Saving Tbird e-mail files? -

[Bob Goodwin]

On 17/12/09 20:29, Mail Lists wrote:
> On 12/17/2009 04:33 PM, Bob Goodwin wrote:
>    
>>     There must be a way to save/export/import Thunderbirds email files
>>     when going from F-11 to F-12! I have never been able to do this
>>     despite suggestions to simply move the Thunderbirds "Mail" files.
>>     Every six months or so I lose all the mail when I upgrade Fedora and
>>     reinstall Thunderbirds,
>>      
>
>     WHile you can usually re-use your .thunderbird directory, one should
> never save any email in thunderbird local format in my view. I use TB
> coz I still thinks its the best of a bunch.
>
>     A far, far better way than using local TB storage, is to simply run a
> local imap server (dovecot works really well) and use that. The major
> advantages are
>
>      (i) You are now essentially indifferent to what mail client you use
> - and its simple quick to change between different mail clients.
>
>      (ii) TB local storage (mbox format) was designed in the 70's ... and
> it has long since been replaced by far far safer, faster and superior
> formats.
>
>       mbox format is a single large file - so if you delete a message in
> the middle, it doesn't actually delete it (too slow) until you
> "compress" it. Using a modern format (like maildir++) never needs
> compression and the risk of corruption is gone.
>
>
>     [MS outmook uses a similar approach - and they have similar problems
> - corrupted mail files. There is a small cottage industry of repair
> programs which attempt to recover mails from a corrpted outlook.pst file! ]
>
>    And remember to turn off GLODA too in tb 3 or you're in for all kinds
> of gigabyte files and slow to start and run tb.
>
>    
>
>     good luck!
>

>     Ok, I give up! Where can I find instructions, hopefully step by
>     step, to install IMAP with a local server? That sounds like the
>     solution to this problem and a few others.
>
>     Bob
>
>