Importing .eml files and folder structure to Windows Mail or Thunderbird

[David.WE.Roberts]

I have a massive store of messages from Windows Mail, all were held below
Local Folders and are in '.eml' format.

The whole message store structure won't open in Windows Mail if I point a
fresh copy of Windows Mail to the top directory which contains the
"WindowsMail.MSMessageStore" file - I get a report of a corruption and
then it gets partially integrated but will not go down to the full nesting
level of the local folders.
I do get the mail accounts, but not the passwords.
I do get the news servers but no subscribed groups.

I have discovered that I can drag and drop .eml files from Windows
Explorer into a folder window within Windows Mail and the messages are
there.

However if I try to drag and drop a folder I get an error message.

So I can't just drag and drop part or all of the tree of folders and
messages.

I could do the whole thing folder by folder by hand but there must be
several hundred folders so this will take a very long time (although it is
much better than losing the emails).

Another option is to switch to Thunderbird - but again the third party
import tool
<https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/importexporttools/>
seems to have the same limitation - it will do the contents of one folder
but will not import a tree of folders constaining '.eml' files.

So does anyone have a route to the successful automated import of these
files?
Any reasonable email client would do.

I haven't tried Windows Live Mail yet but am happy to give this a go -
just don't want to go moving large amounts of data around to no purpose.

Oh - just another thought - if I copy the structure under a new mail
installation then start up Windows Mail will it cope with all the extra
folders and '.eml' and 'winmail.fol' files?.

Cheers


Dave R

[Henry Law]

On 05/04/13 13:53, David.WE.Roberts wrote:
> I have a massive store of messages from Windows Mail, all were held below
> Local Folders and are in '.eml' format.

> Another option is to switch to Thunderbird - but again the third party
> import tool
> <https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/importexporttools/>
> seems to have the same limitation - it will do the contents of one folder
> but will not import a tree of folders constaining '.eml' files.
>
> So does anyone have a route to the successful automated import of these
> files?
> Any reasonable email client would do.

This is not an answer to your question, at least not directly; more a
contribution to the debate.

First off ".eml" format is a typically Microsoft re-naming of something
that already exists: text-format RFC2822 mail. Thunderbird would import
each one as a mail folder (containing one mail); it would make more
sense to make one composite file of all the ".eml" files in a single
folder and then let Thunderbird find them. The windows "copy" command
would do that, if you're comfortable with command lines.

All you need to do to get Thunderbird to see a new mail folder is to put
the folder under "Local Folders" in the Thunderbird profile.

Does that get you any further? I'm sorry if it's not what you wanted.

--

Henry Law Manchester, England

[David.WE.Roberts]

Well, it is interesting to know that the .eml file is based on RFC2822.

Also interesting to consider moving the folder tree under 'Local Folders'
in Thunderbird.

Consolidating them all into one folder is not an option - they are indexed
and filed by originator and there are one hell of a lot of folders.

What I have discovered is that if you close Windows Mail, move a folder
with '.eml' files under Local Folders in Windows Mail and then start WM up
again it will scan them, copy the contents to another folder with (1)
appended [e.g. if you had a folder called Tax it would create Tax(1).] and
show the folder in the GUI with the original name.

It leaves behind the original folder, empty but with a 'winmail.fol' still
there.

So I now have a usable store of my old emails on a different system.

Now reconstructing the mail rules, and re-inputting passwords as they
don't seem to get carried over with the accounts (or are encrypted so the
new client can't read them).

All very interesting in hindsight but not fun at the start.

Cheers

Dave R

[David.WE.Roberts]

On Fri, 05 Apr 2013 17:49:15 +0100, Henry Law wrote:

Further update.

The ImportExport Tool will now import from folders containing '.eml' files
and has an option to import from sub-folders as well.

So all the messages in the 'Local Folders' area of Windows Mail can be
imported into Thunderbird.

As posted earlier I have also found how to shoehorn them into a new
instance of Windows Mail.

So now it looks to be a choice between Thunderbird and Windows Live Mail
for W7/W8 use.

Cheers

Dave R

[vishwakar...@gmail.com]

You don't have to try too hard, both email clients support the EML format, so easily drag email into Windows and Thunderbird email client mailboxes.