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Copying mail between two Linux computers, "unable to move message" error

turgut kalfaoglu
turgut kalfaoglu
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I have two laptops - my main one is stationary and the other one I take with me on trips. They both run Fedora Linux 35, and they both have Thunderbird installed. When I am going on a trip, I copy the whole .thunderbird folder from my "stationary" laptop to the other laptop, since the accounts are POP3 and I would like the most recent mails on the other laptop as well.

However afterwards, when the second laptop starts fetching mail, I get lots of "Unable to move mail to XXXX folder, because it does not exist" -- something along those lines.. I look and the XXXX folder exists actually. These messages are probably coming from my filters.

What I do then is to take the machine offline, and then using the down arrow, go thru the entire folder list on the left. As I do that, the numbers of messages in each folder appear, and once I am done, I no longer have issues like the "Unable to move"..

Is there anything else that I should be doing instead of this down arrow? because it's a bit of a pain and it takes time..

If there is a better way to sync these laptops, please let me know.. I tried rsync before too - that works but the same issue persists, the "unable to move"..


Many thanks, -turgut

I have two laptops - my main one is stationary and the other one I take with me on trips. They both run Fedora Linux 35, and they both have Thunderbird installed. When I am going on a trip, I copy the whole .thunderbird folder from my "stationary" laptop to the other laptop, since the accounts are POP3 and I would like the most recent mails on the other laptop as well. However afterwards, when the second laptop starts fetching mail, I get lots of "Unable to move mail to XXXX folder, because it does not exist" -- something along those lines.. I look and the XXXX folder exists actually. These messages are probably coming from my filters. What I do then is to take the machine offline, and then using the down arrow, go thru the entire folder list on the left. As I do that, the numbers of messages in each folder appear, and once I am done, I no longer have issues like the "Unable to move".. Is there anything else that I should be doing instead of this down arrow? because it's a bit of a pain and it takes time.. If there is a better way to sync these laptops, please let me know.. I tried rsync before too - that works but the same issue persists, the "unable to move".. Many thanks, -turgut

All Replies (2)

tony212
tony212
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Do you have any filters with move actions? My first thought would be some folders are read only and/or not 'owned' by you, but the Linux user account on the other laptop.

turgut kalfaoglu
turgut kalfaoglu Question owner
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All of my filters are with move but file permissions is not an issue. Otherwise when I'm down arrowing I should be getting errors. Besides I thought of it and tried a chown -r the first few times this happened.