[Discuss] Thunderbird: recovering old messages

[chris wakefield]

OnMarch 13, 2008 07:03:04 pm Murray Strome wrote:
> I reinstalled Kubuntu on my wife's computer.  I had
> backed up everything. However, I am having trouble
> recovering her old E-mail messages. They are all there,
> but I cannot figure out how to get them.
>
> When I reinstalled Thunderbird, the .mozilla-thunderbird
> directory is created. The area where all the mail
> information is included is <random number>.default
>
> I tried copying all the information from the saved
> <different random number>.default to the new one.
> However, it still wants me to set up a new account, and
> I cannot figure out how to access the information in all
> the mail folders, etc. that are there.
>
> I think I have succeeded to do this in the past, but
> cannot remember how to do so.  I have searched for
> solutions with google, but have not come up with
> anything that works.
>
> Any ideas?
>
> Thanks.
>
> Murray
If you just want to VIEW the messages you can use:  
mhonarc.
Just cd to the directory with the mbox data in it and run:
mhonarc -add ./*
It will output a directory full of html pages of each email 
with a:  threads.html and a date index as well.

Essentially it just makes browser accessible pages of the 
mail in the particular folder.

Chris W.