(updated at Free Biz Ware)
Since moving from Pegasus Mail to Thunderbird, the old mail had been tucked away. Today it turned out that I need a very old email to recover an old account password. A good excuse to take the time and export all the old mail to Thunderbird. (Not to mention saving the password in to KeePass.)
There are 2 ways to do it
- copy mail folders
- use IMAP
The first way is fine if there is not may folders to export. Unfortunately that was not my case. It took a great deal of frustration before thinking of the second way.
Here’s how.
Copying the Mail folders
Thunderbird mail file is actually the unix mailbox format. Pegasus is also able to store in this format although it is not the default, so some work is required. Steps as follows,
- Start Pegasus Mail.
- Create folder in Pegasus in Unix Mailbox Format.
- In the Folders windows click Add…
- Message folder select Unix Mailbox Format
- Copy your email from the original folder to this folder.
- Go to the Pegasus Mail folder on the system.
- Locate a file name like UNXnnnnn.MBX (eg. UNX06097.MBX)
Sorting files by modify date would help here. - Copy this file to Thunderbird folder on the system
probably
C:\Documents and Settings\user\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\default\xxxxxxxx.slt\Mail\mail_account - Start Thunderbird.
- A new folder with name UNXnnnnn.MBX should appear in your mail account with all the mails.
- Repeat for all other folders.
By the time I reached the 7th folders, I realise this is not the way to go. There are still 100s of folders and I can spend the whole night.
Using IMAP
IMAP to the rescue.
In order to do this you first got to have an IMAP account. My hosting at Fusion Flux happened to support it. Cool!
Here’s how.
- Set up Pegasus Mail to connect to the IMAP account.
Tools -> IMAP profile… -> New… - Fill up the required settings and connect to the IMAP server
- At this point, if the connection is successful, an IMAP mailbox will appear
- Create folders in the IMAP mailbox
- Copy messages to the IMAP folders
- Start Thunderbird and connect to the IMAP account.
- Copy folders from IMAP account to local filesystem.
One warning, if you are copying large folder and/or using IMAP over SSL, the process can be pretty slow. But at least the copying can work in the background.
Hope this help those migrating from Pegasus Mail to Thunderbird.
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