Re: Thunderbird to Emacs migration

[Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr>]

On Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:08:37 -0600, John Bokma <john@castleamber.com> wrote:
> I have been using Mozilla Thunderbird for many years. For the past
> year or so I've been using Emacs more and more (first as editor, now
> also to access Usenet), and I am wondering how easy migrating from
> Thunderbird to Emacs would be and which Emacs email solution would be
> the best.

> Questions:
>
> - which package(s) do you recommend for reading/writing email (I have
>   several accounts, most POP3, and one IMAP. Some POP3 accounts use
>   SSL/TLS with CRAM)
>
> - is it possible to work directly with the email files Thunderbird
>   creates, or do I have to convert them?

Gnus is the mail reader I use.  I am still learning how to use it
effectively after almost two years, but it is a very nice program with
literally hundreds of options.  I've even written some Lisp code to
extend it and tweak its behavior in an automated manner.

Gnus should be able to pull your messages from multiple IMAP and POP3
accounts, but see below before you pull everything into Gnus.

> Ideally (for me) both programs should be able to use the same mail
> files [1]. If not possible I would like to convert my current email to
> something Emacs can handle, and start using Emacs for just reading my
> email and see how it goes.
>
> Thanks for reading,
> John
>
> [1] If I have to quit one program to be able to use the other one it's
>     not a major issue, as long as I can keep one set of mail files.

One of the most efficient storage format for Gnus folders is nnml.
Unfortunately this is Gnus-specific, so if you pull everything into nnml
folders you won't be able to use Thunderbird to access the same files.

One way that may work nicely for folder sharing is to use an IMAP server
at localhost.  Dovecot is a nice IMAP server that you can install on
your local system.  Then you can pull messages using 'fetchmail' or
'getmail' from multiple sources, stuff them into the IMAP server of the
localhost, and use Gnus or Thudnerbird to access 'imap://localhost'.

This way when one mailer updates the messages of a folder, or the read,
unread, deleted marks of a message, the other mailers who access the
same IMAP server at localhost will be able to see the same changes.

Regards and good luck with your mailer experiments,
Giorgos