Migration from Kmail to Evolution [solved]

[Ironfighter]

I would like to try Evolution as a PIM and want to transfer all my email messages from Kmail. I have gone thriught the Wizard in Evolution without any success. I get through the whole process but when I hit finish" no result. I am beginning to wander if I am trying to transfer files from the correct location - the only directory that the Wizard is happy with is kde/share.

 

I have googled for help on this without any luck. Does anyone know the correct procedure? Any help would be appreciated.

[tyme]

This article describes how to share mail between Kmail and Evolution, which would probably be a better option for you - if nothing else it describes where the relevant files are and you can just mv them from one directory to the other (if your account is set up in both).

[coverup]

I would like to try Evolution as a PIM and want to transfer all my email messages from Kmail. I have gone thriught the Wizard in Evolution without any success. I get through the whole process but when I hit finish" no result. I am beginning to wander if I am trying to transfer files from the correct location - the only directory that the Wizard is happy with is kde/share.

 

I have googled for help on this without any luck. Does anyone know the correct procedure? Any help would be appreciated.

Essentially, you need to import to evolution inbox and sent folders (and any other email folders) and address books. Accounts and filter settings are easy to do from scratch and are not worth importing.

 

Since both evo and kmail store email in a standard Unix mbox file, importing email can be done as follows:

 

1. In evolution, create a new mail account. In Receving mail select server type "Standard Unix mbox spool or directory", then type in or browse to the kmail mail directory. Add the rest of the required eolution settings, then close accounts settings dialog. The new account should appear on the left, and you can now browse through mail. You can leave it as is, or place entire kmail folders as subfolder s to Evo's Inbox or Sent folders, or move mail to Inbox, Sent, etc. Of course, once you move mail to Evo folders and no longer need to keep that account, you can remove it.

 

2. There is another "brut force" method for moving mail. Kill Evo and all its subprocesses. Closing Evo may not be enough, you need to use /usr/lib/evolution/killev command. You can now simply copy entire kmail inbox folder to ~/.evolution/mail/local/Inbox (assuming you use Evo 2 or later, earlier versions had different folder structure). Restart evolution.

 

3. Moving addressbook is a less obvious task. AFAIK, the address book must be exported or transformed into an ldif file, and then can be imported to evolution.

 

 

This article describes how to share mail between Kmail and Evolution,

... which is available to subscribers only

[tyme]

that's very odd...if i google "Sharing Inboxes Between KMail & Evolution" it's the first result, and if I click on the link from google I see the full article. However, if any time I try to link to it (even if I just copy the link from google) I get that request to subscribe...

 

Oh well, here's the full text:

We're not sure who started the vicious rumor, but some people tend to think there isn't any software available for Linux. Although commercial applications are few and far between on Linux, there is a staggering number of free and open-source Linux applications. Sometimes the problem is finding the software that works best for you.

 

Take email clients. KDE includes an excellent email client known as Kmail, while GNOME includes the Outlook clone, Evolution. Mozilla users can enjoy Mozilla Mail or the newer Thunderbird email client. There are even email clients such as Mutt for command line power users.

 

Even if you've decided KMail or Evolution perfectly fits your needs, you may have occasion to use the other. Perhaps you normally prefer to send quick emails using KMail, but occasionally need to track personal information (such as appointments or tasks) in Evolution. When such an occasion arises, it's nice to share a single inbox between both clients. This month, we'll show you how to share inboxes between KMail and Evolution.

 

Prerequisites

 

It goes without saying that you'll need both KMail and Evolution installed. Most distributions usually install both applications by default. If one or both applications aren't currently installed, you should be able to install them from your installation media or find binary packages appropriate for your distribution. Because both programs are widely available, we won't cover installing these packages.

 

Because you'll be fiddling around with your mailbox, there is a chance you could lose messages, so we recommend backing up your mailboxes before proceeding. Create two new directories named evolutionbk and kmailbk by typing mkdir ~/evolutionbk ~/kmailbk. Next, type cp -R ~/evolution/* ~/evolutionbk/ and cp –R ~/Mail/* ~/kmailbk/ to copy the contents of your Evolution and KMail mailboxes to a safe directory.

 

Inbox Formats

 

There are two well-known mailbox standards desktop clients use. Mbox is the oldest and most widely supported, but it's not as flexible as Maildir. KMail and Evolution support both formats, but Evolution supports Mbox by default and KDE supports Maildir by default. Evolution, however, will let you convert current mailboxes from Mbox to Maildir format. (KMail doesn't include an option for converting to Mbox, but we recommend using Maildir anyway.)

 

To convert Mbox mailboxes to Maildir, open Evolution. Click View and select Folder Bar. Double-click Local Folders, right-click Inbox and select Properties. Select Maildir and click OK. Repeat for any subfolders under your inbox. When you close Evolution, it will begin to convert the mailboxes. Be patient, as it may take some time to convert your mailboxes.

 

Create Shared Inboxes

 

The Maildir standard is very flexible. Essentially, each mailbox is a directory with three subdirectories named cur, new, and tmp. A file represents each message. New messages are saved in tmp and then written to new. Older messages are saved in cur.

 

KMail has a clean mailbox structure. Examine the Mail directory in your home directory using a file manager or the ls command from the command line. As you can see, there are directories named drafts, inbox, outbox, sent-mail, and trash. Any additional mailboxes you created within KMail are also found here. Each subdirectory has its own cur, new, and tmp folders.

 

Evolution has a more complex mailbox directory. Maildir mailboxes are in the evolution/local/inbox directory. The mbox subdirectory is your main inbox. Any additional mailboxes are listed in the subfolders directory.

 

We'll create a new set of mailbox directories using the simpler KMail scheme. Create a new directory by typing mkdir Shared from the command line. Next, type mv Mail Shared/ to move your mail from your KMail Mail directory to the new Shared directory. Finally, type ln –s Shared/Mail Mail to create a symbolic link to the new, shared mailbox.

 

If you had messages in KMail, you can check to make sure you've done everything correctly by opening KMail and making sure your messages are still there. Close KMail when you're finished.

 

Evolution

 

Next, it's time to have fun with Evolution. If you have any messages in Evolution you want to keep, you'll need to copy the messages from the proper Maildir directory to your new, shared mailbox using a file manager or the cp command from the command line. For instance, if you wanted to keep old messages from your Evolution inbox, you could type cp evolution/local/inbox/mbox/cur/* Shared/inbox/cur/.

 

Once you've copied any messages you want to keep, you need to delete the /evolution/local.inbox/mbox directory and create a symbolic link to the proper directory in your shared mailbox. To create the proper symbolic link, type ln –s ~/Shared/Mail/inbox ~/evolu tion/local/inbox/mbox to create a symbolic link to your shared inbox.

 

Once you're finished, open Evolution and make sure you can view your inbox in Evolution. The Maildir format will let you access the same mailbox from more than one email application at a time (something that isn't possible using the Mbox format). From now on, messages you receive in one mail client should be available in another mail client.

 

Limitations

 

There are a few limitations to this approach. Although both email clients have access to the same messages, they only keep track of messages they've downloaded. This means if one or both clients are configured to leave messages on the server, you might download multiple copies of the same message. Also, the method as described above doesn't share folders for sent mail, drafts, and trash. You'll need to make the proper symbolic links using the method above if you want to share messages stored in these directories. We recommend sharing the sent folder at the very least. Finally, not all email clients support the maildir format. The most notable exception is Mozilla Mail/Thunderbird. Aside from these limitations, the method we described above worked great.

 

by Chad Denton

hopefully I'm not violating any copyrights...

[Ironfighter]

Thanks People - I obviously didn´t google hard enough I´ll have a crack at coverup´s method - if no go I´ll try Thyme´s method. Thanks - Ill let you know how I go.

[Ironfighter]

Well - In my usual bungling way I appeared to have done what I set out to do :). Because I didn´t read coverup´s post before I started doing what Tyme suggested I sort of got into difficulties when I decided I would switch to Thyme´s method. Here is what I did:

 

From Tyme´s method:

 

We'll create a new set of mailbox directories using the simpler KMail scheme. Create a new directory by typing mkdir Shared from the command line. Next, type mv Mail Shared/ to move your mail from your KMail Mail directory to the new Shared directory. Finally, type ln –s Shared/Mail Mail to create a symbolic link to the new, shared mailbox.

 

Then I got scared where it says :

 

"Once you've copied any messages you want to keep, you need to delete the /evolution/local.inbox/mbox directory and create a symbolic link to the proper directory in your shared mailbox. To create the proper symbolic link, type ln –s ~/Shared/Mail/inbox ~/evolu tion/local/inbox/mbox to create a symbolic link to your shared inbox."

 

So I didn´t and decided to swithch to coverups method. But I kept on getting these messages saying ¨blah blah blahh is not a mail box¨

 

So I started tinkering and changed the Receiving Mail Settings in Evolution to

 

Server Type = Maildir-format mail directories

 

and the Configuration to :

 

Path = /home/username/Shared/.Mail (where username is my firstname incase anyone as challenged as me is reading this :))

 

Then I hit send and receive - I saw the folder panel saying ΅Loading" and my hard drive spinning and voila all my folders (and messages) from Kmail appeared in the new account.

 

I am very happy because of this but even happier with Linux because I haven´t been able to break it (yet). I am sure if I tried this stuff in windows I would have ended up in all sorts of strife.

 

Thanks again folks

Edited June 10, 2006 by Ironfighter

[tyme]

glad you famigured it out

 

(and it's tyme, darn it :P)

[Ironfighter]

glad you famigured it out

 

(and it's tyme, darn it :P)

 

Please accept apologies and thanks tyme - and thank you for your help coverup. :)

[tyme]

no worries, people often spelling it wrong ;) there used to be an on-going joke about it being spelled with a lower case t... :)

[Ironfighter]

I am very happy because of this but even happier with Linux because I haven´t been able to break it (yet). I am sure if I tried this stuff in windows I would have ended up in all sorts of strife.

 

Thanks again folks

 

Back again people - I spoke tooo soon. Kmail is still working fine but Evolution is running like a dog when I send and receive. It takes about ten minutes to download when I send an email to myself. The hard disk starts spinning and what ever is going on is taking over the whole machine.

 

I tryed deleting the account I had set up to transfer my messages, and then I deleted the shared mail folder but to no avail. Do I have to remove the symbolic link - If so how do I do that? Help!

[coverup]

Remove the symlink in the same way as if it were a file, no difference. However, before you do anything, take a deep breath and check what is going on...

 

When evo starts, it builds summary for all folders, building summary of new folders and virtual folders is particularly slow, if the folders are large. If you don't use virtual folders, disable/remove them. Second thing, double check to make sure you don't have symlinks pointing to themselves - well, mistakes happen...

 

Finally, I sometimes have this strange problem - Evolution starts using swap for no reason and just freezes. I guess it has a nasty memory leak somewhere, 'cause after rebooting the box and purging swap everything is back to normal. May be you are having exactly the same problem. Try rebooting the box.

[Ironfighter]

Thanks coverup. Ive taken that deep breath.

 

More info. I have two accounts on both Kmail and Evo - lets call them A & B

In Kmail I can send mail from A to B and vice versa with no hassles.

In Evo I can send mail from A or B to hotmail with no hassles.

In Evo If I try to send mail from A to B it sends quickly but takes quite a long time to download it into B.

If I send mail from B to B then it sends it quickly but takes maybe 10 minutes to receive it during which time the hard drive is spinning and I cannot do anything else on the computer.

Evo was working fine (till I solved my problem which was transferring my messages from Kmail to Evo :D ). So I don´t think its the same problem you have experienced.

 

I forgot to tell you :D that I did have a problem with Kmail after I "fixed"Evo - I had a pile of folders in the folder bar that I hadn´t seen before so I deleted them :D . Kmail then fixed itself by doing something like generating some mailboxes.

 

I think I have got a bodgey sim link and I have probably broken Evo (sad to say) - I think by deleting those Kmail folders (perhaps Evo is looking for them). Is this terminal - I hope not because my "saved" messages are now in Evo not Kmail.

 

What would happen if I urpme Evo then urpmi it - would I loose the existing messages?

[coverup]

I think I have got a bodgey sim link and I have probably broken Evo (sad to say) - I think by deleting those Kmail folders (perhaps Evo is looking for them). Is this terminal - I hope not because my "saved" messages are now in Evo not Kmail.

 

What would happen if I urpme Evo then urpmi it - would I loose the existing messages?

No you won't loose anything at all. In fact after you install evolution again, everything will be back to its previous state including the bad links if you have any. Evolution stores accounts/file information etc in user's home dir in several places, in the folder ~/.evolution and also in some gnome folders. This information is not removed by urpme and will be restored next time you install Evolution. It's better if you remove Evolution accounts & folders before uninstalling the app.

 

The problem, as you described it, seems to be related to account B settings and perhaps how kmail folders are set in evolution. If this helps, I keep all subfolders and their content in ./evolution/. However, evo's Inbox, Sent and Drafts files are kept in the shared mail dir and are symlinked to

.evolution/mail/local/Inbox, etc.

 

I don't use kmail anymore, but I use different versions of evolution and thunderbird on several computers and sync them twice a day. Everything works that way for me.

[Ironfighter]

OK - I urpmed and urpmid :) and the result was exactly what you said it would be - no loss of messages and no change in the behaviour of Evo. One thing I have noticed any messages I send to myself go to both Evo and Kmail - this never happened previously so I must have some sort of share set up for my mail. I did manage to delete one file that said it was somthing like "just a link". - perhaps there is another one somewhere - where would I look for that?

Any ideas?

[coverup]

OK - I urpmed and urpmid :) and the result was exactly what you said it would be - no loss of messages and no change in the behaviour of Evo. One thing I have noticed any messages I send to myself go to both Evo and Kmail - this never happened previously so I must have some sort of share set up for my mail.

Yep, symlinking folders = sharing. Isn't that what you wanted?

 

Put simply, email is just a text file, which EVo and Kmail download and store as a file. By creating a symlink, you fool them to think that they store the downloaded text to a 'file'. But since the 'file' is a symlink to the true_file, the text goes to the true_file. Hence, both evo and kmail see the same content. If you don't want shared email folders, and just want to migrate to evolution, don't use symlinks, just copy kmail files over to the directory associated with the account, as i was suggesting originally.

 

I did manage to delete one file that said it was somthing like "just a link". - perhaps there is another one somewhere - where would I look for that?

Any ideas?

You lost me here... What exactly do you want to delete? Are you trying to remove all evolution settings/folders and start afresh? Edited June 12, 2006 by coverup