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Transferring email from RoadRunner to Thunderbird

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  • Impendulo yokugqibela ngu Zenos

heritage3
heritage3
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In helping a friend move old email from the browser based WebMail at Spectrum (Time Warner) RoadRunner to Thunderbird, I found many suggestions which do not work. She wants to use the POP3 option at Thunderbird so her mail is on her computer and wants copies of old email at RoadRunner, which is arranged in folders, to be at Thunderbird.

Suggestions involving switching to IMAP were not appealing. Dropping a .mbox folder into Thunderbird does work but RoadRunner cannot create such a file and making one is agony. (Gmail may be able to Import and Export one but so far success is sporadic.)

This solution works and is simple. Open Thunderbird. Temporarily uncheck all references to check mail and delete mail under Server Settings (just to be safe). Create empty folders that match those at RoadRunner. Open RoadRunner. Open the first folder to copy. Move all messages to Inbox. Go to Thunderbird and "Get Messages". Move these to the appropriate folder. Return to RoadRunner and move all messages from Inbox back to the original folder. Repeat. This worked perfectly April 2017.

Instructions for copying the RoadRunner Address Book to Thunderbird work but the details can be very confusing. Here are some suggestions. Open RoadRunner and go to Address Book. Export. Choose the simplest form which transfers all your information. Netscape 7 may be the best choice. Save the Exported file. For this, you need to insert a top row with headers in the file created. Outlook Express creates headers but makes way more than RoadRunner can export and causes trouble importing. The bare minimum you need is Display Name and email address. You will probably have to do a trial run to get the information and headers just right for Thunderbird.

In Thunderbird, go to Address Book >> Tools >> Import and choose Text File. Import the .csv file you created. with the box about headers checked (the default). Think about matching the Thunderbird entries with your headers. This is where you probably will have to experiment but one or two tries will straighten things out.

In helping a friend move old email from the browser based WebMail at Spectrum (Time Warner) RoadRunner to Thunderbird, I found many suggestions which do not work. She wants to use the POP3 option at Thunderbird so her mail is on her computer and wants copies of old email at RoadRunner, which is arranged in folders, to be at Thunderbird. Suggestions involving switching to IMAP were not appealing. Dropping a .mbox folder into Thunderbird does work but RoadRunner cannot create such a file and making one is agony. (Gmail may be able to Import and Export one but so far success is sporadic.) This solution works and is simple. Open Thunderbird. Temporarily uncheck all references to check mail and delete mail under Server Settings (just to be safe). Create empty folders that match those at RoadRunner. Open RoadRunner. Open the first folder to copy. Move all messages to Inbox. Go to Thunderbird and "Get Messages". Move these to the appropriate folder. Return to RoadRunner and move all messages from Inbox back to the original folder. Repeat. This worked perfectly April 2017. Instructions for copying the RoadRunner Address Book to Thunderbird work but the details can be very confusing. Here are some suggestions. Open RoadRunner and go to Address Book. Export. Choose the simplest form which transfers all your information. Netscape 7 may be the best choice. Save the Exported file. For this, you need to insert a top row with headers in the file created. Outlook Express creates headers but makes way more than RoadRunner can export and causes trouble importing. The bare minimum you need is Display Name and email address. You will probably have to do a trial run to get the information and headers just right for Thunderbird. In Thunderbird, go to Address Book >> Tools >> Import and choose Text File. Import the .csv file you created. with the box about headers checked (the default). Think about matching the Thunderbird entries with your headers. This is where you probably will have to experiment but one or two tries will straighten things out.

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Zenos
Zenos
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If you're wedded to POP, I'd suggest setting up the account twice in Thunderbird, once as IMAP and the second as POP. The IMAP account will show you the folders on the server. Create the same folders under the POP account and copy/move the contents across from the IMAP account.

When you're all done, remove the IMAP connected version of the account.

In my book, IMAP is the best of both worlds; you have local copies and yet have access to all your historical folders on the server.

...unless there is a pressing reason to remove all the old messages from the RoadRunner server?

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