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import from Postbox

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  • Last reply by david

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I understand that Postbox, based on Thunderbird, will never be updated to become compatible with Apple silicon chips. Therefore Postbox will cease to work when Rosetta will be deprecated on macs. Consequently my question is where can I find directions to import messages, filters, and preferences from Postbox to Thunderbird?

I understand that Postbox, based on Thunderbird, will never be updated to become compatible with Apple silicon chips. Therefore Postbox will cease to work when Rosetta will be deprecated on macs. Consequently my question is where can I find directions to import messages, filters, and preferences from Postbox to Thunderbird?

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I suggest setting up thunderbird and using the tools>import>importfromanotherthunderbird and then locate and seect the postbox profile. no guarantees, but i have been successful in sharing profiles between the two apps.

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You might ty the addon called filtaquilla. Otherwise, i don't know.

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Thanks a lot. You saved me hours of burden. I agree that global filters was a very convenient feature added by Postbox and that Thunderbird should implement it too, with perhaps a better programming method.

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Postbox (BP) ->> Thunderbird (TB) import.

Keywords must be identical in TB (to Postbox), add them manually.

When copying or moving filter rules, the file structure must be identical.

Editor is your friend ....

Postbox creates its own msgFilterRules.dat file for each mail account and in the local folder, just like Thunderbird. Postbox distributes filter rules where you check “Global” to all msgFilterRules.dat files in the respective profile.

Before you start, save all msgFilterRules.dat files imported from BP, just duplicate them on the Mac.

Postbox adds global="yes" (or “no”) to each msgFilterRules.dat for each rule, these entries must be removed from ALL msgFilterRules.dat files imported into TB.

It is better to set all filter entries to enabled="no" so that you can examine these extras/filters before activating them.

I started with an empty msgFilterRules.dat and copied all the pure keyword filters into it, edited, tested and corrected them if necessary and distributed this msgFilterRules.dat to all other places where msgFilterRules.dat can be found.

Then I started with the move filters. These are usually related to a mail account.

Make adjustments until everything works.

The filter = search folder that I created in the local folder in Postbox and that finds all unread messages in the directory tree also works in TB.

I still have to check the function of the local trash can to see whether it also deletes the messages from the server when emptying it in POP3 (please NO POP3 discussion!).

PS: On a Mac, you can also create a copy of the TB profile using Duplicate or manually initiate a Time Machine backup so that you can take a step back if necessary.

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A script that does this automatically and the ‘global’ filter feature (like in Postbox) would do Thunderbird good!

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You are welcome. If you want to make a suggestion to add global filter, you can do that at connect.mozilla.org under the IDEAS category.

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