Eudora dies on importing huge .mbox file

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Martin Sammtleben - 26 Aug 2004 01:55 GMT

Hi everyone,

I downloaded a mailing-list's archive. It came in as .mbox format,
80-something MB.

As that is what Apple Mail uses to store its messages I first attempted
to import it into Mail. It copied fine into the accounts folder but
never showed up in Mail, imagine that!

Anyway as I had never checked Eudora's import I was most pleased to find
an option to import from Apple Mail. Ahead I went to select the
containing folder and hit import and - pooof! - Eudora "unexpectedly
quit".

I've tried that now three times with the same result.

Might the size be a problem? Are there any other mail clients capable
of reading the .mbox format?

Ideally I'd like to convert that archive to a Eudora mailbox in order to
be able to use the familiar tools for searching and browsing.

Any hints are very much appreciated!

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Cheers Martin

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Bill Cole - 26 Aug 2004 03:35 GMT

> Hi everyone,
>
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
> to import it into Mail. It copied fine into the accounts folder but
> never showed up in Mail, imagine that!

I'm not sure where you copied it to, but Apple Mail stores its mbox
files under the individual user's home directory in ~/Library/Mail in a
folder structure that I don't believe you can just drop random mbox
files into. However, it should import mbox files just fine using the
'Import' command in the file menu (try using the 'other' button when it
offers you a choice of programs to import from, and you can navigate to
the import target.)

> Anyway as I had never checked Eudora's import I was most pleased to find
> an option to import from Apple Mail. Ahead I went to select the
[quoted text clipped - 10 lines]
>
> Any hints are very much appreciated!

You will probably have no luck trying to get a mbox that big into Eudora
unless the individual messages are rather large on average, but there
are a couple of things to try:

1. Make sure it uses carriage returns, not linefeeds. The Eudora mbox is
based on traditional Mac text file formatting, not Unix, and so demands
carriage returns as line ends.

2. Make sure there is a blank line between messages. Eudora in ssome
versions has been very picky about that (as are some other mbox tools)
and may still be.

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Martin Sammtleben - 26 Aug 2004 11:28 GMT

> However, it should import mbox files just fine using the
> 'Import' command in the file menu (try using the 'other' button when it
> offers you a choice of programs to import from, and you can navigate to
> the import target.)

Yes, I tried that first. After the import Mail informed me that the
contents of the mailbox had been put into the "Import" folder. Sure
enough there was such a folder in the drawer but it was empty although
the huge .mbox file was lingering now in Mail's Folder in my Library
(that is to say it was Mail that moved it there).

> You will probably have no luck trying to get a mbox that big into Eudora
> unless the individual messages are rather large on average, but there
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
> versions has been very picky about that (as are some other mbox tools)
> and may still be.

Would I be able to perform any such surgery myself with a text editor?

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Cheers Martin

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Bill Cole - 26 Aug 2004 14:51 GMT

> > However, it should import mbox files just fine using the
> > 'Import' command in the file menu (try using the 'other' button when it
[quoted text clipped - 20 lines]
>
> Would I be able to perform any such surgery myself with a text editor?

If it's a good text editor, yes. BBEdit, for example.

There are also a lot of Unix tools that could be helpful here. For
example, 'tr' can do the line ending switch for you and 'formail' can do
a wide variety of tweaking to mbox files.

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Sander Tekelenburg - 26 Aug 2004 03:45 GMT

> I downloaded a mailing-list's archive. It came in as .mbox format,
> 80-something MB.

[...]

> Anyway as I had never checked Eudora's import I was most pleased to find
> an option to import from Apple Mail. Ahead I went to select the
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
>
> Might the size be a problem? [...]

I've never done such a thing, but I hear some mail clients, unlike
Eudora, store attachments inside mboxes. So aside from the size possibly
being an issue, Eudora running into something 'unexpected' inside it
could be another.

(Btw, it is usually a good idea to mention OS version and Eudora
version. Somone might know there is an issue withe either one.)

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Martin Sammtleben - 26 Aug 2004 11:35 GMT

> Might the size be a problem? [...]
>
> I've never done such a thing, but I hear some mail clients, unlike
> Eudora, store attachments inside mboxes. So aside from the size possibly
> being an issue, Eudora running into something 'unexpected' inside it
> could be another.

The archived messages should be plain text or at least not contain any
attachments so I might be out of luck.

I later also tried Thunderbird but to no avail.

As Bill suggested, too, it seems that Eudora chokes on something inside.

> (Btw, it is usually a good idea to mention OS version and Eudora
> version. Somone might know there is an issue withe either one.)

Sorry, forgot: 10.3.5 and Eudora 6.1.1
Anyway I'll investigate a little more and will report back.

Thanks for all the hints.

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Cheers Martin

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Sander Tekelenburg - 26 Aug 2004 17:40 GMT

[...]

> As Bill suggested, too, it seems that Eudora chokes on something inside.

Yes, I'd forgotten about the potential for a linebreaks issue. You
should be able to use BBEdit to convert the linebreaks - it can open
huge files.

With that same BBEdit it might be possible to cut the mbox into smaller
portions, if you think its size is the problem. (I don't know how tricky
this would be - you'd probably have to know exactly what defines a valid
mbox file.)

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Kathy Morgan - 27 Aug 2004 07:36 GMT

> Yes, I'd forgotten about the potential for a linebreaks issue. You
> should be able to use BBEdit to convert the linebreaks - it can open
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
> this would be - you'd probably have to know exactly what defines a valid
> mbox file.)

I think it should work okay. Just paste part of the file into a new
BBEdit or BBEdit Lite document, make sure the beginning of the new
document has the same format as a valid mailbox, then use Save As... and
Options to set the line breaks to Mac line endings and the creator to
Eudora. (You may have to add the application through the preferences
for BBEdit.) Standard warning: work on a copy, so you don't risk
damaging the original if things don't work right.

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Martin Sammtleben - 27 Aug 2004 20:43 GMT

I finally succeeded to open the .mbox archive in Thunderbird by
a) removing the .mbox extension and...
b) simply placing the file in Thunderbirds in-box.

From there I was able to import it into Apple Mail.

The attempt to import from Mail into Eudora failed. After about one hour
of activity Eudora notified me that the import had been successful
however the resulting mailbox showed "-3267" messages (note the
preceding minus-sign!) and displayed as totally empty.

I guess I will just leave it like that and browse the archive from Mail.

Anyway thanks for all your suggestions!

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Cheers Martin

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Kathy Morgan - 28 Aug 2004 08:20 GMT

> I finally succeeded to open the .mbox archive in Thunderbird by
> a) removing the .mbox extension and...
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
>
> The attempt to import from Mail into Eudora failed.

Have you tried removing that .mbox extension and just using File |
Open... in Eudora to open it?

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Bill Cole - 28 Aug 2004 18:03 GMT

> I finally succeeded to open the .mbox archive in Thunderbird by
> a) removing the .mbox extension and...
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> however the resulting mailbox showed "-3267" messages (note the
> preceding minus-sign!) and displayed as totally empty.

That is approximately what I expected.

Eudora has a limit of 32767 messages in a single mailbox. That's
unlikely to change any time soon. Email usually averages about 2KB, so
in an 80MB mbox you are likely to be over that 32K message limit.

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Martin Sammtleben - 28 Aug 2004 19:09 GMT

> That is approximately what I expected.
>
> Eudora has a limit of 32767 messages in a single mailbox. That's
> unlikely to change any time soon. Email usually averages about 2KB, so
> in an 80MB mbox you are likely to be over that 32K message limit.

That explains it.
By the way I made a typo in my previous reply: the number of messages
actually is 32825, approx. 10 times more than what it said!

After all it now seems I should be able to break down the archive into
smaller chunks, e.g. by year, and perhaps import those into Eudora.

I love those straightforward procedures ;-)

Anyway thanks again for the insights.

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Cheers Martin

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Jon Aalborg - 29 Aug 2004 21:21 GMT

> > That is approximately what I expected.
> >
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> By the way I made a typo in my previous reply: the number of messages
> actually is 32825, approx. 10 times more than what it said!

Now to a humble user of Eudora for ten+ years: Why would anyone have

>32K mesages in _one_ mailbox? Just wondering - don't answer if you

don't feel like it. :-) I never let mine grow over approx 1K, as they
grow unwieldy, I lose control and I get that inbred fear of too many
eggs in one basket. BUt YMMV...

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/Jon

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Martin Sammtleben - 30 Aug 2004 01:59 GMT

> Now to a humble user of Eudora for ten+ years: Why would anyone have
> >32K mesages in _one_ mailbox? Just wondering - don't answer if you
> don't feel like it. :-) I never let mine grow over approx 1K, as they
> grow unwieldy, I lose control and I get that inbred fear of too many
> eggs in one basket.

Good question ;-)

In general I totally agree with you on not letting mail boxes grow that
big.

This case was an exception: I had downloaded a huge mailing-list
archive to have it available as a searchable reference. I did that
mainly in order to not bother the list with questions that had been
asked & answered many times before.

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Cheers Martin

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Mac Forum / Applications / Eudora / August 2004

Eudora dies on importing huge .mbox file