Exporting Thunderbird, and Importing to Evolution

[Captain Skippy]

I'm a relative newcomer to Linux. I've been using Ubuntu on my laptop since Gutsy came out, and had been toying with the LiveCD for about a year before that.

Now it has come to the point when I need to do something about my desktop, which is in need of a reinstall after getting clogged up with crapware by my son. I've heard great things about Fedora, and think it may be the distro for that machine.

I currently use Thunderbird in XP, and I want to keep my emails and account settings when I transfer - any recommendations about how I may go about that?

[bob]

I just export addresses to a file (ldif file is created) and then email the file to myself if I don't want to burn it off to a CD/DVD/etc. As far as the settings, you can simply copy them down and set up Tbird the same way in Fedora. I've done it so often with other distros that it's a two-minute process with every new setup.

[jazzfan]

I don't know how to import to Evolution, but this is the way to get the EXACT copy of thunderbird in linux.

1. Install Thunderbird

 yum -c "yum install thunderbird"

2. Mount windows file system (in should be preinstalled and mounted at boot automaticly, but just in case it isn't):
2.1 . Install NTFS driver:

sudo -c "yum install ntfs-3g

2.2. Locate your NTFS drives:

su -c "/sbin/fdisk -l"

Look the system column for NTFS and remember it's device
2.3. To mount on boot do this for each NTFS device you have:

su -c "mkdir /media/#display_name#           #use any you want.
su -c "echo -e '#device_name#		/media/#display_name#		ntfs	defaults	0 0 \n' >> /etc/fstab"

2.4. Restart X (Ctrl+Alt+Backspace) or restart computer or just run

 su -c "mount -a"

3. Open your partition where your windows is installed (usually C:) in linux.
Copy all from Documents and Settings/#your_win_username#/Application Data/Thunderbird to ~/.thunderbird (~ stands for home in linux - /home/#your_linux_username#)

But now when you're running 2 mail clients: if you're using POP, POP will erase a massage from the server when it's downloaded. So mails you have downloaded in windows, won't be avaible in linux. You should use IMAP, if is your mail server support it. If not, you can make script in /etc/ rc3.d folder to import files from the windows when booted and export files when being shuted down..