Today, Alan writes:
Not sure how much you interact directly with the Thunderbird folks, but you might know someone who does…
Why does Thunderbird still not have an option to import arbitrary .wab files? I got burned by this when setting up a new PC for my parents. Since it was a brand new PC, I thought, why not skip Outlook Express altogether and jump straight to a fresh install of Thunderbird?
Well, even though I have the .wab file from the old PC, Thunderbird doesn’t appear to have a way to pick that .wab with a file dialog and just import it.
I had to resort to the (kludgy, IMO) workaround of exporting .csv and futzing around with Thunderbird’s (unintuitive) .csv import tool. Very frustrating.
I’ve yet to tackle the import of actual EMAIL. After this experience I’m not sure I want to try. From what I’ve seen, googling on this topic, I’d have to resort to more third party tools like dbxconv or similar.
Straight away I would point out that this is a Microsoft issue, as it has made sure that its file formats are impossible to work with outside of its own software products. Unlike a cross-platform standard like Mbox, WAB files are Microsoft’s own little creation, but that is neither here nor there.
I would look at using something like libwab to decode those WAB files into something usable for other email applications. Hope this helps.
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[tags]Outlook express, email[/tags]
Migrating actual email is very easy, first on the original system under Tools/Account Settings hilite the Local Folders and find where the old email was stored. I recommend moving these and changing this Local Folders location to Documents & Settings/Email so you can backup the files easily too. Anyway copy all files and folders and subfolders to the new location and match this location on your new configuration. Also, did you bring over the profile information for address book (abook.mab), preferences (prefs.js) and user preferences (user.js) from the profile folder (ie C:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\cuz25qfw.)?
>Straight away I would point out that
>this is a Microsoft issue, as they have
>made sure that their file formats are
>impossible to work with
Perhaps, but I’m still partly skeptical about that, because Firefox appeared to have the option to import address books, _provided OE is installed on the box already_.
Will have to check out that libwab thing.