Comments on Gaveen's Blog: Howto Migrate from Thunderbird to Evolution

The most distinguishing feature of a lv is the m...

2010-07-28T14:15:36.068+05:30

The most distinguishing feature of a lv is the monogrammed Louis vuitton bags logo that was patented in 1896. The bags were usually made of brown canvas, but off late they have brought out colorful louis vuitton bag as well. Some louis vuitton also have oriental inspired quatrefoils and flowers.

Just.. thank you guy this post were so much helpfu...

2010-06-28T02:05:34.803+05:30

Just.. thank you guy this post were so much helpfull !

P.S. X-Mozilla-Statuses have to be handled as well...

2010-03-13T16:55:51.495+05:30

P.S. X-Mozilla-Statuses have to be handled as well.. For example an X-Mozilla-Status: 0009 signifies that the message has been deleted.

Re: Why Import? "mbox" is actually a family of se...

2010-03-13T16:36:19.935+05:30

Re: Why Import?

"mbox" is actually a family of several mutually incompatible mailbox formats. For more information you can go here:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com./jonathan.deboynepollard/FGA/mail-mbox-formats.html

Thankfully, evolution and thunderbird use a mutually compatible "mbox" format, but still there are some minor differences. Those minor differences do not cause any problem in most cases, so copying/pasting the mbox files should just work.

However, the import procedure should, at least in theory, fully convert the thunderbird mbox format to the evolution mbox format.

@tissatussa: Thanks for the comment. I'm amazed b...

2009-11-17T12:58:17.707+05:30

@tissatussa:

Thanks for the comment. I'm amazed by the amount of feedback I get for this tutorial.

And about the original source, it was me who posted the tutorial in LinuxQuestions.org too. :) If you are a member of LQ, you can view the profile of the poster (SkyEye) you can see that it's me. And I do mention about that in the last paragraph. I guess you missed while skimming through.

Anyway, glog you found it useful. :)

thanks for this tutorial and you should have menti...

2009-11-17T04:45:32.060+05:30

thanks for this tutorial
and you should have mentioned another source : http://www.linuxquestions.org/linux/answers/Applications_GUI_Multimedia/Howto_migrate_from_Thunderbird_to_Evolution which seems an original ..!?

@sebastian-s:Hi thanks for the heads up. I'll modi...

2009-03-27T13:50:00.000+05:30

@sebastian-s:

Hi thanks for the heads up. I'll modify the guide. I've been busy the last few months and couldn't edit the post or check the comments.

Sorry for being late to reply, and thanks for making this post better.

Hi,its me again.Just another comment as this gave ...

2009-01-27T17:03:00.000+05:30

Hi,
its me again.

Just another comment as this gave me some issues.

Thunderbird supports folder names with spaces whereas Evolution doesn't.

So in my case I moved
''~/.mozilla-thunderbird/9q4f4f4i.xxx/Mail/Local Folders/archive prior 2008.sbd''
to
''~/.evolution/mail/local/Thunderbird.sbd/archive prior 2008.sbd''

Then I fired Evolution up and the folder was there, great. But when I wanted to open the folder Evolution gave me an error that it could not open the folder.

After some tinkering I changed the folder name to ''archive_prior_2008.sbd'' and after that Evolution opened the folder, no probs here!

@sebastian-s Thanks for your comment and sharing y...

2008-12-25T13:16:00.000+05:30

@sebastian-s Thanks for your comment and sharing your experience.

Actually I can't believe I didn't mention that accounts have to be created separately. At the time I did my migration I didn't find any easy way to migrate account settings and filters, etc. from Thunderbird to Evo. I thought I mentioned it somewhere. :) Thanks for noting that.

And yes, merry X'mas to you all!

I have to say great howto, thanks as well from me....

2008-12-25T08:54:00.000+05:30

I have to say great howto, thanks as well from me.

It all worked, I used the Method 2.
A few notes as it caused some confusion at first.
I thought I create a folder (e.g. 'import') in Evolution. Then close Evolution and copy all the Thunderbird folders in there.
So when I created this folder in Evolution I checked my ~/.evolution/mail/local and there where no folders in there.
But a bunch of files: import,
import.cmeta,
import.ibex.index,
import.ibex.index.data

I then created a folder myself and moved all Thunderbird files in there. After restarting Evolution all was there, so no problems.

On some investigation I found out that when I create a folder in Evolution under the 'Inbox' there will be a real folder called 'Inbox.sbd' created in ~/.evolution/mail/local/ in there are the four files mentioned above again.

Another thing I though was missing is that you don't mention that this how to only covers moving existing local mails from Thunderbird to Evolution. The user still has to create all his email account settings, import certificates, set up filtering and signatures in Evolution.

Thanks again and a Merry Christmas to all the FOSS users out there!

@peterd, Thanks. Comments like your keeps me going...

2008-02-27T15:18:00.000+05:30

@peterd, Thanks. Comments like your keeps me going.

And it was interesting to see that the most number of search related hits to my blog are for this post. I guess, I should update the posts also.

@-j, Yes, kudos for going ahead. In fact I knew this should work, but was too lazy to edit the post. I'll do it now.

and @stratosjl, Actually I should give you due credit. :) By the time I wote this blog post, I've just moved from TB to Evo. However your method works, and I've recommended several people this. Even -j also did that. So thanks mate.

I had a pile of old mbox files I wanted to import ...

2008-02-26T22:00:00.000+05:30

I had a pile of old mbox files I wanted to import and using the import interface
in evolution was just too many clicks for me. I found your blog entry and
decided I was willing to take a chance. I shut down evolution, copied all my
mbox files into ~/.evolution/mail/local and restarted, et voila. Worked
like a charm, no problems at all.

Perfect, thank you very much for a succinct and co...

2008-02-26T21:57:00.000+05:30

Perfect, thank you very much for a succinct and complete how-to, much appreciated.

Great howto, thanks. I was looking for something l...

2007-08-15T23:53:00.000+05:30

Great howto, thanks. I was looking for something like this.

Regarding the transfer of emails and folders, in my case, having tenths of folders and tenths of thousands of emails to transfer, I tried the alternative method:

(i) make a folder "thunderbird" in evo and copy an email there, just to create the folder structure.
(ii) from nautilus, copy everything from the actual "Local Folders" folder of ~/.mozilla-thunderbird/xyz.default/Mail (from the root directory copy only the mbox files) into the evo's "thunderbird" folder in ~/.evolution/mail/local/Inbox.sbd/thunderbird.sbd
(iii) in nautilus, search for "*.msf" files in the actual "thunderbird" folder of evo on the disk and delete them all
(iv) on the next restart of evo, the folder structure and thousands of emails are automagically displayed.

Stratos