OOC -- Help Me with Mozilla Mail

[sythyry]

OOC --

We've got a lot of email in Mozilla on one machine, in several accounts, with subfolders. We upgraded Mozilla, and all the accounts went away. This is, of course, unfortunate.

The data is still there -- we looked at the folders, and there are hundreds of megabytes of files. We immediately copied them to another folder, for extra safekeeping.

So ... how do we tell this version of Mozilla to use those mail files?

(Yeah, we hacked around and have a rather chaotic way which seems to let us read old mail and get new mail, but might not work for the subfolders, and seems somewhat likely to break. So please, if you tell us about how to do stuff, let us know how sure you are about it. We've already got a half-assed answer; we'd like a full-assed one.)

Many thanks!

(Yeah, yeah, Back it up early, back it up often. We're more careful with some machines than some others.)

Comments

[cattitude.livejournal.com]

My first shot would be to receive a test message containing an unlikely word that you can search for using the new installation (carefully turning off the "delete from server after downloading" option first), search for where it puts the new message, and dump all the old messages and such into that spot. Look at time stamps on files to figure out which are the index and configuration files, and, of course, preserve your backups until you're sure it's working.

[ionotter.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, restoring folders in Mozilla/Thunderbird...it's a bit annoying, but easy.

When you install a new copy of anything Mozilla or FireFox related, it creates a new profile. The directory tree will look something like this:

c:\Documents and Settings\(your username)\Application Data\Mozilla\profiles\8a4j39q.default\(bunch of subfolders and files)

The parts you need to pay attention to are the contents in the oddly numbered profile folder. The info from your old installation will look slightly different. It might be \profiles\4r9o67e.default\ or whatever, it's no worry. The biggest difference will be that the old installation folder will have a MUCH bigger amount of data in there.

The contents of that folder from your old installation need to be moved to the new profile folder. Don't move the whole profile, it won't work. When Mozilla products install, they add hooks to your registry that specifically ask for the generated folders. Here's what it will look like:

c:\Documents and Settings\(your username)\Application Data\Mozilla\profiles\8a4j39q.default\(old installation contents)

c:\Documents and Settings\(your username)\Application Data\Mozilla\profiles\5t3v67j.default\(new installation contents)

Highlight/select all the (new installation contents) inside the (5t3v67j.default) folder and delete them.

Now highlight/select all the contents in the (old installation contents) folder and move them into the new (5t3v67j.default) folder. Be sure to move everything in the old folder to the new one, or it might break the installation.

Bear in mind, the actual numbers will NOT be the same on your machine as they are here. Each profile.default folder is unique.

At any rate, this should solve your problem. It will also install all of your plug-ins and extentions too.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Oooh, someone who knows what's going on! Thank you!

[kris-schnee.livejournal.com]

I've done something similar to recover old folders full of messages in Thunderbird, by going into the "Mail" subdirectory of the profile one and copying both a folder like "Inbox" and the .MSF file of the same name. I renamed them to avoid conflicts with existing folders so that eg., "Inbox" became "Unbox." I put these into my new installation of Thunderbird and these old folders showed up, letting me access the messages. I didn't think to copy the whole profile, partly out of ignorance but also because I was trying to bring old messages in without losing the new ones I'd gotten since the hard drive crash.

I don't remember whether the files/folders I copied were in:
Mail\Local Folders
or Mail\mail.xepher.net ,
But I think I copied whichever was larger on the theory that it was up to date. This seemed to work.

[ionotter.livejournal.com]

This certainly does work, but it means that any extentions and themes you had on your previous installation won't work and will need to be reinstalled.

For example:

I have GnuPG and EnigMail on my setup, an open-source encryption and authentication suite, and it's a bloody pain in the neck to get installed the first time. Once it's installed, it's a simple matter of just backing up the files and directory structure, but doing it over again is NOT something I'd like to try.

I have nothing useful to add...

[allessindra.livejournal.com]

... but this whole post brought to mind Princess Leia and her little recording, "Help me Obi-Wan, you're my only hope!"

and now I can't get it out of my mind.

Don't worry Ma'am, I'm from the internet!

[ionotter.livejournal.com]

Han Solo here, at your service.

_{And if anything goes wrong, then it's not my fault!}

Re: Don't worry Ma'am, I'm from the internet!

[allessindra.livejournal.com]

Don't worry Ma'am, I'm from the internet!

and you won't put the check in my mouth?