3.5   Importing Mail

Importing mail into EagleFiler speeds up your mail program and backups, creates an efficient and secure archive of your mail, and lets you organize and search mail messages alongside related files. The recommended way to import mail varies depending on which mail program you’re using:

Apple Mail

Select some messages (either from regular mailboxes or smart mailboxes) and press the capture key. EagleFiler will preserve the message status and flagged indicators from Mail, as well as any keywords, projects, and notes from MailTags. EagleFiler is able to import messages from IMAP mailboxes, however it will only import the parts of the messages that have been downloaded from the server. Thus, it is recommended that you select the option in Mail’s preferences to keep All messages and their attachments for offline viewing. Another way to import from Apple Mail is to drag and drop folders or mailboxes from the Finder. This makes it possible to import whole hierarchies of mail.

Entourage

Select a mailbox or some messages and press the capture key. EagleFiler will preserve the message flags, categories, and projects. EagleFiler skips messages that have been assigned the “OmitFromArchive” category in Entourage.

Eudora

Mailboxes for Eudora 6 are stored in the Mail Folder folder inside the Eudora Folder folder, and they can be dragged from the Finder into EagleFiler. They are not actually in mbox format (for example, the attachments are removed), but the format is close enough that EagleFiler will be able to read most of the messages. Running the mailboxes through Eudora Mailbox Cleaner before importing them into EagleFiler may produce better results. The .toc files are not mailboxes and should not be imported.

GyazMail

Select some mailboxes and choose File ‣ Export ‣ Unix mbox…. Then drag the exported files into EagleFiler.

Mailsmith

Select some mailboxes or messages and press the capture key. EagleFiler will preserve the notes (as EagleFiler notes) and message status and label (as EagleFiler tags). You may find it helpful to use Email Archiver to separate messages by age before importing them into EagleFiler.

Outspring Mail

The messages are stored in the folder:

/Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/Outspring Mail/

as individual .eml files. They can be imported into EagleFiler via drag and drop or by pressing the capture key in the Finder.

Postbox

Before importing into EagleFiler, make sure that Postbox has completely downloaded all the messages and use the Compact Folders command. The POP/local mailboxes are stored in the folder:

/Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/Postbox/Profiles/<profile>/Mail/Local Folders/

The IMAP mailboxes are stored in the folder:

/Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/Postbox/Profiles/<profile>/ImapMail/

The mailbox files have no extension and can be dragged from the Finder to EagleFiler. The .msf files are not mailboxes and can be ignored or deleted from EagleFiler’s library.

PowerMail

Select some folders or messages and press the capture key. EagleFiler will preserve the message status and label.

Thunderbird and Eudora 8

To import an individual message from Thunderbird, select the message and choose File ‣ Save As ‣ File. Save the .eml file into EagleFiler’s To Import folder.

To import whole mailboxes from Thunderbird, make sure that Thunderbird has completely downloaded all the messages and use the Compact Folders command. The POP/local mailboxes are stored in the folder:

/Users/<username>/Library/Thunderbird/Profiles/<profile>/Mail/Local Folders/

The IMAP mailboxes are stored in the folder:

/Users/<username>/Library/Thunderbird/Profiles/<profile>/ImapMail/

The mailbox files have no extension and can be dragged from the Finder to EagleFiler. The .msf files are not mailboxes and can be ignored or deleted from EagleFiler’s library.

Webmail

Web-based mail services do not store mail files on disk, so there is nothing for EagleFiler to read. The best way to import Webmail is to connect to the mail account using one of the above mail programs. If your Webmail does not support this, you can drag and drop text from your Web browser, use File ‣ Save to save messages into EagleFiler’s To Import folder, or print and choose Save PDF to EagleFiler.

EagleFiler has native support for viewing e-mail messages. There are two options in the The View Menu for controlling how messages are displayed: Message ‣ Plain Text and Message ‣ Raw Source. The plain text font and size can be set in the Preferences. You can use the Quick Look command in the The Record Menu to preview attached images. The Reply to Message command lets you resume a conversation by opening a new message in your e-mail program. You can also double-click a message to open it in your e-mail program (e.g. to forward it or to access the attachments). EagleFiler opens messages using Mac OS X’s default viewer for .eml files, which is normally Apple Mail. To change the default viewer, use the Reveal in Finder command, then choose Get Info from the Finder’s File menu and look in the Open with section of the info window.

When importing mail:

1. EagleFiler imports the entire raw source of the message, including the attachments and headers. In other words, all the information is preserved; if desired, the messages can be imported back into the mail program with full fidelity. (Exceptions: When importing from Eudora, EagleFiler imports the message text as processed and stored by Eudora, and it does not import the attachments, which Eudora stores separately. Webmail messages imported as PDFs do not include the full source or attachments.)
2. As with other types of imports, EagleFiler copies the messages into its library. When it’s done, you can delete the messages from your mail program. It’s simpler to have each message stored in only one place (the mail program or EagleFiler), and this way you won’t accidentally import multiple copies of the same messages into EagleFiler.
3. EagleFiler stores messages in mailbox (“mbox”) files. This is both for efficiency (one file rather than thousands for a mailbox containing thousands of messages) and for compatibility with other software that can read the standard mbox format.
4. If you prefer to store your messages as individual .eml files rather than mailboxes, you can drag and drop the messages out of the mailboxes once they’re in EagleFiler. You can also import an individual message directly from Apple Mail via drag and drop.
5. Each time you import from a mailbox, a new mailbox file is created in EagleFiler, using the same name as in your mail program. If you had previously imported from that mailbox, you may already have a mailbox file in EagleFiler with that name.
   • Some people like to leave each import as a separate mailbox, e.g. so that for each mailbox there’s one file per month or per year.
   • Others prefer to have a single file that holds all the messages imported from that mailbox over time. To do this, select the Records source and sort by title. This will group the related mailboxes together. You can then select the related mailboxes and use the Merge Mailboxes command to combine them into a single mailbox. The combined mailbox will be stored in the folder that contained the oldest of the selected mailboxes, so your organizational structure is preserved even though the newly imported mailbox might have been imported at the top level.
6. As described in the Basics section, you should not modify or delete the mail while EagleFiler is in the midst of importing it.