Migrating from Eudora on Windows to Linux

[Chris Gow]

Hi:

CLIFFORD ILKAY wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> One of the applications that has kept me tied to Windows is Eudora. I am 
> aware of KMail and Evolution, the two must likely suspects to replace 
> Eudora but have a few challenges in the migration.

There is also Mozilla's thunderbird. Its not all that bad. Not as 
feature rich as Evo. But probably close to KMail in feature 
functionality (This is what I've noticed in my minimal exposure to KMail).
> 
> 1. I have almost 6GB of mail spread out over about 800 mailboxes. Many 
> of those mailboxes are nested, e.g. Linux>>TLUG>>TLUG - in. I would like 
> to preserve the directory hierarchy and can handle that part easily 
> enough by scripting the directory creation. I want to change how things 
> are laid out anyway so this is not wasted effort. The bigger challenge 
> is how to convert the .mbx files to some other MUA while still 
> preserving the message attributes. 

I believe that both Evo. and KMail support importing Eudora's MBX file 
format. In KMail (1.5.1) Look under Tools > Import. My Evo environment 
is currently unavailable so I can't tell you where the import option is 
in there.  I think you can also get both clients to read the MBX format 
directly.

> 
> 2. I receive a lot of HTML mail, especially from Microsoft's products, 
> and in the tests that I have done, both KMail and Evolution did not 
> display the messages properly. I just saw the raw HTML which is useless. 
Hmm...I've never seen Raw HTML in either KMail nor Evo. Looking through 
the options in KMail, the closest I've come to for enabling HTML is 
under the Profiles tab in Settings > COnfigure KMail > Appearance. Then 
again, my default settings enabled me to view HTML anyway. Evolution 1.4 
should have something similar (I can't remember where).

> 
> 3. I thought that migrating to IMAP might be useful because I dislike 
> being tied to one computer for mail. IMAP works well enough for incoming 
> mail but what about outgoing mail? I want my Outbox on the IMAP server 
> too but I have not seen any obvious way of migrating my existing Eudora 
> Outbox to IMAP without losing a lot valuable metadata. 

In KMail: Settings > Configure KMail > Identities (select the identity 
you want to modify) > Advanced > Sent-Mail folder.

Similar for Evolution. I've got all of my mailers set up this way: 
Evolution, KMail, Thunderbird, Eudora. And haven't had a problem yet. 
I've also got my drafts folder setup this way too.

To keep your existing outbox meta-data, you might want be able to get 
away with using that as an 'archive' of old-sent-mail and configuring a 
new sent-mail folder.
> 
> I hate Eudora 6 so I am very motivated to migrate away from Eudora. The 
> latest version of Eudora that I like is 5.2 so if I have to,
Heh. Yeah I can relate. After using Thunderbird and Evolution, I can't 
stand using Eudora anymore either. I miss the small things that both 
clients (TB and Evo) offer:

- The quick search bar
- The auto-address completion feature that actually *gasp* checks 
directory servers for you
- VFolders in Evolution


Just an FYI, I really, really like Evolution. However, using it to 
access an IMAP server is slow. I'm not 100% sure why this is, especially 
as TB's IMAP access time is fast. From some of the mails on the 
Evolution user list it might be because Evolution always checks all of 
the IMAP directories and TB only checks the INBOX.

hth

-- chris
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