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Exporting to Mbox with 'ImportExportTools NG' add-on not quite working

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  • Last reply by Mark Foley

Mark Foley
Mark Foley
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After researching on how to export my inbox to an Mbox file I found the suggestion(s) to use 'ImportExportTool NG' add-on. I installed that and ran it as instructed (right-click on Inbox folder > ImportExportTools NG > Export Folder). The resulting file, Inbox, is not an mbox file, at least not one like gets created by Linux in the /var/spool/mail folder. I cannot open it with mailx directly. It does appear to open with mutt. I can open it with mailx if I remove the \r at the end of each line (since the "standard" mbox format wants a blank line between messages). However, the From line for each message has the datestamp of when the files was exported, not the datestamp of when the actual messages was sent. E.g:

From - Thu Nov 11 23:28:10 2021

versus: From [email protected] Fri Nov 5 08:04:38 2021

Can this be fixed?

After researching on how to export my inbox to an Mbox file I found the suggestion(s) to use 'ImportExportTool NG' add-on. I installed that and ran it as instructed (right-click on Inbox folder > ImportExportTools NG > Export Folder). The resulting file, Inbox, is not an mbox file, at least not one like gets created by Linux in the /var/spool/mail folder. I cannot open it with mailx directly. It does appear to open with mutt. I can open it with mailx if I remove the \r at the end of each line (since the "standard" mbox format wants a blank line between messages). However, the From line for each message has the datestamp of when the files was exported, not the datestamp of when the actual messages was sent. E.g: From - Thu Nov 11 23:28:10 2021 versus: From [email protected] Fri Nov 5 08:04:38 2021 Can this be fixed?

Chosen solution

Problem solved with a custom bash script. The CR/LF issue is solved by using the Linux Thunderbird version of the 'ImportExportTool NG' add-on. However, the "From " line is still messed up and not in accordance with man mbox which says, "A postmark line consists of the four characters "From", followed by a space character, followed by the message's envelope sender address, followed by whitespace, and followed by a time stamp." Furthermore, the date in the add-on's "From " line is the date of the export, not the date of the message.

I saw no add-on developer's contact info, but I suppose he/she would have be contacted to fix this.

More detail and a bash script to post-process the exported mbox file can be found here: https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-server-73/export-of-thunderbird-inbox-to-mbox-file-not-quite-working-4175703465

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Mark Foley
Mark Foley Question owner
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Chosen Solution

Problem solved with a custom bash script. The CR/LF issue is solved by using the Linux Thunderbird version of the 'ImportExportTool NG' add-on. However, the "From " line is still messed up and not in accordance with man mbox which says, "A postmark line consists of the four characters "From", followed by a space character, followed by the message's envelope sender address, followed by whitespace, and followed by a time stamp." Furthermore, the date in the add-on's "From " line is the date of the export, not the date of the message.

I saw no add-on developer's contact info, but I suppose he/she would have be contacted to fix this.

More detail and a bash script to post-process the exported mbox file can be found here: https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-server-73/export-of-thunderbird-inbox-to-mbox-file-not-quite-working-4175703465