Re: [Evolution] Merging Inbox/Outbox files

[Pete Biggs <pete biggs org uk>]

> I know it was hosed because all of my email was fine before the upgrade,
> and after the upgrade it kept telling me that it couldn't retrieve any
> messages. 

Retrieve messages from where?  If you start Evolution from the command
line it will tell you various things that are happening.  If you need
more information, enable debugging output.

> I tried importing, but the import takes forever and usually
> crashes/hangs without telling me what's going on.

Did you start Evolution from the command line?

> Is there any way to uncorrupt the Inbox and Outbox files?

Yes, use the 'formail' utility - it is NOT part of Evolution so you may
have to hunt it down - it's usually part of the procmail package, I
don't know if Ubuntu has useful things like that as part of it.

But formail is not a magic tool, it can only sanitise information that
is there.  After using it you may still have to do some work with the
mail messages, some may be merged together, others may be lost entirely.

Disclaimers etc.: keep backup copies of any files, it's not my fault if
you loose anything, read the man page to work out what you need to do.

> Is it possible
> that they are just fine 

Have you looked at the files to see what they contain??  Do they look
like mbox files?

> and is there any way to import the files or
> uncorrupt them through the command line so that I can see what's going
> on?

No.

There are utilities (like mb2md) that will convert mbox to Maildir, but
I really, really wouldn't advise manually merging the resultant Maildir
files into an Evolution data store.

P.