I have old folders in TB for a RETIRED account. I'm trying to move the mail to a new mac. If I want more than headers Thunderbird wants a password? Solution?
As I said above.
I had moved a bunch of old emails using TBird and I'm trying to get them moved to a new mac. The email has long been cancelled and the company who hosted it doesn't exist any more. The domain has changed hands a couple of times.
I set up the accounts on the mac that are still active, backed up as told from the old machine.
When I follow the procedure, I get the headers of the messages only and I can't move them to any other photo. TBird gets in a loop of asking for a password for me to move the mail.
I have read/write privileges on everything. Yet these messages are useless. I've tried to import them into the mail app, and apple can import 2 folders but the others don't show up as an option.
Any suggestions?
Wšykne wótegrona (4)
If it's going off looking online for message bodies then it presumably doesn't have them, just the headers. So those message bodies would have been on the server.
Was this POP or IMAP?
Hey, thanks for jumping in.
Actually, I think they were old pst files I converted way back when and TBird had a fairly easy way to convert the pst files. But this is going back a few years. The original would have been exchange, then probably a pop mail service that was a mind spring account I dropped 10 years ago.
On my old PC, I can see the full messages and they aren't part of a working account any longer so I think the full messages are actually there.
Its when I try to move them they ask for a password.
On your old PC, use the import export tools add-on https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/importexporttools/ to export them as EML files (On to a usb drive would be ideal.) Then on your mac reverse the process.
Thanks for the suggestions.
I ended up finding a solution on the macworld hints site here: http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20050402143519725
Navigate to ~/Library: Thunderbird: Profiles: your_profile: Mail: Local Folders. Identify the mailboxes you seek to use in Mail.app.
Each mailbox has three pieces to it - i.e. inbox.sbd, inbox.msf and inbox with no extension.
- Take the file with no extension, hold down the Option key (so it also stays in the folder) and drag it to the desktop.
- Rename this copy with .mbox as the file extension. For example, inbox becomes inbox.mbox.
- Open Mail.app and select File: Import, choose Other, and navigate to the desktop and click Choose. (Choose the file you just renamed.) Your mailbox(es) should appear in the import window and will import into Mail.app.
[robg adds: This earlier hint provided a script to clean up Mozilla Mail's files for import to Mail. This is apparently due to a problem with Mail's handling of whitespace (according to the posted comments). Since Thunderbird is evolved from Mozilla Mail, there may be a similar issue with importing some mboxes. If you have issues, you might want to try the script from the previous hint...]