276510 - Thunderbird needs to support mail backup / save multiple messages at once

Status: RESOLVED EXPIRED

(Thunderbird :: General, enhancement)

Description

[Martin Meyer]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8a6) Gecko/20041229 Firefox/1.0+
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8a6) Gecko/20041229 Firefox/1.0+

Thunderbird currently lacks the ability to copy multiple messages to a
filesystem in .eml (or any other) format.  There are currently several bugs
opened concening similar or partial backup-like functionality, but this bug is
about backups in general.  There is no way to save multiple files to a
filesystem (i.e. create a backup) without saving every message individually.

There are two possible ways of handling this that I can think of:

1) Allow drag and drop of multiple messages to the filesystem.  I have already
filed bug 227305 for this functionality.  This seems to be the only way Outlook
Express can handle this.

2) Make a "backup messages" option on a menu somewhere that lets you select
individual messages out of the currently selected folder to copy to the
filesystem.  The messages would be listed with checks next to them to select
which to backup.  There would be a textbox at the bottom for the location to
save the files to (and a browse button next to it).  There should be a way to
select a format to save the files in: .eml, .htm and .txt to start with.

Although I'd like to see option 1 implemented, option 2 I think would be a very
welcome feature for Thunderbird.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:

Comment 1

[OstGote!]

see similiar Bug 247312

Comment 2

[Martin Meyer]

Bug 247312 sounds more like a "backup your profile" bug than a "backup your
messages" bug.  Ideally, the result of this backup would be able to be opened by
any email client, not just Thunderbird.  If the backup were to include account
information as well I don't see that as a possability.

On another note, I think it'd be a good idea if all the messages could be
exported to a ZIP archive.

Comment 3

[Doug Wright]

bug 258870 is about saving multiple messages at once to .eml which seems to be
the main focus of your request.

Comment 4

[Tuukka Tolvanen (sp3000)]

see also bug 102960 core/mn:backend save multiple messages as single file

A workaround is to create a temporary folder in local folders, copy messages in,
and copy the corresponding mbox file from the profile, as it's (nearly) a simple
concatenation of the messages with headers.

Comment 5

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This is an automated message, with ID "auto-resolve01".

This bug has had no comments for a long time. Statistically, we have found that
bug reports that have not been confirmed by a second user after three months are
highly unlikely to be the source of a fix to the code.

While your input is very important to us, our resources are limited and so we
are asking for your help in focussing our efforts. If you can still reproduce
this problem in the latest version of the product (see below for how to obtain a
copy) or, for feature requests, if it's not present in the latest version and
you still believe we should implement it, please visit the URL of this bug
(given at the top of this mail) and add a comment to that effect, giving more
reproduction information if you have it.

If it is not a problem any longer, you need take no action. If this bug is not
changed in any way in the next two weeks, it will be automatically resolved.
Thank you for your help in this matter.

The latest beta releases can be obtained from:
Firefox:     http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/
Thunderbird: http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/releases/1.5beta1.html
Seamonkey:   http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/

Comment 6

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This bug has been automatically resolved after a period of inactivity (see above
comment). If anyone thinks this is incorrect, they should feel free to reopen it.