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MOVING from THUNDERBIRD to MAIL

R

RebelScum

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 15, 2007
421
49
Toronto
I've had it wth Thunderbird. MAIL in Leopard looks pretty sexy, so I think I'm gonna make the switch.

Here's my question: How do I import all my Thunderbird settings (addresses, inbox, sent messages, folders, sound settings) into Mail? Essentially, I want to open Mail for the first time and not be missing ANYTHING I had in Tbird.

Thx for your help :eek:
 
if you go into mail, select file->import mailboxes, it gives you the option to choose mozilla. for addresses/contacts, you should be able to export that out of thunderbird in a CVS file and import that file. hope that helps. btw, what mail service are you using? if it's gmail (or another that supports IMAP) just set up the account in mail as an IMAP account and all messages should sync right away saving you from importing.

sorry, but i'm not sure about the sound settings. never tried to do that.
 
isleofjib said:
if you go into mail, select file->import mailboxes, it gives you the option to choose mozilla. for addresses/contacts, you should be able to export that out of thunderbird in a CVS file and import that file. hope that helps. btw, what mail service are you using? if it's gmail (or another that supports IMAP) just set up the account in mail as an IMAP account and all messages should sync right away saving you from importing.

sorry, but i'm not sure about the sound settings. never tried to do that.
Click to expand...

I have another question about Mail....I just got first iMac :apple: :) So I am not so sure how to do thins....can I add my GMAIL account to Mail?
 
whynot83706 said:
I have another question about Mail....I just got first iMac :apple: :) So I am not so sure how to do thins....can I add my GMAIL account to Mail?
Click to expand...

yes, gmail has both a POP and an IMAP server. Specific instructions for setting up gmail in mail.app can be found on the gmail site
 
whynot83706 said:
This is starting to look even better.....I have been using PC for so many years so change is not that easy....It took me 20 min last night to figure out that there is no Uninstall process like on windows....:)
Click to expand...

I have over 10,000 e-mails stored in Mail and it is still as fast as it was when it was a clean install. I much prefer it over Thunderbird.
 
RebelScum said:
I've had it wth Thunderbird. MAIL in Leopard looks pretty sexy, so I think I'm gonna make the switch.
Click to expand...
I *just* did the opposite. Finished my transition from Mail to Thunderbird on my lunchbreak today. As much as I love mail.app, it's seriously messed up in Leopard, and I need something that works all the time. What the heck, I use Firefox for the web, now it's got a partner.

Hope Mail works out for you.
 
Cooknn said:
I *just* did the opposite. Finished my transition from Mail to Thunderbird on my lunchbreak today. As much as I love mail.app, it's seriously messed up in Leopard, and I need something that works all the time. What the heck, I use Firefox for the web, now it's got a partner.

Hope Mail works out for you.
Click to expand...

Is the address book only used for the Mail?
 
whynot83706 said:
Is the address book only used for the Mail?
Click to expand...
Don't remember how I did it, but I was able to export them for TBird. It was late last night :p

[EDIT] Sorry, I think I missed the reason behind your question. You mean Apple's address book being used with other app's?
 
Cooknn said:
Don't remember how I did it, but I was able to export them for TBird. It was late last night :p

[EDIT] Sorry, I think I missed the reason behind your question. You mean Apple's address book being used with other app's?
Click to expand...

I am not at my comp and I just got it last night so I did not had to much time to play with it......My question is if the Apple's Address Book is being used with other apps or just Mail?
 
whynot83706 said:
Can you have more than one account (Yahoo/Gmail)?
Click to expand...

as someone said, yes-BUT, you have to have a pro yahoo account to have POP access to it. otherwise, you can't. but if you have gmail, i highly recommend going into your account preferences in gmail, change your settings to IMAP and then go into mail and set up the account. voila! no importing necessary.

welcome to macs, too btw! so much easier than windows for most things. mail being one of them.
 
If anyone still needs to get T'Bird emails into Mail.app, Eudora Mailbox Cleaner is a great way to get it done. I used that initially, but I also use it everyday. I have to use a PC laptop at work, so I use a portable USB drive with a T'Bird mailbox on it. When I get home I use the Eudora Mailbox Cleaner to suck it all back into Mail.app. Works great.
 
I tried migrating to mail.app from Thunderbird today and while it imported everything, it went a bit too far so I shut it down and am back to Thunderbird.

Here's what happened, and if anyone has any suggestions, I'd be happy to hear them!

My Inboxes that it imported included ALL mail, including hundreds (thousands in some cases) of emails that I have already read, replied to, and deleted. I started going through one of my 4 accounts, re-deleting all of the messages and after an hour I thought -- this just isn't right! So I bailed on it.

Any ideas why it did this? I literally have a good 1,000 messages or so in each Inbox that it imported... it does have current (new) messages, but it also has all of my old ones too. Very strange. Kind of makes me wonder what Thunderbird is storing in its data files, since I deleted most of those messages.

I did the normal Import/Thunderbird option through Mail.app (Leopard) -- and it didn't have any issues importing. I just don't know why it brought back all of those deleted messages from the dead.
 
christhis said:
I tried migrating to mail.app from Thunderbird today and while it imported everything, it went a bit too far so I shut it down and am back to Thunderbird.

Here's what happened, and if anyone has any suggestions, I'd be happy to hear them!

My Inboxes that it imported included ALL mail, including hundreds (thousands in some cases) of emails that I have already read, replied to, and deleted. I started going through one of my 4 accounts, re-deleting all of the messages and after an hour I thought -- this just isn't right! So I bailed on it.

Any ideas why it did this? I literally have a good 1,000 messages or so in each Inbox that it imported... it does have current (new) messages, but it also has all of my old ones too. Very strange. Kind of makes me wonder what Thunderbird is storing in its data files, since I deleted most of those messages.

I did the normal Import/Thunderbird option through Mail.app (Leopard) -- and it didn't have any issues importing. I just don't know why it brought back all of those deleted messages from the dead.
Click to expand...
if you are using pop3, you should haven "compact" folders in TB first, other wise, deleted emails are just "marked" rather than "removed".

again, IMAP is superior.
 
Compact folders in Thunderbird. Use Eudora Mailbox Cleaner to import them into Mail.app. I did that with a 350 MB mail folder and it worked just fine.
 
Thanks for the advice...Import into Mail took 0 time. Mail's GREAT, too!! RSS feeds Rox0rS

Definitely compact folders in Tbird before you import in Mail...5 times I tried to import, and no dice...so I compacted...then everything went schmoov.

And HUGE THANKS for the heads up re. Gmail and the IMAP/POP ability!!!! So long Gmail Notifier!! I have a "pro" yahoo account (Rogers...ugh) and 2 Gmail accounts in Mail now...and it's RIDICULOUSLY easy to use. Glad I switched.
 
clevin said:
if you are using pop3, you should haven "compact" folders in TB first, other wise, deleted emails are just "marked" rather than "removed".

again, IMAP is superior.
Click to expand...

Pure genious... WHY Tbird keeps around my dead msgs until I compact it is beyond me. But it worked. Thank YOU.

Only odd thing now is that it didn't include the last 4 days worth of email in my inboxes... no big deal, really.
 
christhis said:
Pure genious... WHY Tbird keeps around my dead msgs until I compact it is beyond me. But it worked. Thank YOU.

Only odd thing now is that it didn't include the last 4 days worth of email in my inboxes... no big deal, really.
Click to expand...
you are welcome

im not sure about 4 days of email problem. more details?

I used to compact TB alot when i was using pop3. I actually opened TB's inbox file. and its a huge file with mail body encrypted, essentially, i think 'marking' is to speed up operation. im not sure if i ever saw an 'undelete' option tho.
 
Been using MAIL for a while now and I don;t miss Tbird in the slightest. What a great little app.

If I had one beef, it would be that, when in the top-level "mail" window, there is no indication on each message to which account it belongs. I have my main E-mail and 3 Gmail accounts, and while I love that they're all organized individually, I wish I could see at a glance which POP account they were in the top-level window.

Not really a big deal, but still a nice-to-have.
 
not sure it's the fix you're looking for but there is a work around for that. you can go to view->columns and select 'to' (you can also just right click on any of the column headers and select 'to' as well). that will show who the incoming mail is addressed to and should allow to tell which account it was sent to (assuming it's sent only to you, of course).
 
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