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import eml archives (and use protonmail import/export tools)
I face a problem, I have mailbox archives in Maildir format, eg with email stored in separate eml files I find maildir format more convinient because many webmail allow to download the email in eml format so you can store and save important email outside a webserver (and before tags were invented, you could "tag" emails using symlink, so saving LOT of space) recently I begun to move my email from a big firm that didn't even bother supporting pgp in it's webmail and can read/access/get compromised my emails because of lack of privacy bothering to protonmail that support natively pgp. before, I had to create several webmail account to keep some privacy, because emails are now used everywhere to loggin... so, one webmail for opensource dev, one for administrative, another to mailinglists that i'm not sure I can unregister... so I reproduced same schema with proton, until I discovered simplelogin... so I centralized my mail into one account and used alias emails instead of multiple accounts, but I have some emails to backup, and before deleting the now no more needed accounts, I used proton import/export tool to download the email, and I have now maildir on my computer that I want to be access... I use thunderbird that I configured to use maildir for local storage, sadely thunderbird created it's own maildir structure, for example for the SomeDir folder in thunderbird gui : SomeDir.msf (thunderbird internal index file) SomeDir.sdb/ (don't know what this dir is for.... it's not in maildir spec...)
| ---- cur/ (contains eml files) | ---- tmp/ (suspect it's used to store file while downloading?)
SomeDir/ (don't know what this dir is for.... it's not in maildir spec...)
| ---- cur/ (empty....?) | ---- tmp/ (suspect it's used to store file while downloading?)
so I said myself, if I store my eml files into SomeDir.sdb/cur/ they should appears into thunderbird... but not... so I said myself it's because the msf is corrupted, so in gui SomeDir->properties->Repair folder this made appears some empty entries but in fact seems that thunderbird didn't detected the directories as directories but created empty email looking entries instead...
is there a right way to have thunderdird use existing maildir archives? or a way to have thunderbird open an eml file? this is really annoying that thunderbird re-created the wheel and created a format that isn't the maildir format... but says it support maildir...
thanks and regards
Valitud lahendus
hi sfhowes thanks for the reply - tried d'n'd folder or file from a filemanager... not working, don't know if it's related to linux or maildir format.... - tried the importExportTools NG (even if I don't like addons, I don't know how far I can trust them (security/privacy....))
-> import maildir, not working, it says the archive created by import/export tool of proton mail isn't a maildir format -> import all eml from recursive subdirectories : seems to have worked!!!! thanks a lot, I was really worried not to be able to read saved eml files and organise them....Loe vastust kontekstis 👍 0
All Replies (3)
I said me it's because it miss the msf files, so thunderbird don't consider dir as dirs.... but if I create an empty msf file for each directory then repair the folder index, it create empty entries in gui, one per folder and one per msf file...
You can import eml files by simple drag and drop from the file manager (e.g. Windows Explorer) to a subfolder of Local Folders in TB. This creates an mbox file in the profile, named after the subfolder. At least, that's what happens when mbox is the default format. I don't know if drag and drop works the same in Linux, or if it works if maildir is the default. The ImportExportTools NG add-on can also import eml files, in any OS, but its operation with maildir is unknown to me.
Valitud lahendus
hi sfhowes thanks for the reply - tried d'n'd folder or file from a filemanager... not working, don't know if it's related to linux or maildir format.... - tried the importExportTools NG (even if I don't like addons, I don't know how far I can trust them (security/privacy....))
-> import maildir, not working, it says the archive created by import/export tool of proton mail isn't a maildir format -> import all eml from recursive subdirectories : seems to have worked!!!! thanks a lot, I was really worried not to be able to read saved eml files and organise them....