How to migrate Mozilla mail to the Sylpheed mail client

[rerwin]

In response to my request for help in moving my SeaMonkey mail to Sylpheed in Puppy 4.00, forum member deniros provided instructions that I have edited and expanded here.

1. Mozilla mail uses the mbox format for mail. Sylpheed lets you import messages of the Mbox format from the File menu.

2. Start Sylpheed and go through the account configuration process. Account setup creates the mail folders where you want the messages to end up.

3. Select File->Import mbox file.

4. In the Import dialog box, use the "Importing file" Select button to browse to the Mozilla Mbox file. In order to see the hidden .mozilla directiory, right-click somewhere in the right panel of the "Select importing file" dialog box and, if the "Show hidden files" item in the pop-up menu does not have a checkmark in it, click on it to set the checkmark.

5. Browse to /root/.mozilla/default/, where you will see one or more directories named with random letters and numbers and ending in ".slt". You may need to start the (Rox) file manager to find which of the directories contains your mail, to look at their sizes from Properties. You probably want the largest directory.

6. For the .slt directory, continue to browse to Mail/Local Folders. Select any of the files names that do NOT have an extension (e.g., .msf, .dat), usually at least the inbox file.

7. Using the "Destination dir" Select button, select the appropriate Sylpheed mail folder or use the New button to create a folder. Press Ok, and your mail should be imported now.

8. To import more of the mail folders, selecting File->Import mbox file and using the "Importing file" Select button should return you to your Mozilla Local Folders directory. Select another of the files without an extension and select/create an appropriate Sylpheed folder.

9. Newsgroups are probably handled similarly, using the News directory within the .slt directory. But I have not tried that.

BTW, if you migrate and don't backup your data elsewhere, you might want to copy/rename your .mozilla folder to some other name before upgrading to 4.00, so that after migration you have your mail and browser data still in your personal file, and you can select the inbox, send and other mbox files from there.

This does not cover migration of address books or message filters, but it's a start.

[JustGreg]

Thank you, rerwin. I am in the process of converting to Puppy (dingo) 4.00 kernel 2.6.21.7. I have used the Mozilla ldif export of my address book to get the addresses to Sylpheed mail client. This will help to complete the process.

[firak]

Migration success.
Your suggestions have been helpful to to me for switch email from puppy 4XXX to puppy 5XXX. puppy now has Shilpeed, and I'm Happy With That choise. Actually Shilpeed manages better the location of the files, so is more 'transparent. Now it is also easier to ensure that emails are out of the pup-save.file. The advice of where to look for files of Mozilla mail seamokey to inport was decisive for a peaceful and clean migration of 1000 emails, to the new operating system puppy5 .
Thanks