addressbook won't import into earthlink webmail

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fbu924
Posts: 358
Joined: September 2nd, 2003, 3:47 pm

addressbook won't import into earthlink webmail

Post by fbu924 »

Hello: I'm trying to import my wife's Seamonkey 1.1.9 (wXPproSP2) address book into earthlink's webmail. I exported the address book to a .csv. I did check the .csv using MS excel2000. When I try to import it to earthlink's webmail, and follow their instructions (found in their "spamblocker" settings), the first & last names are there, but no email addresses. Yes, I have set up chat sessions w/earthlink tech support, but past experience with them has been awful (though last session on setting up "vacation settings" was the 1st decent help in years). I may try them again tomorrow but I trust the help I get here a lot more. Do I need to change the .csv header names? I also tried to reduce the number of columns in the .csv. I also tried to contact help via their advice to use IE (you can see why I don't trust them). Anyway, TIA.
Paul L
Mike Novack
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complication

Post by Mike Novack »

The data formatting (order of fields) probably not the same.

All .cvs (commas separated variable) means is that the file of data consists of records (delineated by <newline>) with each record consisting of a number of fields (data items) these being delineated by commas.

But that doesn't define the ORDER of those fields. So if one application which exports/imports via the .cvs format used "last name, first name, email address, ....." and another used "first name, last name, ....., email address,.." it isn't going to be that simple. For example, if you imported a .cvs file exported by the second app into the first, you wouldn't get the email address appearing where it should -- instead you'd get whatever was in the third field represented by the dots.

Understand? There's no "idenitifier" indicating that this field = last name or whatever ---- .cvs is POSITIONAL (although one could design a data format which was "keyword" nevertheless using the fundamental .cvs concept). A GOOD importer of .cvs data will allow you to specify reordering of fields upon import. Notice that the 'zilla apps do (or at least at one time they did -- haven't imported in a couple years). Getting that right involves some trial and error.

1) Ask the support at Earthlink if their importer allows reordering (if it doesn't, tough*, but that's not a SeaMonkey issue. It's the importing app's responisbility)
2) If so, to reduce trial and error, create a small address book in Earthlink and export it. You can now compare that with an address book exported from SeaMonkey (open both in a text editor), note down the differences in field order, then specifiy the reordering that the EarthLink importer shouls use to make all the SeaMonkey exported fields come out in the right place.

* You didn't say what OS you use or whether you had any programming experience and have some programming language support on your system. A program to reorder the fields of a .cvs file not very difficult. Say you use Linux or BSD Unix (if Mac OSX Leopard you have a BSD shell). Well then a bash script could do the job easily.
fbu924
Posts: 358
Joined: September 2nd, 2003, 3:47 pm

Post by fbu924 »

Thanks for reply. Though a few yrs ago I could prob have resorted in vi, I hardly used Linux & relearning the commands to do this simple task just isn't worth more time. I've spent hrs already importing to earthlink, from Outlook even (importing from sm), and nothing will import to earthlink. It may be as you describe, since the exported .csv from SM shows 1st names, last names, then email, and that's the baseline csv.
Paul L
Mike Novack
Guest

worth a try

Post by Mike Novack »

Look, it's worth a try.

Create a small address book (just a few entries) in your Earthlink account and export that to .cvs and the look at what you have. You will probably be able to look at the .cvs file with a text editor (don't click the object; start the text editor and then do an "open file" thus overriding the data type implied by the file extension. This MAY be very simple. For example.......

John,Doe,,jdoe@someisp.net (the third field is null and Earthlink expects the email address in the fourth field location

In that case you'd just need to insert commas into the file exported by SeaMonkey to make the fields correspond. When I referred to using a program I was inlcuding the case where the address books were very large and the fields required major reordering, not just insertion or deletion of a comma or two each record (each line if doing with a text editor)
fbu924
Posts: 358
Joined: September 2nd, 2003, 3:47 pm

Post by fbu924 »

Thanks, Mr. Novak. Right after I posted my reply but before seeing your last post, I tried again. I will paste your answer as useful in general to my toolbox folder. What I did that worked was: (not all below in order; I installed Outlook last night).

-export SM .mab as .ldif
-install OE 6
-import SM .ldif address bk into OE6
-export OE6 address bk as .csv
-install Outlook2K
-import OE6 .csv addr. bk. to Outlook
-export Outlook addr. bk. to .csv
-import Outlook .csv to earthlink webmail

... the email addresses were present in webmail. PIA but done.

(it may have been poss. to cut Outlook out of the loop. Not as I read it, but it was late & I'd had 9 or so failed .csv trials, so I just did what I thought MS +/o earthlink said to follow on OE & Outlook.)
Paul L
idesignb
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Re: addressbook won't import into earthlink webmail

Post by idesignb »

Thanks for all this information. With the help of this info and some experimenting, I was able to import my Thunderbird address book into Earthlink. The key to it is the heading names. Thunderbird's heading for the email address is Primary Email and Earthlink's is E-mail Address. When I changed the heading to E-mail Address in my .cvs file, Earthlink recognized it. I used excel to change the file and saved it as a comma delimited file.

Thanks for your help. I hope this helps others.

bb
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rolfp
Posts: 138
Joined: November 8th, 2009, 10:51 am

Re: addressbook won't import into earthlink webmail

Post by rolfp »

I got here from google since I have run into the same problem exporting from Seamonkey in Linux and importing to Earthlink Address book. I followed in the footsteps of fbu924, thank you! I happen to have XP running in Virtualbox, installed the "windows component", Outlook Express, imported the ldif, then exported to csv. That did not work and, since I only needed to update my webmail address book as I am enabling the spamblocker control that won't let an email through if the address is not in my book and I didn't want too many senders getting the nag response to go through the test, I reduced the fields to only name and email address. That was acceptable to ELNK. Thanks, again!
rsx11m
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Joined: May 3rd, 2007, 7:40 am
Location: US

Re: addressbook won't import into earthlink webmail

Post by rsx11m »

rolfp, please check the date of the threads before replying. This one saw its last action 6 years ago, thus it is unlikely that the original participants are still monitoring it (especially with Guest posts involved).

Locking, please open a new thread with the necessary specifics.
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