neddie Posted April 8, 2009 Report Share Posted April 8, 2009 I may be missing something obvious here, but I can't find an option in Thunderbird and can't see any addons which do this: What I want is to create a simple backup text file containing my mails. I assumed there would be a generic "export" option and one of the file formats would be a simple text file. Then I can just save the simple text file and use things like grep without having to have a compatible mail program. I know that the Inbox file itself is a text file, but it's got loads of other extraneous stuff in there like boatloads of message headers, plus more annoyingly the attachments as huge inline data blocks. I don't want those, I just want the sender, the timestamp and the message text. Of course I want to keep all this other information in Thunderbird too, I just want to export a subset of the information to a simple, flat text file. Anyone know of an easy way to do this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted April 8, 2009 Report Share Posted April 8, 2009 Maybe this helps: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Importing_and_exporting_your_mail Thunderbird is in mbox format, and so in theory you can pretty much use a utility that can read mbox format and export it using this. I know I had something similar like this when I moved from Thunderbird to Evolution. I did manage to do it, but can't remember what I found originally when I googled for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kieth Posted April 8, 2009 Report Share Posted April 8, 2009 Save it as a file. (File - Save as; or ctrl-s) Then when the window opens up to write the name and location, you'll see in the bottom right hand corner the option to save as .txt. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neddie Posted April 20, 2009 Author Report Share Posted April 20, 2009 Thunderbird is in mbox format, and so in theory you can pretty much use a utility that can read mbox format and export it using this.Yeah, I got that far, but all the utilities I found just exported to other mailbox formats rather than just plain text. I found Hypermail too but that is far more than I need, I'm sure there must be an easier way. Save it as a file. (File - Save as; or ctrl-s) Then when the window opens up to write the name and location, you'll see in the bottom right hand corner the option to save as .txt.I think that only works for single messages though? When I select more than one message I don't get a "save as -> file" option in the menu. And I definitely don't want to save all the messages one by one... It's looking like I may have to roll up my sleeves and do some perl... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kieth Posted April 21, 2009 Report Share Posted April 21, 2009 I think that only works for single messages though? Yeh, I think you're right. I save many letters, but I do it one at a time. It only takes me a moment. I do have a lot of letters in my mbox folders, though, which might be good to backup at times, too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lexicon Posted April 21, 2009 Report Share Posted April 21, 2009 I he is carrying copies out whether he is archiving catalogues into, simple and fast MCC Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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