in state of crisis viz a viz Eudora and Lion, please help

PeterR wrote:

3) Migrate to the Lion version of Apple Mail. This sounds like it might be ok, EXCEPT, many people note connection issues with their ISPs, and say that Apple Mail is much slower than the others to send and receive mail from their ISPs. Because I spend half of my time traveling for work in Third World countries with s-l-o-w internet connections, I wonder if Apple Mail will drive me nuts with dropped connections, no connection at all, or very very slow operations.

WHAT SHOULD I DO? I need advice. I am even thinking of returning my Air and forgetting about the whole thing.

Don't expect everyone not having a problem with Apple Mail to post here, so your best first option is 3)

10.7.2 Mail bugfixes:

• Resolve an issue with Mail in which you may be unable to send through your MobileMe Mail account.
• Resolve an issue with Mail when searching.

Why not just migrate to Apple Mail?

Hi Peter,

I have been in a similar state, though I knew the end of "classic" Eudora was impending with Lion. I can't remember ever not using Eudora, and the program has the full history of every email I have kept and sent for nearly a decade. It's an important history for me for work, plus the features of Eudora are unparalleled. I hate to give it up

Currently I am running Apple Mail on my 2011 Airbook, and I've kept my 2010 Airbook with SL and continue to run Eudora 6.4 on it. I've been doing this for the past month and still feeling my way through this really serious issue. I have investigated every possible option (can't run SL on the 2011 Air), reviewed all other possible email programs, am testing Entourage, and Eudora OSE (it does work on Lion), etc.

The short answer is I have not hit on any good replacement for classic Eudora yet on Lion.

I have also considered giving up the new Air and Thunderbolt display (the reason I upgraded was because of a bad display), but I figure this is the future, need to adapt. But I think it is an idea with merit, at least till they get some of the Lion bugs worked out. THough I fear that will never revive Eudora as we have known it. Another losss with Lion - can't run Acrobat. This stinks because I used it often to assemble PDFs from multiple files - can't do that in Reader.

So why not migrate to Mail? It doesn't have the levels of control of Eudora or simple features, like opening the next unread message automatically, or advancing from one open message to opening the previous or next by using Cmd up or down, it doesn't display attachments in my sent box for some reason, I can't direct all attachments to one folder without manually saving every one, which changes the time stamp on the file too. You can't type a couple letters of someone's name or subject word to go to the most recent email to reply, can't open a message with the space bar, can't set different check email intervals for different accounts, I could go on and on - so many details.

Eudora OSE is not shaping up to be a full replacement either. At least it's heartwarming to see the Eudora icon on Lion! It's quite a different program from classic, somewhere between Mail and classic Eudora. There are actually features of Mail that may be better... still trying to work it out. So bloody time consuming to sort it all out. It's a real crisis.

In the end, I suspect I will just give up what I have had with Eurdora and go for a crippled alternative with Mail, unless someone finally comes up with a decent solution. I imagine there are a lot of hard-core Eudora users in a similar situation, anyway, you aren't alone and there are no good fixes as far as I have been able to determine.

It's disappointing to regret an Apple purchase - the first disappointment for me, and now with Steve Jobs gone... sad days.

I'm running Eudora OSE on my uh...netbook...just to see if I can use it. It's just OK. Certainly not the Eudora we know and love.

I'm in a panic over this as well. I really want the full-disk encryption that Lion offers, but can't move away from Eudora just yet.

Someone asked "Why not just move to Apple Mail?". Certainly the features aren't on a par with Eudora, but for me the issue is one of trust.

Apple Mail on Tiger silently destroyed my saved email formany months before I found out it was doing so, and because Tiger's Apple Mail and all succeeding Apple Mail clients don't use the .mbox format, I was not able to rescue it at all.

I cannot trust Apple Mail, not just over the one issue, but because its proprietary storage format prevents me from recovering anything. (It's no better than Outlook in this regard).

I've heard no good news about Mail Forge - each beta seems to be 'not quite ready to depend on', and frankly my take is that they seem to be flopping around and uncoordinated - they were to release a suitable and dependable replacement for Eudora several years ago, IIRC.

If you hear of something that will do the job of PowerPC Eudora, please let the world know.

I wonder what it'd take to get someone to try and just compile the source for Intel and release it in an unsupported version. Certainly the source code is out there somewhere, either with Qualcomm or with the author...

Diana H -- I have EXACTLY the same feelings as you do about this Eudora crisis. What have you finally done to resolve the problem? What replacement are you using? I have considered LEAVING MAC over this issue.

I HATE the Apple Mail app and I am going to give up my mac address -- which ends in May -- because I am not ready to go to Lion and give up Eudora. I am searching for what other people are doing.

Does Mac not understand that if I have to choose between Eudora and Lion -- I will choose Eudora and change to a PC? Of course, at some point I need to adapt. So now what? This is so sad...

Christie in Mexico City

Hi Christy,

I am still using Mac Mail primarily and running Eudora on my second air under snow leopard. I've gotten a lot more used to Mail and find there are a couple features I actually like, such as the better html rendering.

But it's a poor substitute. I have sadly come to accept that the former level of sophistication and organization that I had with Eudora is no longer possible. My attachments are disorganized. It's time consuming to try to keep track of the multiple files of any attachment that get created and the changing file dates whenever you simply open a Mail email. I still have all the same problems with Mail that I mentioned before. There seems to be no better solution for now.

I saw the first Macbook Air as perfection - everything I wanted in a computer. Now with the second generation and Lion, not to mention other changes in iPods, iDisk, iPhoto, iTunes etc I believe that was the pinnacle and Apple has started it's decent from the industry leader. I'm waiting for the next innovator to come along. Let me know if you spot them.

DH

In the past, I have had too many problems trying to move my decades of email archives from Eudora to something else, so I have been using a techie solution which lets me live in the past and the future...

When I first got back into Macs with an iMac/Leopard in 2008 (after years of going without),

I moved 2 PCs running Windows 2000 and my Eudora/mail-archives into the Mac with Parallels.

I've just bought a new Mac with Lion and was able to transfer my Parallels virtual machines to the new Mac.

SO, I can still run Eudora on my old (virtual) PCs from a single new Mac running Lion.

PeterR wrote:

I have been using Eudora 4-ever, and depend on it completely.

I had to confront the same reality after using the work horse Eudora since 1995. This was my last PPC app and it was like a hit below the belt.

Six months before the launch of Lion I started experimenting in a sandbox (bootclone) preparing for the switch.

I researched and tried many many alternatives including the new Eudora projects that came along. In the end the only contender was Mailforge, however very dissappointing in its lack of progress, functionality and woefully unimpressed with its updates and progress.

In a safe environment I experimented no less than 3 or 4 different imports to Mail in a fresh bootclone environment. Everytime I learned something new about how to best import and loose the least amount, refining the import process.

Finally committed myself just two weeks prior to Lion's release. I will have to say I am very happy with Mail. True you do not have all that Eudora offered- there is no comparision to this old work horse mail client.

There are a few important resources:

https://itservices.stanford.edu/service/emailcalendar/email/eudoramigration/maco sxmail

http://homepage.mac.com/aamann/Eudora_Mailbox_Cleaner.html

I still have a functional bootclone of OS X Snow Leoprard with Eudora as a backup if I need something from the archives. So far I have not needed to rely on this backup.

The conclusion for me, best bet was to move to Apples built in Mail. It is a good feeling knowing I can move forward with confidence in upgrading OS as they come at me without reservation. Yes there are a few things I miss like RR but in reality this is not a well supported protocal across the board anyway.

The only bug that chap's my cheeks is the lack of paper clip attachments in the sent box (a known issue.)

Luckly there was a recent work around that is a beautiful relief.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3226400?answerId=18199533022#18199533022

Good luck and post back your final resolve!

I have had NO problems with connection issues or being slow? like you mention above.

I have not used Eudora for seemingly decades but I do believe that Eudora switched over to the Thunderbird code for the last few versions. I used to use Thunderbird (free, from Mozilla) until I finally switched over to Sparrow. Have you tried Thunderbird?

FWIW, I dislike Apple Mail too!

mwfanelli wrote: ... I finally switched over to Sparrow...Have you tried Thunderbird?

Yes, I tried Thunderbird. It's OK. But NOTHING compares to the simplicity and beauty of Eudora. Why do you like Sparrow? I still HATE Mac Mail. And, this will probably be my last comment on the topic because I have decided NOT to switch to Lion, and my Mac email address expires on May 1. (I assume I will lose my account privileges to be in this discussion.) Yes, I am abandoning Mac in my future...sad but true. I plan to use OS10.5 and Eudora until my computer gives out. I have a few months to decide where I will go. But it won't be Lion...

Meanwhile, I got a private Swiss email account and surf the net anonymously plus have my privacy protected in my email from nosy governments and marketing firms. I'm old-fashioned and want my life to be private, private, private. And I'm willing to pay for it. Just my opinion. But I still need a beautiful software program to download my email to my hardrive and organize it...sigh.

Goodbye Mac Mail -- Hello Private Swiss email.

Christie, Mexico City.

I am in exact same boat: absolutely hate to leave Eudora, and am considering returning a 2-day old iMac running Lion because I can't use Eudora on it. Unlike several here, I cannot articulate the same specifics re: why Eudora is better, I just know that I've run the program since at least the mid-90s, have more than 15 years of emails archived in it, and know the program so well that I never get stuck on any technical issues that I cannot solve fairly quickly due to my familiarity with the program.

For me, it's as much an issue of familiarity as whether Eudora is "better" than Apple Mail.

Can anyone here describe some things they don't like about Apple Mail that they were able to do in Eudora? I understand at a general level that Eudora has segregated boxes (.mboxes?), such as an Inbox and Outbox, which separately store mail in a way that Apple Mail does not. I sort of understand why that's an advantage of Eudora, but can someone here articulate it more clearly?

"JimmieDave" above wrote: "because Tiger's Apple Mail and all succeeding Apple Mail clients don't use the .mbox format, I was not able to rescue it at all. / I cannot trust Apple Mail, not just over the one issue, but because its proprietary storage format prevents me from recovering anything."

Can that be explained a bit more clearly? If one has back-ups of data, e.g. on Time Machine, why would someone lose data as JimmieDave states?

Look, I can sort of understand how one might get used to a particular program. It has never happened to me, thank goodness! Eudora is extremely old and is a PowerPC app from way way back. Sure, if this one program is so important that you are willing to can everything else, stick with older used Macs that have Snow Leopard or less. You can't really expect Apple to continue suporting what is essentially a decade or more old dead-end product.

Yes, Apple Mail stinks. At least for me. But Thunderbird is excellent, free, and still uses the mbox format you like. I switched over to Sparrow but that is for IMAP servers only and is a minimal client. Of course, for me, email messages are not something I hoard for 15 years!

I vaguely remember Eudora from the very old days and was totally unimpressed then and soon moved on. Perhaps it's time to do the spring cleaning, delete that 15 years of piled up junk, and let your email system breathe at last!!!

I understand at a general level that Eudora has segregated boxes (.mboxes?), such as an Inbox and Outbox, which separately store mail in a way that Apple Mail does not. I sort of understand why that's an advantage of Eudora, but can someone here articulate it more clearly?

It's not an advantage. If anything, it is a disadvantage. There is nothing proprietary about the way Mail stores messages. They are in plain text files, one message per file — the least proprietary format possible. Eudora's mbox format is less compatible with Spotlight and with Time Machine or any other backup scheme. In Mail, individual messages or entire mailboxes can be easily restored in Time Machine.