e-mail migration

Greetings.

I will be purchasing a new Mac soon (my first ever) and there are a few questions I hope that you pros can answer for me today and possibly in the future.

As a long-time Windows user I am looking forward to making the switch. My main concern is with transferring my e-mail. I currently use Eudora 6.2 for Windows and would like to transfer my existing mail to the Mac. Are there any tools that you can recommend to make this as painless as possible? My mail dates back to 1998 (wow, I just realized how long ago that is!) and I would like to keep it. I know I can probably run the old program using Parallels or Fusion, but obviously I would like to use a Mac-native e-mail app.

Any suggestions for migrating my old e-mail? How about a good e-mail program?

Not to make this post too long, but does anybody here run Opera on the Mac? I am curious if it is possible to just copy the settings from install (on Windows) to another (on OSX).

Thank you very much for your assistance.

 

I appreciate the replies. It turns out that migrating everything to my Mac was much easier than I had feared.

It has been a while, so I can't recall for certain, but I know Apple's Mail program was able to easily import my Eudora e-mail. I might have used the same utility that harv mentioned. I was then, as he said, able to keep my folder structure, filters, and address book. I had to move some things around, but this was simple once the data had been moved.

I also found that the data files I needed for my Opera preferences (keychain logins, bookmarks, etc.) were pretty much the same. I just had to find the right directories to place them in.

I've been using the Mac for nearly a year and couldn't be happier!