172013 - Import Mail from File, not from another Mail application.

Status: VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 63389

(MailNews Core :: Import, defect)

Description

[Richard Neill]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.1) Gecko/20020826
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.1) Gecko/20020826

There's no way to import Mail from a file. Eg a version of Mozilla/Netscape on
another computer or a backup of the profile. 
It's not possible to use the wizard (the only options for import are Netscape
and OE). It can be done manually, but the process is painful....here's how I do it.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Create a new profile on the new pc.
2.Set up Mozilla and all the relevant mail accounts.
3.For *each* mail folder[1] that you want to import, do this:
   i)In Moz Mail, create a new subfolder of Local Folders with the right name
     Let us assume the folder is named XXX
   ii)Exit Mozilla.
   iii)Move the backup/Mail/XXX file into the new mozilla/Mail/XXX
       ie overwrite the dummy folder created in step (i).
   iv) Delete the mozilla/Mail/XXX.msf file
   v)Start Mozilla again. Click on each folder to have Moz update the .msf 
     files.

4. That's it. Your mail is now imported.

[1]A mozilla mail folder is in fact a single text file with all the messages
concatenated together.
Actual Results:  
This method works. I've moved mail happily between accounts on different
versions of Moz, Netscape 4.6 and above, and different OSes. But it's time
consuming.
(It can take upto an hour !)

Expected Results:  
2 different things are needed:

1)The Mail import wizard should include an option for "import from file". 

2)If mailbox files are just placed manually in the mozilla/...../Mail/ folder,
Moz should recognise them, even if it doesn't expect them to be there.

[In case I've missed an easier way of doing this, then please document it.]

This problem has been present since I moved from my first email in NS3 to NS4.6
and each time I have had to move computer. However, as the software gets more
sophisticated, it becomes harder to fool. (Moving from NS3 to 4.6 was just a
case of copying the Mail folder from one to the other; I didn't have to create
the folders in NS before I wrote to the directory). Moz 1.1 does too much
checking, and so can't actually see Mail that is just manually placed in the
Mail folder if it's unexpected.

Comment 1

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 63389 ***

Comment 2

[esther]

verified dup