[Users] Using mailmbox plugin to access Thunderbird mbox files ?

[Luc Pardon]

On Sun, 15 Nov 2020 19:34:16 -0000
Paul <claws at thewildbeast.co.uk> wrote:


> Apparently thunderbird uses mboxrd, a variation on the mbox standard.

Bingo! That was the missing link!

Not entirely, however, because the plugin source code (in mailmbox.c) contains
a link to the MBOX man page on the qmail site. That link is now dead,
the current one is http://qmail.org/man/man5/mbox.html.

And that man page says:

> The variant described above is mboxrd format

Duh.

Needs more study, but the important fact is that there are several
mutually incompatible variants of the "standard" MBOX format out there.

So, what about this:

======================
Q : I am switching to Claws Mail from another program that stores its
messages in MBOX format. Can I access these files with CM ?

A : It depends. There are at least four variants of MBOX: MBOXO, MBOXRD,
MBOXCL and MBOXCL2. If your program uses XXXX, you can install
the mailmbox plugin and access the files directly. Otherwise, you must
either import the mails into CM or use one of the tools to convert them.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mbox for info about the format, and
https://www.loc.gov/preservation/digital/formats/fdd/fdd000383.shtml
for more in-depth info on the variants.
======================

Replacing the "XXXX" by the MBOX variant that is supported by the plugin
is left as an exercise to the reader <g>.

It might also be an idea to mention that specific variant on the plugins
page, along with the fact that "MBOX" can means different
things to different people/programs.

Luc