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Date:	Fri, 5 Dec 2008 11:42:44 -0800
From:	"John H. Lindsay" <jlindsay@kingston.net >
Reply-To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
Subject:	SCOUG-Help: Mail Migration (Conversion ?)

Content Type: text/plain

Hi Robert and All:

I had written:
> While people are on this topic, I'll ask a question again in case anyone
> new here knows the answer (I asked long ago): I know that the mail
> files are of a common format, but does anyone know where to find a
> definition of the mail file format, perhaps in the source code of one of
> the open source mail and news readers ?

Robert Blair replied:
> I think we need more information. What email client are you
> referring to?

Thunderbird -- both Wxx and OS/2 / eCS versions.

> Each email client stores its email in a different way. Although
> they may save the email in very similar ways they all do not do it
> in exactly the same way. .....

Rats! That was not what I had understood. I was under the impression
that all the NetScape/Mozzilla news/mail readers used essentially
the same format. Still, I hope that there is enough commonality
among those that I could write a program to merge 2 (or several) mail
boxes worth of mail/news into one.

> ..... The email client I use saves the email
> exactly as received, each email in its own file. .....

Ha! That's what I would have done, thinking back to OS/360/370/...
partitioned data sets.

> ...... Others do some
> editing especially with regards to attachments and some make some
> changes (sometimes sufficient changes to the headers) and some store
> all the email in large files with separators for each email.

Oh bother! Thunderbird (&c.?) puts all the e-mail/postings in of one
mailbox/newsgroup in one file.

> If you want to know the format of email while it is being
> transmitted look at RFC5321 and 5322.

??? RFC ???

John.

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