Re: [Evolution] Converting from MH to Evolution

[Not Zed <notzed ximian com>]

On Wed, 2002-04-10 at 02:09, Lance A. Brown wrote:
> Greetings,
>
> I'm thinking about converting from MH to Evolution, but am unsure of a
> migration path.
>
> I have a LOT of archived email that I access occasionally, and a
> fairly complex .procmailrc for sorting incoming mail into folders (MH
> currently) and performing various automatic actions.
>
> The imap support for MH just isn't good enough, at least the version
> I'm using (imap-2000c on RH Linux).  It doesn't track sequences, for
> one, which I really need.

What exactly are sequences?

> If I switch, I need access to my mail store both locally and remotely,
> so I assume imap is the correct way to go.  What can be done to move
> LOTS of mail into an imap and Evolution friendly format?  300+ Meg of
> email in dozens of folders in a tree format.  I'd like to keep the
> tree structure as much as possible.

Although i'm not sure the code works as well as it shoudl with this (it
is supposed to ...) you should just be able to create a 'mh' mail tree
inside evolution without having to change anything at all ...  That
should at least let you try the idea out in a non-destructive manner. 
Things like read flags and so forth aren't terribly well supported
however. 

> Ideally, whatever solution I use will also allow access via a
> text-based client of some type.
>
> Thoughts?

Long term i'd suggest changing to use maildir as your folder format, as
stated before, procmail can still be used to filter your messages
directly into a maildir tree.  You can then just point evolition at the
maildir tree (this *does* work well at the moment).  mh has some
technical issues which make maildir a much better solution.  You can
then access that directly through evo, or a text client that supports it
(e.g. mutt, pine with patches) or via imap, or whatever you want.


So basically apart from changing your mailbox formats to maildir, the
operation of your system should essentially remain the same.  i.e.
incoming -> procmail -> folder tree.  Evolution can access the folder
tree simultaneously with other programs/procmail etc and/or you can use
imap and whatnot.