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seamonkey package

Ubuntu- Seamonkey

Asked by davidpeace

How do I copy email messages, as a block, to a folder not associated with Seamonkey?

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Andy Ruddock
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Andy Ruddock (andy-ruddock) said : 		#1

Do you want to copy the text of e-mails to a file? How many e-mails are there?

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davidpeace (david-peace2002-gmail) said : 		#2

Could be any number, I just want to be able to back important stuff up. I want to be able to save the text and the headers.

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Andy Ruddock (andy-ruddock) said : 		#3

Just backup ~/.mozilla

If you want to be more specific browse through the ~/.mozilla/<profile> directories (for a single profile the directory will be ~/.mozilla/default).

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davidpeace (david-peace2002-gmail) said : 		#4

This sort-of works. The info is copied but when I try to read it, it is in HTML (at least I think it's HTML) and that is difficult for me. The emails aren't saved individually but as one, long document all mashed together. For the moment I can do this and just merge the files if I have data loss or corruption and maybe that will work. But there has to be a better way. Thanks.

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Best Andy Ruddock (andy-ruddock) said : 		#5

You're right, all the mails in a particular folder are stored in a single file. This file looks a mess because it's got all the headers and the html from received mail.
However, if you backup this file you can simply copy it to a new instance of Seamonkey for recovery.
So I can backup the Inbox file from "Local Folders" by copying it to another device.

cp ~/.mozilla/<profile>/<salt>/Mail/Local\ Folders/Inbox <backup_path>

<profile> is the profile name.
<salt> is the random directory name created at install time-
<backup_path> is where the "Inbox" file is copied to.

Now if something bad happens I can re-install Seamonkey. With Seamonkey not running I simply copy the file back to it's correct place

cp <backup_path>/Inbox ~/.mozilla/<profile>/<salt>/Mail/Local\ Folders/

(Note that the <salt> for this installation will be different from the original, but it doesn't matter)

When you restart Seamonkey it'll scan the directories and your mail will be available. You can even copy whole directory trees and Seamonkey wil sort it out.

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davidpeace (david-peace2002-gmail) said : 		#6

It will have to do for now. Thanks.