "From -" (no date, no
sender), the other info should be reconstructed automatically.
Alternatively you have to parse the date info there and convert it into
imap standard (just copy one message to IMAP using TB and deduce the
format change from that message).

Michael

[Michael]

michaeljgru...@fastmail.fm wrote:
>
> File extensions are a non-issue on linux (which the OP obviously uses).
> As has been noted already, mozilla mail apps use a variation of the mbox
> format which makes some imap clients choke. I see two solutions:
>
> - Since TB can read the files: Use TB to copy the messages to the IMAP
> folders. This doesn't scale well for many folders, though.
>
> - The very first From line (the one without a colon, not the one in the
> header) in each message is usually the source of the problem: It's not
> clear what the proper date/time format is supposed to be. You can try
> replacing each of these lines with a simple "From -" (no date, no
> sender), the other info should be reconstructed automatically.
> Alternatively you have to parse the date info there and convert it into
> imap standard (just copy one message to IMAP using TB and deduce the
> format change from that message).
>
> Michael

Michael,

Thank you very much for your helpful reply. Indeed, TB managed to read
it's own file and it took about couple of minutes to push 100MB file
back to the IMAP server.

You are correct, the first "From - " line appears to be the problem and
my IMAP server put completely different encoding in the IMAP file.

Thanks agains,
Michael.