Advice on Archiving in Thunderbird Thread poster: Sara Freitas
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I switched from Outlook to Thunderbird about a month ago in order to give it a try. So far, so good, but now that the time has come to do some archiving, it seems that there is no neat and easy solution in Thunderbird. To give you an idea of what I'd like to be able to do, in Outlook I would have a folder for each client for each month. I would keep about three months' worth of e-mail active in my Outlook profile. So, at the end of November, I would archive September, ... See more I switched from Outlook to Thunderbird about a month ago in order to give it a try. So far, so good, but now that the time has come to do some archiving, it seems that there is no neat and easy solution in Thunderbird. To give you an idea of what I'd like to be able to do, in Outlook I would have a folder for each client for each month. I would keep about three months' worth of e-mail active in my Outlook profile. So, at the end of November, I would archive September, sending it to my general file for that month for that client (where all of the documents, translations, POs, TMs, etc. are kept). It was all very easy to do in Outlook. With Thunderbird, I would like to get these three-month-old folders out of my active profile to an external location where I can import them later if I ever need to. Has anyone found an easy way to do this? The only thing I can think of is exporting the concerned folders back to Outlook and creating my .pst file like I used to, but that seems kind of silly. Any tips greatly appreciated. Sara ▲ Collapse | | |
Elena Bellucci Local time: 13:49 Member (2003) English to Italian + ... Possible solution | Nov 24, 2005 |
I'm not sure I'm understanding exactly what you want to do so I may be totally out of track with the answer, but since thunderbirds basically creates folders and subfolders in your profile I suppose a way to do it is copy the relevant msf file from there to your archive folder. For a folder named, let's say, September, you'll have a September.msf file. | | |
Sara Freitas France Local time: 13:49 French to English TOPIC STARTER Sorry, Elena, I am a real dummy with this stuff... | Nov 24, 2005 |
So, do you mean that if I archive in Thunderbird, an .msf file will be created? Is this using the "Archive" button (an extension I downloaded)? If it's not asking too much, can you give me instructions on how to do this? I have looked at the MboxImport extension, but it looks complicated (http://kb.mozillazine.org/Archiving_your_e-mail). Than... See more So, do you mean that if I archive in Thunderbird, an .msf file will be created? Is this using the "Archive" button (an extension I downloaded)? If it's not asking too much, can you give me instructions on how to do this? I have looked at the MboxImport extension, but it looks complicated (http://kb.mozillazine.org/Archiving_your_e-mail). Thanks! Sara ▲ Collapse | | |
Elena Bellucci Local time: 13:49 Member (2003) English to Italian + ...
Sorry Sara but I don't know this extention so I cannot help you with that. I'll try and explain what i meant, though I'm still not sure I'm on the right track... If you need to copy some folders to a different location in your PC, what I was saying is to work from outside TB, just on your normal file manager. In thunderbird you have a folder tree in the side panel. Each folder in that menu has its proper folder under your Thunderbird Profile folder, if you move a subfol... See more Sorry Sara but I don't know this extention so I cannot help you with that. I'll try and explain what i meant, though I'm still not sure I'm on the right track... If you need to copy some folders to a different location in your PC, what I was saying is to work from outside TB, just on your normal file manager. In thunderbird you have a folder tree in the side panel. Each folder in that menu has its proper folder under your Thunderbird Profile folder, if you move a subfolder into another subfolder, that would change the folder distribution in your Profile as well, so you could just play with folders on the side panel to archive your mails as you prefer. Ahem, probably I'm making it too complex... just look at your TB Profile folder and you'll see what I mean ^_^;;; You probably already have the folders you want to create and just need to find them. You should have someting like .../Thunderbird/Profiles/XXXXXXXXXX/Mail on the drive where you installed the programme. You should be able to find the folder with a simple search. XXXXXXXXXX represent the ID assigned to your user and looks like a random choice od letters/numbers. Inside the MAIL folder you'll find all the subfolders of your email accounts for that profile. Mail/Local folders.sbd/, for instance, contain your Local Folders. For the Inbox you have inbox.sbd, inbox, inbox.msf. The inbox with no extention is the current folder file in mbox format, The MSF is the mail summary file (a sort of index), the sbd will contain subfolders, if you create them. Hope this helps.
[Edited at 2005-11-24 17:04] ▲ Collapse | |
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Sara Freitas France Local time: 13:49 French to English TOPIC STARTER Thanks, Elena. | Nov 24, 2005 |
When I have some free time to play around with this I will try what you suggested and let you know if it works. I know you can compress folders in Thunderbird, too, so I'll also try to figure that one out. Thanks for the detailed explanation. Sara | | |