Re: [Evolution] Evo mail: explanation of old and new file system

[Pete Biggs <pete biggs org uk>]

> So this is why I need to have an explanation of the file structure and
> file types: when I look in
>    /home/eric/.local/share/evolution/mail/local/  
> I see a strange mixture of the "old" mbox type files and,
> under /home/eric/.local/share/evolution/mail/local/cur, a zillion
> entries that look like
> '1339022703.13737_7755.localhost.localdomain:2,ST'.
>
> This is all very confusing. I want to know what's happening and how I
> should go about moving the missing mail from my old backups to the new
> situation. What are these
>    '1339022703.13737_7755.localhost.localdomain:2,ST' 
> files?

They are maildir message files

>  How do they relate to the mbox-type files?

mbox has all the messages from a single folder in a monolithic file.
Maildir has all the messages from a single folder in a directory, one
message per file.  The folder name is the name of the directory with
subfolder component names separated by a '.'

>  Do I just copy the
> missing mbox files to the new location and just let Evo do the
> conversion? 

No.  They are different file formats - it's like copying a zip file
containing lots of word documents into your ~/Documents folder and
expecting LibreOffice to be able to read them.

> Do I need to copy all six of the old .evolution files for
> each of the mailbox folders (that is, the sample set I listed in my
> initial email in this thread)?
>
> As I asked there: 
>
> "So assuming I can find those old emails in ~/.evolution on one of my
> old backups, what's the procedure for moving them to the new format? Do
> I just copy everything from the old to the new?  E.g.
>     .evolution/mail/local/xLynnOld
>     .evolution/mail/local/xLynnOld.cmeta
>     .evolution/mail/local/xLynnOld.ibex.index
>     .evolution/mail/local/xLynnOld.ev-summary
>     .evolution/mail/local/xLynnOld.ev-summary-meta
>     .evolution/mail/local/xLynnOld.ibex.index.data
> to
>     .local/share/evolution/mail/local/.xLynnOld
> ?"

No.  I understand what you say about trying to fix problems, but if you
don't know what you are doing, then you should definitely not play
around with the files in Evolution's (or anything else's) hidden private
folders.  At best it will not work, at worst you will loose more stuff.

> It's all well and good to say, "There isn't in the user docs because
> it's nothing that a user should need to care about. It should be all
> automatically."  But the user does need to care about it since he has to
> fix the problem. And he has to understand what's happening.

If you look in the FAQs or in the Help documentation it DOES tell you
where Evolution holds all its data.  It may not give chapter and verse
about the old and new locations because it's not something that 99.999%
of the time people need to know (or care) about - it's also a futile
task because the locations, and the data stored in them, change
continually with each release as the application is improved.  Such is
the nature of an evolving Evolution.  Personally I do not want the
developers to be hampered in their goals by having to keep the backend
store consistent from one release to the next - so long as there are
efficient, working, upgrade mechanisms, then I don't care.

So, anyway, to sort out your problem.

If you have an mbox file full of mail you want to get access to within
Evo, then 

 1. Make a back up copy of the file.
 2. Create a new "account" Edit -> Preferences -> Mail Accounts -> Add
 3. Fill in some real or dummy info for the email address
 4. Select Server Type of "Standard Unix mbox spool file"
 5. Point the File: dialogue to the mbox file
 6. close etc. filling in things as necessary

You will now have another account in the folder list, the "Inbox" of
that account will contain all the mail messages in that mbox file.  

Do not be tempted to just leave that account and use the mbox file as a
normal mail folder.  In Evolution, copy the messages out of the mbox
folder to your local mail folders (or wherever you want them to be).

After all the files have been copied, go back in to Edit->Preferences
and delete the account you created.

Repeat for all the mbox files containing things missing in your current
setup.

So, you see, no need to fiddle with internal Evolution files, no
knowledge needed of how Evo stores things.  Just an application of the
standard facilities provided by Evolution.

P.