281465 - Transfer of Mozilla MAIL FILES to a new computer can be (virtually) impossible.

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(SeaMonkey :: MailNews: Account Configuration, enhancement)

Description

[Joe Mehaffey]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041217
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041217

I have read the FAQs on how to transfer MAIL files and profile data to a new
computer.  They seem to work ONLY if you have just one or two accounts.  Mozilla
has had an odd habit of crashing and then you have to generate a completely new
mail profile and try and bring in your old email.  Sometimes you can.. Sometimes
you cannot bring in the old profile.  No one knows why or what to do about it. 
For example,  I have a three year old laptop that I use daily with the mail
files as shown in http://www.gpsinformation.org/joe/misc/mailfolderimage.jpg. 
Yet,  I am able to access only two of these mail files.  The others are there. 
Supposedly,  you can delete <xul.mfl> and the index will recompile automatically
and you can see all your mail folders.. Too Bad it does not work reliably.

I just spent 3 hours getting half the folders back that I need.  

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Have DIFFERENT mail folders from several different profiles and try and add
them into one new mail folder and it will happen every time that you will just
get to view some of the folders.
2.
3.

Actual Results:  
I got just four of the 15 mail folders shown to display in the Mozilla mail client

Expected Results:  
There should be SOME well documented and effective way to move mail folders from
one mail profile to another and have them display.  Mozilla mail makes errors
and creates causes the creation of new profiles often enough so that there
really does need to be SOME way to merge these mail files or AT LEAST move them
to the same client folder so they can be merged manually.

Comment 1

[OstGote!]

This is not a support forum (see forums and usenet). 

I guess what you want is bug 63389 (simple import feature). Please resolve it as
duplicate if you agree.

Comment 2

[Joe Mehaffey]

No.  This is NOT a duplicate of the bug suggested.  Ha.. We all know this is not
a support forum because hundreds if not thousands of people have requested a
quality method of backing up and restoring Mozilla AT LEAST since year 2001 and
nothing has been accomplished.  (NO.. the Mozilla Backup effort at
http://mozbackup.jasnapaka.com/ does not qualify as a "quality" backup/restore
program as it FREQUENTLY a) fails to be able to FIND a specific profile you need
to restore and b) often reports that the backup (that it made itself) is
corrupted and cannot be restored.  This program IS a giant step in the right
direction but it was never supported to a final reliable version.

Comment 3

[John T]

It seems to me that some user responsibility and technical know-how are required
of computer users. Backing up and restoring user data might be done easily with
a huge external disk drive that backs up everything on your disk, but if you
have only a CD burner, there's technical knowledge involved. This is true of
email data or any other data. How old or how big do you want your mail folders
to become before you close them out and start new ones? How long do you leave
the old mail folders on the system after closing them out? When you take them
off your system, do you delete them or back them up to tape or CDs? If you want
to back up all of your mail to move it to a new or restored system, how do you
restore it all? I've done it for nearly 10 years. These questions should be
answered in a FAQ or help pages. It requires more knowledge than making toast does.

My backup strategy is:
1) Put mailboxes on a secondary partition in case I must reformat and reload the
main one.
2) When desired and while Mozilla (Seamonkey or Thunderbird) are not running,
rename Inbox and Sent to backup names like 200508Inbox. New Inbox and Sent
folders should be created the next time the mail program starts. This applies to
each profile and indeed each mailbox independently.
3) Periodically (as desired) copy the mailbox directories to a CD. 
4) To restore to a new (or existing) system, copy them back and set the path to
the mail folders in the program. One could also copy the individual mail folders
to the default location created by the program when it's installed.

General profile data in Windows is held in a subdirectory of the Application
Data directory under Windows. The entire content of Application Data, or
subfolders of it, can be copied to and from CD to back up Mozilla profiles and
data of other programs too. I'd recommend deleting the contents of the browser
cache before copying though!

This is what a FAQ on mail backup and restore should say, at least about Win9x
installations. I don't know how WinXP arranges data. Linux backup should be
simpler, but I'm only a novice in Linux.

Comment 4

[Serge Gautherie (:sgautherie)]

<http://www.gpsinformation.org/joe/misc/mailfolderimage.jpg>
gives
{{
404 Not Found
The requested URL /joe/misc/mailfolderimage.jpg does not exist.
}}

*****

MozillaAS v1.7.x is not supported anymore.

Anyway,
*requesting an enhancement to the software seems to the bug cited in comment 1.
*other comments asking for a better FAQ should be redirected to the proper area.
 (and I don't know which that is ... but it is not the MAS product.)

R.Invalid