Hawk Wings » emlx

Getting Tiger Mail messages into Leopard Mail

Tim Gaden — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 12:43:21 +0000

Like many people, Max Shafiq is looking on the Apple Discussion forums for a way to import Tiger Mail messages into Leopard Mail.

Another post in the same thread notes some of the ways not to do it:

I have the same problem Max. I’ve tried importing mailboxes (from the file menu), and also dragging the old Mail folders to the new Mac’s Libraryâ€¦ both attempts only partially successful, with most mail missing completely.

Actually, the answer is fairly simple. Just follow the method in this previous Hawk Wings’ post on importing emlx messages into Tiger Mail. Nothing’s changed.

It involves quitting Mail, making a backup, creating a new Mailbox in your ~/Library/Mail/Mailboxes folder, copying in the individual emlx files (that is, the messages) you want to import, restarting Mail, selecting the new mailbox which will appear in the list of mailboxes “On my Mac” and rebuilding it. VoilÃ ! The messages appear, with timestamps and everything else nicely preserved.

Piece of cake. mailboxes, leopard, mail.app, apple mail, tiger mail, messages, importing, emlxSimilar Posts:

Moving from Mail 2.0 to Thunderbird

Tim Gaden — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 12:03:22 +0000

Apple Matters has produced a walk-through on switching from Mail.app to Thunderbird using the emlx to mbox converter from CosmicSoft.

It covers all the steps from finding your Mail.app messages, converting, moving and importing them again and features some screenshots to help you on your way.

Perhaps the emlx to mbox converter has got smarter or perhaps the author was lucky, but he doesn’t mention any of the problems encountered by another user trying to do the same thing, which were posted on macOSXHints some time ago.

Needless to say, moving back the other way again from Thunderbird to Mail 2.0 will be easier and the outcome more pleasurable.mail.ap, apple mail, thunderbird, email, switching, mbox, emlxSimilar Posts:

Mark Pilgrim and Mail.app’s “Save As…” function

Tim Gaden — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 22:40:26 +0000

Last Week macOSXHints ran a tip about using Mail.app’s “Save As…” option to export messages in mbox format.

Mark Pilgrim, who recently switched from OS X to Linux, takes the opportunity to point out that this option doesn’t create a valid mbox. Rather, it is another example of Apple’s wicked addiction to proprietary file formats.

Mail.app was the straw that broke the camel’s back for Mark. It made him switch away. And the pain is still raw:

However, in the interests of fairness, I will amend my previous statement that Mail.app is a roach motel that auto-upgraded 14 years of my mail into a proprietary, undocumented format with no possibility of exporting it to an open format. This is not true. Mail.app is a roach motel that auto-upgraded 14 years of my mail into a proprietary, undocumented format with a tantalizingly broken export feature. I apologize for the confusion.

Mail.app. Gone but not easily forgotten.

Fortunately developers have found solutions and work-arounds for exporting Mail 2.0 messages. Mark could use either emlx to mbox converter or, better, the Archive script in Andreas Amann’s excellent Mail Scripts to solve his problem.mail.app, apple mail, pilgrim, mbox, emlx, exporting, switchingSimilar Posts:

John Gruber, Mark Pilgrim, Mail.app and openness

Tim Gaden — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 12:27:43 +0000

John Gruber and Mark Pilgrim are having a very public and very excellent conversation about Apple and file formats, proprietary and open.

Mark Pilgrim announced that he was switching from OS X to Ubuntu, citing the ever-advancing proprietary creep in Apple as the main reason for his switch. Apple “just doesn’t get it” when it comes to open file formats.

Uproar. Not least because of Pilgrim’s reputation as a long-standing Mac guru.

John Gruber responded to the post, arguing that “Apple gets it / Apple doesn’t get it” is too crude a view:

The question isnâ€™t â€œDoes Apple get it?â€, but â€œDoes Apple get it enough?â€ …. [W]hile it is easy to find ways to complain that Apple is not open enough â€” under-documented and undocumented security updates and system revisions, under-documented and undocumented file formats â€” it would be hard to argue with the premise that Apple today is more open than it has ever been before. (Exhibit A: the Web Kit project.)

But there are things that could be better, should be better, but arenâ€™t, and itâ€™s hard to ascribe these policies to anything other than management that is, at best, indifferent to issues related to openness.

Interesting as this all is (and there is a lot more of it—you should read the posts on both sites), I am posting this because it turns out that Mail.app played a crucial role in Pilgrim’s decision to switch.

In his response to John’s response, Mark writes that Mail 2.0 finally forced his decision to switch:

And then came Tiger, and Mail.app 2.0. In Mac OS X 10.4, Apple deliberately changed Mail.app to use their proprietary .emlx data format, apparently to work around the limitations of Spotlight. Mail.app 2.0 helpfully auto-converted all my wonderful mbox files into Appleâ€™s shitty undocumented format. Iâ€™m now in the process of undoing the damage….

This was really the last straw for me. I was already feeling vaguely dissatisfied with Apple; now I feel actively betrayed. By the time I even realized what had happened (a year after buying OS X 10.4), it was too late. Now Iâ€™m forced to migrate all my mail yet again from yet another proprietary format, and the best documentation Iâ€™ve found so far is on LiveJournal. Jesus H. Christ, somebody deserves to be fired for that.

apple mail, mail.app, proprietary file formats, open source, open format, John gruber, mark pilgrim, openness, apple, emlx, mbox Similar Posts:

Gmail Loader: Moving Mail.app messages to Gmail

Tim Gaden — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 21:46:07 +0000

Hawk Wings has posted about Mark Lyon’s Gmail Loader before back in the days (last year) when it was a command-line utility.

Things have changed. Gmail Loader now has a graphical interface and is much more “user-friendly”.

As the rush to Gmail’s web interface continues, James E. Robinson III provides a timely walk-through using the current version to get the emails from his IMAP account into Gmail’s system.mail.app, gmail, email, messages, mailboxes, mbox, emlx, Gmail Loader, web interface, transferringSimilar Posts:

emlx to mbox converter 1.0.3

Tim Gaden — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 20:49:48 +0000

Cosmicsoft’s emlx to mbox converter has been updated.

This utility will convert Mail 2.0′s new emlx-formatted messages back into the mbox format used by Mail.app under Panther and by many other email clients.

The new version is faster and now supports partial.emlx files.

It is freeware and available from the developer’s web site.Similar Posts:

Going backwards: Tiger emlx to Panther mbox

Tim Gaden — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 13:16:54 +0000

From a thread on the Apple Mail Discussions Board come some tips for going backwards in Mail.app from the new emlx file format in Mail 2.0 to Panther Mail’s mbox format:

The emlx to mbox converter that’s been blogged here before, but with a step-by-step walkthrough.

Andreas Amann’s Mail Scripts contains an Archive script that can export Tiger’s emlx files as an mbox file.

One poster is going backwards because Tiger Mail has too many problems. Another is going backwards for various reasons he won’t go into. A third user on MacUsers.org is going backwards because his work set-up demands it.tiger, panther, mail, mbox, emlx, mail.app, apple mailSimilar Posts:

Mail 2.0′s three different file types

Tim Gaden — Fri, 02 Dec 2005 14:39:38 +0000

One of the most significant changes in Tiger’s Apple Mail 2.0 was the shift from storing messages together in mbox files to storing them as individual emlx files. This is done primarily so that Spotlight could search your messages easily.

Each email is now stored as an XML document in a subfolder of your Mail folder.

However, if you take a peek inside your Mail folder, you will see that in fact Mail.app is using three different types of files to manage your messages. Some details about each type follow after the jump.

How are they different? Here are some guesses:

An emlx file is a pure plain text message. At the end of each file you will find some metadata including (for locally-cached IMAP messages) the original server-side mailbox and ID number of the message. MailTags also stores its metadata at the end of these files.

An emlxpart file is an attachment, either an image, a document or an HTML version of a message. It doesn’t contain the metadata which is included in an emlx file. Prior to Tiger, Mail.app stored attachments inside each mailboxe’s mbox file.

Now attachments are stripped off and stored separately as these emlxpart files with the same number as the corresponding emlx file. For example, a friend me a GIF file today. His message is locally cached in my Mail folder as 47803.emlx and the attachment as 47803.2.emlxpart.

As readers have pointed out in the comments, emlxpart files seem to occur only in IMAP accounts.

In IMAP accounts, a third type — partial.emlx — sometimes appears. I can’t work it out exactly, but I am guessing that this is a partially locally-cached copy of a message on the IMAP server, saved for indexing perhaps. If anyone knows better, I’d be glad to hear about it.Similar Posts:

Blessed by a higher power

Tim Gaden — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 03:24:52 +0000

Macworld has found a way to export Mail 2.0 emlx files into Thunderbird.

It follows exactly the method suggested in a Hawk Wings tip on 23rd October.

Isn’t that sweet?Similar Posts:

Switching from Thunderbird to Apple Mail

Tim Gaden — Sat, 22 Oct 2005 22:19:09 +0000

Both macOSXHints and mozillaZine carry the same tip for importing email messages into Mail.app from Thunderbird. It involves copying the relevant mailboxes to the Desktop, adding the “.mbox” extension to the files and then importing them via Apple Mail‘s Import feature.

Contacts can be exported from Thunderbird‘s Address Book in either CSV (Comma Separated Value) or tab delimited format.

You can then import them into OS X’s Address Book using its native import feature or using a third-party app like Address Book Importer (which is free for a “one-off” use).

UPDATE: In the comments to this entry, Andreas Amann points out some problems with the tip on masOSXHints and MozillaZine. He notes that Eudora Mailbox Cleaner now handles the importing of Thunderbird mailboxes as well (and better). Thanks.

Going the other way? (Shame on you!) CosmicSoft’s emlx to mbox converter looks promising for Mail 2.0 users on the way out. Use it, then follow the second half of the instructions for importing emails from kmail in the Thunderbird FAQ.thunderbird, emlx, mbox, converter, switching, address bookSimilar Posts: