Thunderbird exports and Fedora Upgrading

[TroyGeek]

Hello,
Usually when a new release of Fedora comes out I like to backup my data, 
format the hard drive, and then then install a fresh release instead of 
'upgrading' since it seems cleaner.

I use Mozilla Thunderbird for my email. I don't see any export options 
to save my emails. I'm wondering how I can backup/export my email from 
Thunderbird so that I can be prepared for when FC3 comes out and I 
upgrade. I want to be able to keep all my email.

Any ideas? Just copy a directory or something?

thank you!

~ TroyGeek ~

[Les Mikesell]

On Sat, 2004-08-28 at 14:50, TroyGeek wrote:
> I use Mozilla Thunderbird for my email. I don't see any export options 
> to save my emails. I'm wondering how I can backup/export my email from 
> Thunderbird so that I can be prepared for when FC3 comes out and I 
> upgrade. I want to be able to keep all my email.
>
> Any ideas? Just copy a directory or something?

If you only have one machine this won't work, but a handy
way to move email from any program to any other is to
set up an imap account on a server, create a folder there
and drag the messages into it.  Then any other imap
client can access them from the server or copy them
back to local folders.

---
  Les Mikesell
   [e-mail]

[Phillip Compton]

On Sat, 2004-08-28 at 18:48 -0500, Les Mikesell wrote:
> If you only have one machine this won't work, but a handy
> way to move email from any program to any other is to
> set up an imap account on a server, create a folder there
> and drag the messages into it.  Then any other imap
> client can access them from the server or copy them
> back to local folders.

Actually, dovecot works perfectly fine locally. It's nice because, as
you said, the email is available from any client you choose.

Phil

[Kevin Old]

On Sat, 28 Aug 2004 15:50:28 -0400, TroyGeek  wrote:
> Hello,
> Usually when a new release of Fedora comes out I like to backup my data,
> format the hard drive, and then then install a fresh release instead of
> 'upgrading' since it seems cleaner.
>
> I use Mozilla Thunderbird for my email. I don't see any export options
> to save my emails. I'm wondering how I can backup/export my email from
> Thunderbird so that I can be prepared for when FC3 comes out and I
> upgrade. I want to be able to keep all my email.
>
> Any ideas? Just copy a directory or something?

Have a look at the Backup and Restore FAQ
http://kb.mozillazine.org/index.phtml?title=Thunderbird_:_FAQs_:_Backing_Up_...

HTH,
Kevin

[John Thompson]

TroyGeek wrote:
> Usually when a new release of Fedora comes out I like to backup my data, 
> format the hard drive, and then then install a fresh release instead of 
> 'upgrading' since it seems cleaner.
>
> I use Mozilla Thunderbird for my email. I don't see any export options 
> to save my emails. I'm wondering how I can backup/export my email from 
> Thunderbird so that I can be prepared for when FC3 comes out and I 
> upgrade. I want to be able to keep all my email.
>
> Any ideas? Just copy a directory or something?

If you have /home on a separate filesystem you should be able to upgrade 
without affecting anything on /home.

[Greg Wildman]

TroyGeek said the following on 28/08/2004 21:50:
> Hello,
> Usually when a new release of Fedora comes out I like to backup my data, 
> format the hard drive, and then then install a fresh release instead of 
> 'upgrading' since it seems cleaner.
>
> I use Mozilla Thunderbird for my email. I don't see any export options 
> to save my emails. I'm wondering how I can backup/export my email from 
> Thunderbird so that I can be prepared for when FC3 comes out and I 
> upgrade. I want to be able to keep all my email.
>
> Any ideas? Just copy a directory or something?

Yup, that simple. All your mail and settings are kept in $HOME/.thunderbird

Everytime I install a new release I simply back up that directory. Test
it. Create another user on your box and copy your .thunderbird directory
to this new users home folder (set the corrent ownership). Log into that
user account and open thunderbird.