Re: [tlug] Transferring MH Format Mail Accounts

[Curt Sampson <cjs@example.com>]

On 2018-12-13 23:33 +0900 (Thu), CL wrote:

> ...I've been looking for an alternative mail client and settled on
> Evolution because the the documentation said that it can read /
> write and save to MH format folders.

Well, first, Evolution doesn't use MH format, it uses maildir format.
(The two are similar, but the latter has some improvements.) I'm not
clear on how compatible these two are.

Second, MH format particularly important to you for some reason? Claws
itself will export to mbox format, and there are no doubt a bazillion
different programs out there to do various other conversions. Even if
you have to go through a couple of conversion stages that might be
well worthwhile if it lets you prioritise criteria other than
MH-compatibility when choosing a new one.

> Before telling you what I told the Evolution site maintainers, the one 
> thing I have not tried is exporting the directories in claws.  As is, in 
> their current directory form, they are invisible to Evolution.

Well, MH and maildir formats are just files on disk, so if you tell
any MH/maildir-using program, "this directory has folders in it,"
it should just work. I don't knowhat an "export" of this would do if
it doesn't change the mail to a different format (such as mbox); maybe
just `cp -r mail/ exported-mail/`?

Assuming that maildir can read MH format mail folders just fine (which
I am not totally sure about), have you tried just adding a new mail
account, as described in the Evolution docs?[1] It's not clear to me
from reading that whether their options for mail folder locations
actually change where it looks for the folder tree or just change how
things are organized within a fixed folder tree (e.g., under
~/.local/share or whatever). If the latter, and you can find the
directory Evolution is using, you could try shutting down Evolution,
doing a `cp` of the MH files from the previous location, and seeing if
Evolution now sees it when started up again.

[1]: https://help.gnome.org/users/evolution/stable/mail-account-manage-maildir-format-directories.html.en


cjs
-- 
Curt J. Sampson      <cjs@example.com>      +81 90 7737 2974

To iterate is human, to recurse divine.
    - L Peter Deutsch