#mbox — Public Fediverse posts

I have a bunch of old `.mbox` files from previous and unused Thunderbird accounts. I'd like to convert these files to individual `.eml` or even better text files so I can archive and search them better as I'm not loading them in Thunderbird anymore. Is there a utility for that somewhere?

boosting makes the world nicer.

[Edit] I have a bunch of solution in the replies thanks everyone.

#thunderbird #email #mbox #archive #cli

Thanks for mboxshell - a CLI tool to open .mbox email exports. It's so fast that it actually opens (once indexed) a 3GB file in under 1s. Indexing took about 15 seconds!

And it does some fast analysis (using `stats` command) too.
#mbox #email #forensics #exports #analysis #mail #cli #Linux

Lafite is the email client application of Medley Interlisp. The Lafite-to-mbox tool converts from the file format of Lafite mail, derived from the Laurel mailer developed at Xerox PARC for the Alto workstation, to the Unix mbox format.

https://github.com/Interlisp/lafite-to-mbox

#mbox #interlisp #email #retrocomputing

M-Box Adds Automated Agitation to the Lab-Box Film Development System https://petapixel.com/2025/09/05/m-box-adds-automated-agitation-to-the-lab-box-film-development-system/ #filmdevelopment #agitator #develop #Analog #analog #News #film #mbox

#dovecot crasht die imap-Prozesse mit SIGSEGV, wenn eine group-basierte ACL vorhanden ist.
Außerdem versucht es, INBOX im #mbox Format zu #rmdir|en.
#trixie

So, uh... #Thunderbird uses #mbox format for storing #email locally! 😱
#sysadmin #OpenSource #linux

Me he hecho un script rapido en python para pasar los mensajes de #Gmail bajados en formato #mbox con #googletakeout con fecha a partir del 1 de enero de 2023 a un nuevo fichero mbox para importar en @Tutanota el mobox completo de 15GB ya está #7z con contraseña en un @veracrypt si todo va bien compartiré el python en un gist (es mu tonto y muy a lo rápido eso si).

#dataprivacy #ethicaldata

Suggestions for a good mbox app for Mac?

I'm clearing my data off of Google, but would like to keep my 15+ years of Gmail archives searchable on my computer.

I've downloaded a 13 GB mbox folder.... What should I use to open this? I will need to search through it regularly for information.

#mbox

Et hop, une nouvelle fiche Format en cours de validation. On y parle de #MBOX, un format de dossier de messagerie libre - mais faiblement normalisé :

https://github.com/hackathonBnF/FichesFormat/wiki/MBOX

#DigiPres_FR

Alguém sabe se é possível gerir os mails de uma cópia de segurança de Gmail (em formato .mbox) com Thunderbird (@thunderbird)? E se não é possível... alguma ideia alternativa? Obrigado!

Tenho a caixa de correios cheia e tenho que deixar funcionando essa memória histórica antes de apagar todo...

#thunderbird #gmail #mail #email #mbox

So, just to lean into the “tech” part of my instance:

I had been under the impression that Apple’s Mail application on #macOS used some strange format for storage that made it difficult to migrate to other OSes, namely #FreeBSD/#OpenBSD/#NetBSD. I migrated from OpenBSD around 16 years ago when I got my first iMac.

Well, just yesterday, for fun, I did a search for info about that format. Guess what- it’s #mbox. 😲

I have a FreeBSD install as a dual-boot on my Windows gaming PC. So now I’m excited at the prospect of migrating my e-mail BACK to BSD. I’m disappointed because I don’t think I’ll have the time to do so in the short term. Maybe if it rains this weekend I won’t be able to do any outside work. 🤔

#RunBSD :freebsd_logo: :openbsd:

What do you use for backing up #IMAP (specifically, IMAP4) and keeping that backup up to date? #Maildir or #mbox format preferred, in that order.

Wanted: local #mbox/#maildir search on #iOS.

I've got enough storage and computing power to have the last ten years of email searchable on my phone. Let me have that.

I wrote a non-portable #RubyLang script to mangle #Maildir++ directories created from #MacOS #AppleMail exports using mb2md.pl from #Dovevot #IMAP under the hood. Apple Mail is weird; I don't know of anything that handles it natively.

To import stuff back, it needs to be in #mbox format. The separate *.mbox directories containing table_of_contents files may or may not be needed by Mail.

Alternatives to appending all the maildir files back into an mbox with the #formail utility for re-import?

Rambling about hacking on my creaky old email archival infrastructure

What started out as a simple message archiving task turned into many hours of debugging, fixing, and cleaning up the old archives. Both frustrating and fun at the same time.

#babyl #Emacs #hacking #mbox #Perl #Python

https://blog.kamens.us/2024/01/26/rambling-about-hacking-on-my-creaky-old-email-archival-infrastructure/

Ma perchè non riesco ad importare un file #mbox in #thunderbird? Mannaggia a lui.. La voce di menù compare non attiva. #mastoaiuto

Finally got all my gmails downloaded. Goes back to 1996! It was ~10gb in size. Gasp 😮

Installed Thunderbird. Made an account with a dud email. Faffed in the settings with "local folders". Pointed it at the dir where I'd put the mbox download... and ... bam! Works great!

Now I can delete 20 years off my gmail. I hope....

Followed this tut. Hope the page is not dodgy: https://www.freeviewer.org/blog/open-mbox-file-without-email-clients/

HTH
🦇

#gmail #mbox #takeout #google #thunderbird

Alright!

I think I've got code which generates numeric IDs for messages within a Maildir or Mbox, where the happy path is a relatively efficient direct-ish lookup of the target message, but enough info is encoded in the ID to recover and do the right thing if the message has moved, changed slightly or been replaced by an imposter.

Along with hooks to notify the calling code that IDs have become inefficient and a re-indexing might be warranted.

I can sleep now.

#moggie #email #maildir #mbox

It is very easy to write code that *usually* works with an mbox file.

It is surprisingly tricky to write code that *reliably* works with an #mbox file.

Almost impossible, actually, since there are multiple incompatible variants of the format.

I keep coming back to this code and finding new problems with it. That is a good thing, I guess? Making progress...

#email #moggie #mailpile

@mwl @millihertz

Has the world forgotten once again that mbox has not been an "it" since MMDF and S5R4 came along in the 1980s? "They" is the correct pronoun.

And the dots were #SMTP, not mbox.

http://jdebp.info/FGA/mail-mbox-formats.html

http://qmail.org/man/man5/mbox.html

https://man.archlinux.org/man/mmdf.5.en

#mbox #maildir #MMDF

@evan,

Good thing that's come out of this conversation is the emergence of a comparative stack for those unfamiliar the general pattern for interacting with inboxes and outboxes unleashed via #email.

#GMAIL is the hosted equivalent of @Mastodon.

#SMTP is the server-server protocol for delivering #mbox docs to inboxes and outboxes.

#IMAP4 is the client-server protocol (implemented by GMAIL but missing from Mastodon).

#ActivityStreams is the mbox payload equivalent.

/cc @Mastodon @mike

@evan,

I didn't say or insinuate that. I was simply expressing concern about the server-server centricity of @Mastodon in relation to its #ActivityPub support.

Simplest example is #Email where #SMTP plays the role of #ActivityPub re moving #mbox docs across outboxes and inboxes; with #IMAP4 (a client-server protocol) handling retrieval.

Even #GMAIL supports #IMAP4 (and #POP3) while also having its own #API.

@Mastodon should operate in similar fashion is my point 😀

/cc @mike

Trying to migrate a big locally stored #email archive from Apple Mail to #Thunderbird by exporting to #mbox, but the email count after importing never adds up. Do these apps count items differently? Any ideas how to can verify that now emails got lost in the process? Thanks!