Errors while importing from Eudora

[k13]

Hello.

Thanks for an excellent job with Thunderbird! I'm really looking forward to its ability to reduce spam to virtually zero.

I have been using Eudora for the past 10 years, and I'm trying to make the switch over to Thunderbird. However, I am encounter 2 problems when trying to import data from Eudora4.3j on Windows2000 Professional.

Problem 1:
Not all of my aliases/address book entries were successfully imported from Eudora. In fact, it looks as though only about 5%-10% were imported.

Problem 2:
For the most part, importing emails from Eudora is working, but I am encountering a few errors. Specifically, in the middle of importing, I am getting an error dialog:

"Send Message Error

Sending of message failed.
Error writing to temporary file."

It would be greatly appreciated if more detailed information could be output when errors occuring during import. Also, if a detailed import-errors.log file could be created, so that we can open it later and find out what messages/address book entries were not successfully imported, it would help tremendously. Also, if the import feature could somehow track the messages/entries that were not imported successfully, and upon selecting "Import" again, be given the option to try to re-try/re-import only the unsuccessful messages/entries, that would be awesome.

Also, where is the temp file that is being used during import?

Thank you again for a great product!

[tanstaafl]

1. Run eudora again and export the addresses as either .LDIF or .CSV files. Then press the addressbook button on the thunderbird toolbar, and import them using tools->import. This is a different tools->import than the wizard that you used to import stuff from eudora.

2. Its probably using the windows temporary file setting. If you open a DOS box and type 'set' it should return the environmental variable settings. Look for ones named TMP or TEMP.

However, Eudora uses the same mailbox format as Thunderbird to store its mail. Its called 'mbox', and is sometimes refered to as "unix mailbox" format. If you copy the *.mbx files to your local folders directory in thunderbirds profile you should be able to use them, as is.

http://www.holgermetzger.de/pdl.html describes a mozilla profile and whats in it. thunderbird uses basicly the same profile, it just omits the browser-centric files.

Some usefull resources (in case you don't know about them):

http://www.nidelven-it.no/articles/intr ... hunderbird
http://www.texturizer.net/thunderbird/
http://www.mozilla.org/docs/command-line-args.html
http://preferential.mozdev.org/preferences.html

[Guest]

Thank you very much for your reply, tanstaafl. I was finally able to import my mail and address book entries successfully. The problem was that the directory for the "Local Folders" account was set to a directory on my C drive under "C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\default\mo28g48o.slt\". However, my C drive did not have enough disk space to handle the conversion of mail from Eudora (I have a lot of email since 1996 in Eudora). When I changed the directory for the "Local Folders" account to a folder on my D drive, which has plenty of space, the import worked successfully (only about 4 directory were unable to be imported - very minor). Perhaps Thunderbird's Import feature can produce an error message indicating: "There is not enough disk space to complete the import to <full path where it is saving email data>. Please change the directory for the "Local Folders" account under Tools -> Account Settings -> Local Folders"? Also, can the above solution, including yours, be added to the Thunderbird FAQ under a new category, "Troubleshooting: Importing Mail from Email Clients"? Thank you again for your solutions.

Re the address book import from Eudora, I noticed that Thunderbird did not correctly map the "aliases" used in Eudora to "nicknames" in Thunderbird. In Thunderbird, all of the address book entries imported from Eudora do not have anything listed in the "nickname" field. Any ideas?

After successfully importing the emails, I am now encountering a problem with Thunderbird not displaying HTML-based emails (from the import) whereby the body begins with <x-html> and ends with </x-html>. I can see all the HTML tags in my emails... Any idea how to resolve this? This may be my last hurdle to making the switch to Thunderbird.

Thank you again very much for your help, and have a wonderful weekend!

[Guest]

I also wanted to add that I am also seeing "<x-flowed>" and "</x-flowed>" in many of my emails.

[tanstaafl]

After successfully importing the emails, I am now encountering a problem with Thunderbird not displaying HTML-based emails (from the import) whereby the body begins with <x-html> and ends with </x-html>. I can see all the HTML tags in my emails... Any idea how to resolve this? This may be my last hurdle to making the switch to Thunderbird.

See http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... ight=xhtml and
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... ight=xhtml

[Guest]

Thank you very much, tanstaafl!