This is a very serious problem with an easy fix. When converting a BABYL file to mbox format, both unrmail and b2m create invalid mbox files if the message does not end with a blank line. The vast majority of my BABYL files contain messages that do not end with a blank line. Virtually all of these have been written by gnus with gnus-summary-save-article saving in rmail format (gnus-summary-save-in-rmail). When this happens, there is no newline before the "^From " in the new mbox file, which makes the resulting file unusable. I'm attaching two files: a patch that fixes both unrmail.el and b2m.c, and a sample RMAIL file that illustrates the problem. If you load the attached RMAIL file with C-x C-f or with M-x rmail, rmail will show only 1 message when there are in fact three messages. Older versions of emacs properly show this to have three messages. Likewise, if you run this through b2m, and then use M-x rmail on the result, you will see only one message. You can also just look at the resulting mbox file in either case and see that there are no blank lines before "^From ". I've removed the Received headers and other private information from the RMAIL file. In GNU Emacs 23.0.95.1 (i686-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.10.4) of 2009-06-23 on motoko.argon.local Windowing system distributor `The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.70101000 configured using `configure '--prefix=/opt/tps/packages/linux.ix86.rhel5/emacs-23.0.95-1'' Important settings: value of $LC_ALL: nil value of $LC_COLLATE: nil value of $LC_CTYPE: nil value of $LC_MESSAGES: nil value of $LC_MONETARY: nil value of $LC_NUMERIC: nil value of $LC_TIME: nil value of $LANG: en_US.UTF-8 value of $XMODIFIERS: @im=none locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix default-enable-multibyte-characters: t Major mode: Text Minor modes in effect: which-function-mode: t tooltip-mode: t mouse-wheel-mode: t file-name-shadow-mode: t global-font-lock-mode: t font-lock-mode: t blink-cursor-mode: t global-auto-composition-mode: t auto-composition-mode: t auto-encryption-mode: t auto-compression-mode: t column-number-mode: t line-number-mode: t Recent input: s M-< C-g C-z C-r y e s M-< C-M-s ^ F r o m SPC C-s C-s C-s C-s C-s C-s C-s C-s C-s C-s C-s C-s C-s C-s C-s C-s C-s C-s C-g C-x C-c C-f C-g C-x C-f / t m p / p C-x b C-x b b C-n C-n C-k C-k TAB C-n C-a C-k C-k C-k C-n C-k C-k TAB C-n C-a C-k C-k C-x C-s C-x b p C-z C-r y e s C-v C-x b u C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p M-f M-f C-d C-d C-n C-e M-b M-d 3 C-n C-a C-k C-k C-k C-k C-k C-k TAB C-n TAB C-n TAB C-p C-e C-n TAB C-x C-s C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-e C-x C-e C-x b X C-g C-x C-f / t m p / X M C-x k C-p C-a C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p ; ; C-n C-a ; ; C-n C-a ; ; C-n C-a ; ; n C-a ; ; ; C-n C-a ; ; C-x C-s C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-e C-x C-e C-x k X C-g C-x C-f M-p C-x k C-x C-s C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-e C-x C-e C-x C-f M-p C-x k C-x C-f / t m p / p y e s M-< M-> M-< C-v C-x m C-g C-x k y e s M-x g n u s r e p o r t SPC b SPC Recent messages: Wrote /tmp/rmail23860-sQ Writing messages to /tmp/rmail23860L3W...done Replacing BABYL format with mbox format... Marking buffer unmodified to avoid rewriting Babyl file as mbox file Counting messages...done Replacing BABYL format with mbox format...done Counting messages...done Marking buffer unmodified to avoid rewriting Babyl file as mbox file Mark set [3 times] Starting new Ispell process [default] ... Quit