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How do I configure Thunderbird so the filenames for saved emails start with the date?

  • 6 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 3 views
  • Last reply by sfhowes

krem1234
krem1234
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Hi, I'm trying to back up an old Yahoo email account, everything is working fine except that the filenames on all of the *.eml files start with the subject of the email. I'm trying to save these such that the date and time is first, so I can easily sort these by date in Explorer by simply sorting by filename. eM Client does this, but I've had a horrible time trying to get it to simply save all of the emails in a folder without skipping a large percentage, while Thunderbird has been great at not missing any emails when saving.

Any ideas on how to do this?

Thanks

Hi, I'm trying to back up an old Yahoo email account, everything is working fine except that the filenames on all of the *.eml files start with the subject of the email. I'm trying to save these such that the date and time is first, so I can easily sort these by date in Explorer by simply sorting by filename. eM Client does this, but I've had a horrible time trying to get it to simply save all of the emails in a folder without skipping a large percentage, while Thunderbird has been great at not missing any emails when saving. Any ideas on how to do this? Thanks

All Replies (6)

sfhowes
sfhowes
  • Top 10 Contributor
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Try ImportExportTools. The Filenames tab on this add-on's Options let you specify the Date at the beginning of the file name. Right-click a folder, ImportExportTools/Export all messages in the folder/EML format (or HTML or text).

krem1234
krem1234 Question owner
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Hi, I tried this several times, unfortunately each time it gets to several hundred messages, then Thunderbird locks up and I need to close it via task manager.

Modified by krem1234

sfhowes
sfhowes
  • Top 10 Contributor
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I only have folders with about 200 messages to test this, and it works without fail, so I don't have any suggestions as to why it might not work in your case. But I would make sure there are no other processes acting on the mail folders, such as AV programs.

krem1234
krem1234 Question owner
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Thanks, I was able to get it to work after a series of attempts, apparently the add-on doesn't like downloading thousands of messages.

Onno Ekker
Onno Ekker
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It might help to decrease the maximum number of concurrent connections under Tools -> Account Settings -> [account] -> Server Settings -> Advanced -> Maximum number of server connections to cache.

sfhowes
sfhowes
  • Top 10 Contributor
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krem1234 said

Thanks, I was able to get it to work after a series of attempts, apparently the add-on doesn't like downloading thousands of messages.

Can you tell us the approximate size of your mail folders and the system RAM? Since TB stores messages in one big (mbox) file per folder, that may affect the performance of some operations, even ones as simple as exporting to eml files and that are carried out entirely on the local machine.