How to get Eudora emails to display correctly in TB

Discussion of bugs in Mozilla Thunderbird
Andalee
Posts: 8
Joined: June 17th, 2004, 8:08 am

How to get Eudora emails to display correctly in TB

Post by Andalee »

I'm VERY new to TB, and have garnered a lot of info from the posts here at mozillaZine. Thanks to everyone who has contributed. It took me a while to figure this out, since I'm not a nuts & bolts (or should I say bits and bytes?) type. I know some basic html, and can do some things in a DOS window and FTP, but only with a cheat sheet. :o) However, I can cook from recipes, and sew from patterns--so I figured I could tackle simple Perl Scripts and get this baby taken care of. I thought I'd put up a post with straightforward instructions, all in one place, for other TB users like myself, who aren't programmers. So, without further ado, here is Importing and converting Eudora emails to Thunderbird for Dummies.

System info: I'm running XP Pro on a laptop at home with a 56K dial-up. I used the Perl script written by Mateo1041, which I found here: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... t&start=30, and can be downloaded here: http://www.mbdatadesign.com/replace/replace.txt

1. Import your Eudora mail using TB.

2. Save Mateo's perl script to your TB email folder where all of the Eudora mail was put, and rename the script replace.pl (it's originally replace.txt). (That directory will be something like this: C:\documents and settings\(Your profile name here)\application data\thunderbird\mail. . . . You'll have to open Windows Explorer and find out exactly what it is on your machine. If some of the folders have extentions on the name (like mail.sbx), put the extention in the path when you type it into the command line at the prompt. Be sure that you put the script file right in the same folder as your email files. This script doesn't go through subfolders. If you have subfolders with additional email in them, you'll have to put a copy of the script in there and run it again from that location.)

3. Go to www.activestate.com and download a copy of ActivePerl. I used the next-to-newest version for windows, because downloading 8 megs was preferrable to 12 on my modem connection. (There are some drawbacks to living in one of the most beautiful places in the world . . . no broadband!)

4. Extract and install ActivePerl. (It comes in a .zip file, so you'll need an utility like WinZip.)

5. Go to the start menu, and under your listed programs, open ActiveState ActivePerl>documentation. Run the simple test under the Getting Started subsection of the Getting Started section to make sure ActivePerl installed correctly (redundant section names, I know, but that's how they've got it set up). If it didn't install correctly, I would guess you'd need to uninstall and try again. It worked just fine for me, so I didn't have to deal with that contingency.

5.a (Directions for running the test:
At the DOS prompt, type cd\programs\apps\perl\eg. This sets the working directory to the \eg directory in your new Perl install, where the test script lives.
Type: perl example.pl
"Hello from Active Perl!" should appear.)

6. Now, set the working directory to the spot in TB where the Eudora emails and replace.pl are. (For example, the dos command would be: cd\documents and settings\guru\application data\thunderbird\profiles\default.bks\mail\local folders\Eudora mail. Just get the correct path from your handy windows explorer window that you've kept open for just such a purpose.)

6. Once your directory is set, type: perl replace.pl

7. Watch the lines scroll by in the window. They moved pretty fast for me, but I had a LOT of mail to convert, so it took quite a little while.

8. Open TB and check to see how your mail displays. If it didn't work, come back to the forums and do a search, because this is all I know. :o)

This worked really well for me. I'm hoping that others will add to this post with alternate ways of fixing this problem, maybe with instructions on how to use alternate scripts that are out there, (I saw a Python script in my searching), and any other fixes that have appeared recently. Corrections or additions to what I've put up here would be great, as well. Please, though, be patient with any feebleness on my part in this post. Just getting this far makes me feel pretty mighty--and I'm sure there are those of you who are laughing as you read this. (Hopefully it's due to hilarity, instead of scorn.) I'm no engineer (that's my husband), I'm just trying to shed some light on the things that the rest of you all understand so well. I'm sure I could tell you all al thing or two about scrapbooking . . .

Have a great day!
JimW
Posts: 52
Joined: September 27th, 2003, 10:31 am

Post by JimW »

The ideal fix would be to report this as a bug in TBird. I went through the same exercise you did, and found the same Perl script, about eight months ago.

I just looked all over Bugzilla, and didn't find anything about Eudora. I also can't determine what the right category would be!

Jim
Andalee
Posts: 8
Joined: June 17th, 2004, 8:08 am

Post by Andalee »

I think it's Bug 3157, referenced here: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... rt&start=0

Maybe it needs to be reported as a specific TB bug; I don't know. It sure would be nice to just get it fixed for the 1.0 release of TB. I'm hesitant to say it's an easy fix, because I don't know if it is or not. DH's main client right now is always asking for what seem to him like simple fixes or additional features, but because of the way the client's code was designed (actually, NOT designed--think plate of spaghetti), things that should be simple often just can't be done without breaking odd, unrelated things. I would like to think that TB was coded better than that. I probably need to go learn a little about how BugZilla works, and how it is used to actually solve problems. If somebody else wants to report it, go for it. Eudora is a significant enough product that this inconvenience should be taken care of . . . in my mind even before other bells and whistles are added. The people who use Eudora are often the ones just looking for an alternative to Microsoft, and seem as though they'd be most likely to switch. Leaving this huge technical hurdle in place effectively reduces TB's market share. I've heard it said that if you can make your product 10% easier to use, you'll increase your user base by 50%. Even if it's not 50% in practice, the increase is significant.

Does anybody have any light to shed on the subject?
Vacilando_old_account
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Joined: July 9th, 2004, 11:53 am
Location: Brussels
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Ok, but what about attachments?

Post by Vacilando_old_account »

Andalee - thanks for this valuable contribution. I have one question you did not tackle.. what about Eudora attachments? Did you manage to convert them to TB as well? I face that problem and cannot find solution on the whole wide Internet!
Andalee
Posts: 8
Joined: June 17th, 2004, 8:08 am

TB & Eudora Attachments

Post by Andalee »

Hi Vacilando,

As a general rule, I don't do attachments. Since I don't work outside of my 24/7 job as a mom, I don't have a lot of attachment-dependent correspondence going on. The only attachments I had were pictures, and they came through just fine. The file names were made a little strange in the emails, but the pics are still there, and accessible. I'm sorry that I don't have the answer for this--but it seemed like the author of this script had put attachment handling into his code. You might want to go and check out what he had to say about it (I think that info is behind one of the links above).

Good luck!
hadoque
Posts: 5
Joined: July 24th, 2004, 10:24 am

Post by hadoque »

Hi, I'm trying to use the replace script for my imported eudora mailboxes, but i keep getting an error:
Undefined subroutine &main::PrivoxyWindowOpen called at replace.pl line 40.
I've tried doing thison both my win xp box and my linux box.
Old Unghost
Posts: 0
Joined: December 31st, 1969, 5:00 pm
Location: Moscow, Russia

Post by Old Unghost »

Have you tried latest build? There are some improvements in migration wizard.
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... 56&start=0
What's New For Testing


1. Profile Migration Wizards for new users. We can now migrate settings and data from the Mozilla Suite, Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora (Win & Mac), Netscape 4.x and Netscape 7.x. Launch without a profile and the migration wizard will show you a list of available migration sources (the apps I just listed) that you have accounts for on your machine. I could really use help testing this stuff.
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NetsurfAU
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Re: How to get Eudora emails to display correctly in TB

Post by NetsurfAU »

G'day,

Just a quick thank you for the "fix" you posted. Fixed the problem I had with all the saved mail I had migrated across.
Luke
"Do the right thing. Because it is the right thing to do"
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miken32
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Arise!

Post by miken32 »

Reviving a dead thread here.
Bug 3157 was resolved for Seamonkey, but can anyone tell me if the same is done in Thunderbird yet? Using 0.7.3 yielded the same poor results when trying to import Eudora's messages. This is keeping me from switching my home email over (already using it at work!)
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How does he <a href="http://pasteip.mozdev.org/">paste his user agent</a> so easily?
oyvind
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Re: Arise!

Post by oyvind »

miken32 wrote:Reviving a dead thread here.
Bug 3157 was resolved for Seamonkey, but can anyone tell me if the same is done in Thunderbird yet? Using 0.7.3 yielded the same poor results when trying to import Eudora's messages. This is keeping me from switching my home email over (already using it at work!)


Take a look at this knowledge base article:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/index.phtml?t ... rom_Eudora
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miken32
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Post by miken32 »

So are there any plans to port this bug over to Thunderbird? Should there be another bug filed for it? There seem to be a number of bugs for the MailNews product that also need to be done for Thunderbird.
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Old Unghost
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Joined: December 31st, 1969, 5:00 pm
Location: Moscow, Russia

Post by Old Unghost »

Using 0.7.3 yielded the same poor results when trying to import Eudora's messages.

The fix wasn't included in 0.7.3 cause 0.7.3 is just security fix build. It will be in 0.8.
See Thunderbird 0.8 Release Notes Draft
Comprehensive Data Migration

Switching to Thunderbird has never been easier now that Thunderbird can migrate your e-mail data such as settings, mail folders and address book data for common mail applications such as the Mozilla 1.x Suite, Outlook Express, Outlook and Eudora.


Also there is another bug - Bug 257058 - Eudora import does not properly handle text/enriched messages - targeted for 0.9.
Joined: 21 Jun 2003
briansp
Posts: 6
Joined: September 7th, 2004, 11:11 am

The script works well

Post by briansp »

Just to comment, I was able to use the script without difficulty on my imported mailboxes from Eudora.
briansp
Posts: 6
Joined: September 7th, 2004, 11:11 am

The script works well

Post by briansp »

Just to comment, I was able to use the script without difficulty on my imported mailboxes from Eudora.
8643
Posts: 1
Joined: November 12th, 2004, 9:59 am

Eudora and TB release 0.9

Post by 8643 »

I'm a newbie to TB and oldie to Eudora 5.1 TB release 0.9 imported my Eudora inbox fine and dandy but no other mailboxes were imported (sent messages, etc). Any ideas?
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