My Mail application is hopelessly broken. I would like to open my old .mbox files using Word or Text Edit, just so I can read them. Is it possible to do this?
(I check my e-mail on another computer -- I only want to get into the old files to archive them.)
TextEdit will open them, as will Pages I believe, although I am not in a position to check that at present. In the past I did this directly or indirectly with Pages, and then exported as text searchable PDF file that I could share with others. However, I think you need Mail itself to read any attachments that did not View in Place.
What is broken about your Mail program, currently. Perhaps we can fix it.
You're right -- it was fixable. I found the answer in another thread. I had to delete the preference file and one of the inbox .mbox files, and now it opens just fine.
I do have another question, though. I now have mbox files on my laptop (10.3.9) and I'd like to import them to Mail on my iMac (10.4). Any suggestions on the best way to do that?
Is the Mail on the iMac already set up and in use, or are you about to migrate it?
A xxxx.mbox can be imported into Mail 2.x, but must be converted to a new structure as it is carried out. I can find some links to help advise you on this, as I have posted about it many times. The conversion will have a greater chance of success if the xxxx.mbox is not huge in size, and has recently had Rebuild used on it.
On the Mac that is running 10.3, open Home/Library/Mail/a POP account folder and find the INBOX.mbox. Control-click on the INBOX.mbox and choose Show Package Contents -- report this info, and this will tell me some things before I recommend the path to importing mailboxes (but not necessarily the Inbox) into Tiger and Mail 2.x.
None of the POP account folders have INBOX.mbox files -- I deleted them all (which, while clumsy, seems to have fixed the problem I had with Mail crashing the computer). I have four POP account folders, and each contains only "Sent Messages.mbox".
Control-click on one of the Sent Messages.mbox files and choose Show Package Contents, and report. Or better yet, open Home/Library/Mail/Mailboxes and do this over one of the xxxx.mbox you have created for archiving.
I assume you are no longer receiving email on this Mac?
That mailbox appears clean in structure. My recommendation would be to open each and every mailbox in Mail 1.3.11 on the old Mac, and then use Rebuild. Rebuild is in the pull-down under Mailbox in the menubar.
Next consider how you will connect the two Macs, or if you will use an external hard drive, or to burn some disks. Let me know how you will do the file transfer, and I will try to check something out in the meantime to be of the most help.
I'm hoping to network the two computers, which has worked in the past. If I can't get them to play nicely, I'll be doing the transfer by burning discs.
Thank you for helping with this, Ernie! I'm trying to get all my personal files off this PowerBook, and it will be great if I can get my old e-mail on to the new computer.
Networked should be fine, but you could also probably use Target Disk Mode and a Firewire connection. I would use Network because it is easier.
After mounting the Home folder from the old Mac onto the Desktop of the new Mac, in Mail on the new Mac, click on File, and choose Import Mailboxes. Choose the type as Mac OSX and continue. You will be given a dialogue to navigate to the folder from which you wish to import, so choose the Home folder from the old Mac now seen in the sidebar to this window. Navigate down through those folders (can't use the sidebar for this) to the Mail folder and then the Mailboxes folder, but no further. Now you should have a button that says Choose -- click on this, and a new type window should open, showing every xxxx.mbox folder in the Mailboxes folder, with a box that has been checked. You may not want to try all at once but there is no risk in doing so, but uncheck the box beside Outbox.mbox, as that is already on the new Mac. Click the button to now import and wait very patiently. Mail must convert everything in the mbox file of the old structure mailbox package into files placed and indexed in a new folder named Messages that will be in every xxxx.mbox folder. You will not see this happening, but that is what should be happening. When you are done, there will be some reference to each one in the Sidebar and you can try to open each one.
If you can open each mailbox, check to see if you think all messages were successfully converted. You can confirm this, in the Finder by now opening the Mailboxes folder in the Mail folder on the new Mac, and then opening each xxxx.mbox folder, and using Get Info, compare the size of the old mbox file (should still be there, although no longer needed) with the size of the newly created Messages folder.
Once you satisfy yourself that all messages have been converted in all mailboxes, you can delete all but the Info.plist file and Messages folder from each imported mailbox.
Hopefully no one xxxx.mbox from the old computer is overly large, as conversion will be more likely to have succeeded.
This all may seem tedious, but is best done since the conversion routine is often flawed.
