You can use IMAP to move messages from an old client to a new one [LWN.net]

You can use IMAP to move messages from an old client to a new one

Posted Feb 27, 2004 5:06 UTC (Fri) by steveha (guest, #3876)
Parent article: Review of Evolution 1.5.2

I agree that Evolution could use better import tools. But there is one way you can do it that will work for most mail clients:

Set up an IMAP mail server on your network. Configure your old email client to know how to talk to the IMAP server. Now drag all your old messages to the IMAP server. Run Evolution, and drag the messages into Evolution.

Good points: This will work for any email client that supports IMAP.

Bad points: Most people would not be happy to set up an IMAP server.

My home network includes an IMAP server. All my mail gets delivered to that server, and I use IMAP to read it with Evolution. I simply leave the mail on the server. It's very convenient, because I can pull up my mail from any computer on the network. And the server uses software RAID, so if one hard disk dies, I won't lose my mail.

Note that your IMAP server can do more than one thing. It doesn't have to just be an IMAP server; it can also be a print server, a file server, whatever you need.

P.S. It would be great if there were a version of Knoppix, or some other bootable CD Linux, that included an IMAP server. Then you wouldn't need to be an IMAP guru to get a server working.

steveha

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You can use IMAP to move messages from an old client to a new one

Posted Mar 5, 2004 11:55 UTC (Fri) by kelvin (guest, #6694) [Link]

This would work for most mail clients, but Outlook is a non-standard IMAP client. The mail it stores on an IMAP server is only plain-text with an attachment called winmail.dat -- a binary file which in turn includes the original mail and its attachments. This means that the imap method of importing mail only works if you don't need rich text or attachments. Sad but true.