271 lines
12 KiB
271 lines
12 KiB
<chapter id="importing">
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<chapterinfo>
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<authorgroup>
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<author>
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<firstname>Daniel</firstname>
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<surname>Naber</surname>
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<affiliation><address>
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<email>daniel.naber@t-online.de</email>
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</address></affiliation>
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</author>
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<author>
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<firstname>David</firstname>
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<surname>Rugge</surname>
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<affiliation><address>
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<email>davidrugge@mediaone.net</email>
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</address></affiliation>
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</author>
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<!-- TRANS:ROLES_OF_TRANSLATORS -->
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</authorgroup>
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<date>2002-10-03</date>
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<releaseinfo>1.5</releaseinfo>
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</chapterinfo>
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<title>Using other Mailbox Files with &kmail;</title>
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<para>&kmail; offers an import tool for the messages and address books of some
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other email clients. You can access it using <menuchoice><guimenu>Tools</guimenu>
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<guimenuitem>Import...</guimenuitem></menuchoice>. Please make sure that you
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compact your folders in the other email client, no matter if you are going to use
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the import utility or if you are going to copy files manually.
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You only need to read this chapter if this tool does not work for you.</para>
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<para>This section is for all of the users who need to move email messages
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from their previous email client over to &kmail;. &kmail; can store its
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messages using <quote>mbox</quote> or <quote>maildir</quote> formats, which
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are the most widely-used mailbox formats on &UNIX; systems. Mbox mailboxes
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store messages in one file, identifying where messages start and end with a
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<literal>From</literal> line (do not mix this up with the
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<literal>From:</literal> header that contains the message's sender);
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Maildir uses one file per message. For many &UNIX; email clients, all you
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must do is move your mailboxes to <filename
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class="directory">~/Mail</filename> (or make <filename
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class="symlink">Mail</filename> a symbolic link to the folder containing
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your mailboxes), make sure they are writable by your user, and launch
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&kmail;. The mailboxes should now show up correctly in &kmail;.</para>
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<para>Please have a look at the
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<ulink url="http://kmail.kde.org/tools.html">Tools section of &kmail;'s
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homepage</ulink> first, to see if there is a tool that imports your mailbox
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and maybe even address book.</para>
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<warning><para>Do not use a second email client that accesses the files in
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<filename class="directory">~/Mail</filename> while &kmail; is running or
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you might lose messages. This section only explains how to import mailboxes
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to &kmail; once; it is not useful to you if you're planning to use several
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email clients for your mailboxes in the future.</para></warning>
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<variablelist>
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<varlistentry>
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<term><application>Eudora Lite</application>/<application>Eudora
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Pro</application></term>
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<listitem>
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<para><application>Eudora</application> uses the mbox format in its mail
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files. To use them with &kmail;, make sure that your
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<application>Eudora</application> mailboxes have been compacted, then copy the
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<literal role="extension">.mbx</literal> files (&Windows;
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<application>Eudora</application>) or <application>Eudora</application> mailbox
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files (&Mac; <application>Eudora</application>) to your <filename
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class="directory">~/Mail</filename> folder. You do not need to copy the
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<filename>index</filename> files. Once you start &kmail;, the mailboxes should
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appear in the Folders pane and the messages should be accessible in the Headers
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pane.</para>
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<para>If messages do not appear in the Headers pane, your mailbox files may
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still contain &Windows; or &Mac; line-feed characters. Use your favorite
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text editor, the <application>recode</application> command or a scripting
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language to change the &Windows; or &Mac; line feeds to &UNIX; line
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feeds.</para>
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</listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term><application>Mailsmith</application></term>
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<listitem>
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<para><application>Mailsmith</application> runs on &Mac; and uses its own database
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format; however it is possible to export mail into mbox format using
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<menuchoice><guimenu>File</guimenu><guimenuitem>Export
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Mail</guimenuitem></menuchoice> on a
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selected mailbox or on selected messages. Once the messages have been exported, translate
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the &Mac; line breaks to &UNIX; line breaks using your favorite editor, or using the following
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command under &Linux;:</para>
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<para><userinput><command>cat</command> <option>mail-mac.txt</option>
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| perl -e 'while (<STDIN>) { s/\r/\n/gi; print $_ ;}' > mail-unix.txt</userinput></para>
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<para>&kmail; will only recognize mboxes placed directly in the <filename class="directory">~/Mail/</filename>
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folder. This means that a folder hierarchy cannot be preserved by simply moving files into the
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<filename class="directory">~/Mail/</filename> folder, but will need to be reconstructed
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within &kmail; manually.</para>
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</listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term>MMDF</term>
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<listitem>
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<para>This format is close enough to the mailbox format that &kmail; should be
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able to use these mailboxes if you just copy them to your
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<filename class="directory">~/Mail</filename> folder; however, MMDF mailboxes
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have not been tested with &kmail;, so your results may vary. If you can get
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this format to work with &kmail;, please let us know so we can include more
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specific directions in the next documentation release.</para>
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</listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term>MH mailboxes</term>
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<listitem>
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<para>MH mailboxes are directories containing files that correspond to each
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message in that mailbox. A shell script to convert MH mailboxes to mbox
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mailboxes, <command>mh2kmail</command>, is included at least in the source
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releases of &kmail;, but maybe not in the packaged releases. Running this script
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on a MH folder will convert it to an mbox file. We strongly suggest that you
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back up your MH mail folders before you use this script.</para>
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</listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term>Forte <application>Agent</application></term>
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<listitem>
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<para>In <application>Agent</application>:</para>
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<procedure>
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<step>
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<para>Select the messages to export</para>
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</step>
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<step>
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<para>Select <menuchoice><guimenu>FILE</guimenu><guimenuitem>SAVE MESSAGES
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AS</guimenuitem></menuchoice></para>
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</step>
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<step>
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<para>Mark the <guilabel>UNIX FORMAT</guilabel> and <guilabel>SAVE
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RAW</guilabel> boxes</para>
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</step>
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<step>
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<para>Give File a <literal role="extension">.txt</literal> extension and
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save.</para>
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</step>
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</procedure>
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<para>In &kde;:</para>
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<procedure>
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<step>
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<para>Move the previously-saved file to the correct <filename
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class="directory">~/Mail</filename> folder</para>
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</step>
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<step>
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<para>Rename file without <literal role="extension">.txt</literal>
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extension</para>
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</step>
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</procedure>
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<para>When you open &kmail; the new folder with appropriate messages will be
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there.</para>
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</listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term>&Netscape; Mail</term>
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<listitem>
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<para>If you are using &Netscape; 4.x, the mail files should be found
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in <filename class="directory">~/nsmail</filename>; if you are using
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&Netscape; 6.x, they're buried in a folder deep in the <filename
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class="directory">~/.mozilla</filename> subfolder, something like:
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<filename
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class="directory">/home/user_name/.mozilla/user_name/2ts1ixha.slt/Mail/Mail/server_name</filename>
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(the <filename class="directory">2ts1ixha.slt</filename> string will
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probably vary, so check it on your own system.) The <filename
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class="directory">[...]/Mail/Mail</filename> folder contains one
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subfolder for each account from which you receive mail through
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Netscape (⪚ <filename
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class="directory">[...]/Mail/Mail/math.university.edu</filename>);
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you will need to copy files from each of them if you want everything to
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be accessible under &kmail;.</para>
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<para>If you have no subfolders, just copy all of the &Netscape;
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files to <filename class="directory">~/Mail</filename>, make sure
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that they are writable (only by your user, of course), and restart
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&kmail;: all of the messages will now appear in &kmail; folders.
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(Note that if you use a command like <command>cp
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<parameter>*</parameter> <parameter>~/Mail</parameter></command>, you
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should follow it with <command>rm <option>-f</option>
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<parameter>~/Mail/*.msf</parameter></command>; every &Netscape; 6
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folder has a corresponding <filename>.msf</filename> file, and if you
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do not get rid of them you will have a bunch of spurious empty
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folders.)</para>
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<para>If you were using subfolders under &Netscape; (⪚ a main
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folder called <replaceable>Work</replaceable> with subfolders called
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<replaceable>Jim</replaceable> and <replaceable>Nancy</replaceable>),
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there are additional steps required. First, create the main folder
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(<replaceable>Work</replaceable>) in &kmail; and create a temporary
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child folder under it (by right-clicking on the folder name and
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selecting <guilabel>Create child folder</guilabel>); it does not
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matter what you call this folder -- <replaceable>dummy</replaceable>
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or the default <replaceable>unnamed</replaceable>, for example. Once
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a child folder has been requested, &kmail; creates a hidden folder
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in <filename class="directory">~/Mail</filename> called (in this
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example) <filename class="directory">.Work.directory</filename>. You
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can then copy your &Netscape; subfolder files
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(<replaceable>Jim</replaceable> and <replaceable>Nancy</replaceable>)
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into <filename class="directory">~/Mail/.Work.directory</filename>,
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and restart &kmail;; the child folders will appear under the main
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folder <replaceable>Work</replaceable>. Of course, this procedure may
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be extended for sub-subfolders, to any depth. (You can remove the
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temporary child folders afterwards, unless it amuses you to have a
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<replaceable>Work</replaceable> subfolder called
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<replaceable>dummy</replaceable>.)</para>
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</listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term><application>Pegasus Mail</application></term>
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<listitem>
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<para><application>Pegasus</application> for win32 uses single files for Mail
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folders similar to &kmail;. <application>Pegasus mail</application> folder files
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have the extension <literal role="extension">.pmm</literal> but they are the same format as mbox except the messages
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do not start with the <literal>From</literal> header, but with a control character. To work around
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this, replace each instance of the control character with <literal>From
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aaa@aaa Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 1997</literal>. This <literal>From</literal>
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line should be the first line of every message, before the
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<literal>Received:</literal> and other headers. Make sure to use a text editor
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that lets you save the files in &UNIX; format or create new folders in
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<application>Pegasus</application> that are in &UNIX; format and copy your messages
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there.</para>
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</listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term>Maildir / Outlook Express / xfmail</term>
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<listitem>
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<para>Tools to convert these formats are available at the
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<ulink url="http://kmail.kde.org/tools.html">Tools section of &kmail;'s
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homepage</ulink>.</para>
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</listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term>Lotus <application>Notes</application>, BeOS Mail files, <application>cc:
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Mail</application>, &etc;...</term>
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<listitem>
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<para>First you should have a look at <ulink
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url="http://kmail.kde.org/tools.html">Tools section of &kmail;'s homepage</ulink> if
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there are tools to convert your messages.</para>
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<para>Mail programs not listed here or on the homepage probably do not work with &kmail; as they use
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proprietary mail formats that &kmail; cannot understand. However, there is no
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harm in trying! If the mailbox file looks similar to the mbox format, try
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copying the mailbox file (remember, the index file is not needed) to your
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<filename class="directory">~/Mail</filename> folder and see what happens if you start
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&kmail;. If you get mailboxes from your favorite email client to work in &kmail;,
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please tell us how you did it so that we can include directions in a future
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revision of this documentation. </para>
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</listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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</variablelist>
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</chapter>
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