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need to import folder structure with eml emails and maintain the structure

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  • 1 ana tatizo hili
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  • Last reply by Matt

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Moving from Office 365 Exchange. Exported to a pst file and converted to eml. I need to maintain the folder structure. Installed the add-in in Thunderbird, created a new folder, right clicked and choose import/export, choose import directory and all sub-directories. It creates one folder and quits. How can I do this? I have 5 users to migrate.

Moving from Office 365 Exchange. Exported to a pst file and converted to eml. I need to maintain the folder structure. Installed the add-in in Thunderbird, created a new folder, right clicked and choose import/export, choose import directory and all sub-directories. It creates one folder and quits. How can I do this? I have 5 users to migrate.

All Replies (7)

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.eml files are individual files, one file per email.

Thunderbird can import selected .eml files. Thunderbird stores emails in mbox text files, so each .eml file will be imported and written to the mbox text file one after the other.


I'm presuming you have various folder hierarchy within which the .eml files are contained. If yes, are you saying only the top - first level directory is downloading all the .eml files that are in that folder, but subsequent sub-folders containing .eml files are not being imported. How many subfolders are you talking about and how many levels in heirachy of folders?

ImportExportTools NG addon: according to original specifications: - because of a limit in filepicker itself, importing a big number of eml files can fail (if the total number of the chars of their names is more than 4096). You can bypass this limit, using the option to 'import all the eml files existing in a directory'.

I did find a bug report: https://github.com/thundernest/import-export-tools-ng/issues/42 It might be helpful in getting some attention to this bug by adding a comment stating version of Thunderbird, version of addon, offer info on directory hierachy structure, eg: number of subfolders, how many levels in heirachy of folders. State what did get imported. eg: only top level was imported, all subfolders did not get imported and no mbox files for subfolders were created.

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The first time it created maybe a dozen folders with no emails and quit. Additional try would do one or maybe a few folders with no emails and quit.

The folder structure look like this.

Afolder - (no eml files) sub folders have no sub folders, some sub folders are empty

     CompanyA - eml files
     CompanyB - eml files
     CompanyC - empty
     CompanyD - eml files

93 folders

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lets back up just a little.

Have you created a sub folder under "local Folders" to import your mail to. If not do so.

Once you have the folder, select it and right click. Select the import all EML files in folder and sub folders.

However thins is one of those occasions where your anti virus is your enemy. Create an exception for the profile folder you are adding mails to in the anti virus product. You might also want to give the source data plenty of time for the anti virus to do it's thing, because they are slow. Tediously so. Around 10minutes per GB is considered "normal", so copying files from a plugged in USB drive will see contention for roughly 10 minutes per GB of data on the drive because the anti virus is "scanning"

At the heart of the import export tools are JavaScript routines, they do not respond well to delays and time out. Cancelling a timeout message cancels the entire operation, so if you see one click continue not cancel

Now to be brutal, you can create a folder in Thunderbird as described for the import export tools and drag and drop the EML files from file manger into the Thunderbird user interface to that folder. I have never tried this for multiple selected folders of emails, but perhaps you could. My only doubt is it is handles the folder structure correctly.

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I created the 365Mail folder and then Right clicked, selected ImportxEportYTools NG, import all messages from a directory and also it's sub-directories Then browsed to the top level folder with 93 sub-folders and selected it. It said it was importing and message disappeared in about 5 seconds.

Sometimes it creates a bunch of the folders, sometimes a few, and this time none. The folders never show any emails in them.

Thanks

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I am going to try turning off the av.

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Turning the AV off seems to work. I have to check the results but al least I see it running.

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jerry32 said

Turning the AV off seems to work. I have to check the results but al least I see it running.

For my info, what av? We do try and keep track of these sorts of incidents. There is little we can do with these produts that are little better that the malware they are suposed to protect us from. But keeping some records helps others with issues of a similar type.

FYI see https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:Testing:Antivirus_Related_Performance_Issues