"From " delimiter info in mbox file is stripped when moving email from one folder to another
Think this is a bug report rather than a question.... anyway....
In case you don't know....
mbox files store emails with "From " on a new line recognised as the beginning of a new email (and thus the end of the last).
There are various formats, but a typical first line will be something like From - Fri, 20 Oct 2000 11:34:32 (sometimes the sender name is included here, sometimes the date format differs, probably due to history of client used, sometimes there's no dash; the actual information is still available in various other headers)
The problem is.....
When moving emails from one folder within Local Folders (I haven't tested imap folders, but that's not what I need), the information is stripped, leaving only "From " (followed by new line). The remainder of the email is fine, and moving folders whole retains all information.
I've tried drag and drop, and I've tried "Copy..." dialogues. I've tried message filters. I've also tried a couple of extensions (I presume they just use the built-in file moving code). All exhibit this behaviour.
(for info, I'm trying to rebuild my archive in a logical way from zillions of backups, and for whatever reason this behaviour spoils the ability to remove duplicates via the "Remove Duplicate Messages" add-on, which does cope otherwise - I'm trying to merge multiple folders from maybe 25 years(!). I haven't even started on my Outlook .pst archives!)
(Bonus - another one, which may be intentional - when moving emails from one folder to another, the source mbox file keeps all the moved emails, and only its .msf index is updated. Go to "Properties... Repair Folder"; the .msf is recalculated and all your moved emails reappear magically.)
Basically things work under the hood, but it's all a bit flaky.... ;-)
Anyway, thanks, and do as you will with all of this! :-)
Andy
Chosen solution
Andy, I appreciate your efforts, but I am only a volunteer to assist in using Thunderbird. You may have uncovered a bug, but it seems elusive. In Windows, I cannot duplicate it, but if you can narrow it down, the problem should be filed on bugzilla.mozilla.org.
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What version are you using? I tried to duplicate all of this and everything worked as intended, no loss of anything, And when I moved messages from one folder to another and then repaired the sending folders, the original messages did not appear. If this is really happening, I would think thousands of users would be reporting it. Very puzzling.
Thanks David. All the latest Windows setup, I think:
Edition Windows 11 Pro Version 23H2 Installed on 29/09/2022 OS build 22631.4169 Experience Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.22700.1034.0
Thunderbird Desktop Version 128.2.3esr | Released September 20, 2024
I am right now trying Thunderbird on a VirtualBox image of Ubuntu Linux on my Windows laptop. Although I haven't tried the same mbox files as before (for reasons of extreme faff), I am able to move messages without loss of information from the "From " . The original folder (from which I moved the email) does still retain it, but has correctly changed the status parameter to "X-Mozilla-Status: 0009" so that the email doesn't reappear if I repair the folder (even after deleting the .msf file). In other words, this seems to be working perfectly.
Anything else you need from me? Thanks again for taking an interest.
Andy
Laptop Windows now (the original report was my work desktop). Earlier (slightly) version of Tbird... significant?
This time the moving files still strips the "From " info, but the deleted files are (as in the Ubuntu report) correctly marked 0009 and don't come back.
Tests here and on Ubuntu have been simply copying a file from gmail imap to a local folder, then moving it on to a second local folder. I also tried adding stuff manually to the "From " field before moving from the first to the second local folder, and the "From " stuff was again lost.
Edition Windows 11 Home Version 23H2 Installed on 10/05/2023 OS build 22631.4169 Experience Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.22700.1034.0
Thunderbird Desktop Version 128.2.0esr | Released September 4, 2024
Update - have checked using old and new email files. The "From " field thing remains as reported - data stripped on both Windows machines but not on Ubuntu Linux, so the key problem exists.
The deleted stuff reappearing may be a red herring caused by older emails not having an "X-Mozilla-Status" field, meaning that (since Thunderbird seems not to want to add one in), they can't be marked as deleted.
Will stop documenting every last thing I do now. Terrible habit. Thanks all.
Chosen Solution
Andy, I appreciate your efforts, but I am only a volunteer to assist in using Thunderbird. You may have uncovered a bug, but it seems elusive. In Windows, I cannot duplicate it, but if you can narrow it down, the problem should be filed on bugzilla.mozilla.org.