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Mailsmith Import/Export Capabilities

Automatic Importing

The first time you launch Mailsmith, it will search your computer for available email clients from which to import mail and address data. When the search is complete, Mailsmith presents the following dialog:

Mailsmith Setup Dialog

If you choose "Default Mailsmith Setup", Mailsmith will not import mail or data from another client, and will create a basic set of preferences and standard mailboxes.

The following table shows what information Mailsmith imports from each of the supported clients during the automatic import process.

  Mailboxes Address Book Account Settings Filters
Mailsmith 1.1 Yes Yes Yes Yes
Eudora Yes Yes ("Eudora Nicknames" file only) No No
Emailer Yes Yes Yes (except for passwords) No
Apple Mail Yes No No No

The Mailsmith Setup dialog box is only shown the first time you launch Mailsmith. If you quit Mailsmith, and then move or delete the Mailsmith User Data folder, however, you can effectively start over from scratch. The next time you launch Mailsmith, you will be presented with the Mailsmith Setup dialog again.

More information about the automatic import process is available in Chapter 3 of the Mailsmith User Manual.

Manually Importing Mail and Addresses

Importing "mbox" Files

Once you have gotten Mailsmith set up, you can import mail stored in the canonical plain text "mbox" format at any time. To import one or more mbox files, simply drag-and-drop the file(s) into a mailbox list in Mailsmith (either in the Mail Browser or the Mailbox List window). If you drop the mbox file onto the white space at the bottom of the mailbox list, Mailsmith will create a new mailbox with the same name as the mbox file at the top level of your mailbox hierarchy. If you drop the mbox file onto an existing mailbox, Mailsmith will create a new sub-mailbox within that mailbox.

In the screenshot below, an mbox file named "My mbox file" is being dropped onto the mailbox "Discovery". After the importing process is complete, there will be a new mailbox named "My mbox file" within the mailbox "Discovery".

Drag-and-drop mbox import illustration.

If you want to import the contents of an mbox file into an existing Mailsmith mailbox, without creating a new mailbox, drag the mbox file into the message list of the destination mailbox, as shown below.

Drag-and-drop mbox import illustration.

Importing Addresses

To import address book entries from most other email clients, open the Address Book windows in both Mailsmith and the other email program. Select the address book entries you wish to import into Mailsmith, and drag-and-drop them into Mailsmith's Address Book window. See below for instructions from specific email programs.

Note: Any information contained in the address book entries of another email client, which Mailsmith's Address Book does not support, will not be imported. This includes, for example, items such as postal address information and telephone numbers.

You can also drag-and-drop text files into Mailsmith's Address Book, in the either of the following formats (one address per line): 

Jane Doe <jane@example.com>
John Doe <john@example.com>

jane@example.net (Jane Doe)
john@example.net (John Doe)

Eudora

Mailboxes: Eudora stores mail in a file format based on the Unix mbox format. These mailbox files can be imported into Mailsmith using the procedure described above.

Address: You can drag-and-drop Eudora nicknames directly from the Eudora Address Book window into the Mailsmith Address Book window. You can also drag Eudora nickname files from the Finder into Mailsmith's Address Book.

Note: Because of differences in how Mailsmith and Eudora handle groups, you may find that the import process causes some duplicate entries to be created. You may want to manually remove extra entries from the Mailsmith Address Book after importing a Eudora nickname file.

Filters: Mailsmith does not import Eudora filters.

Claris Emailer 2.0v2 or Later

Because of Emailer's limited export capabilities, the only effective way to import Emailer mailboxes and address books into Mailsmith is through the automatic migration process described above.

Mailsmith does not import Emailer filters.

Apple Mail (Mac OS X)

Mailboxes: Apple Mail stores mailboxes in mbox format, but the mbox files are hidden inside packages. (A package is a folder that the Finder treats as a single file.) Confusingly, these packages are named with a ".mbox" file extension. Mailsmith allows you to import these .mbox packages the same way you import regular "mbox" text files, as described above.

Addresses: You can drag-and-drop addresses directly from the Mac OS X Address Book application to the Mailsmith Address Book window.

Microsoft Entourage

Mailboxes: Entourage 2001 and v.X can export mailboxes to mbox format. Simply drag a mailbox folder from Entourage and drop it in the Finder. The exported mbox file(s) can then be imported into Mailsmith using drag-and-drop, as described above.

Note: The initial release of Entourage 2001 (version 9.0.0) exports malformed mbox files which cannot be imported into Mailsmith. This bug is fixed with Microsoft's SR1 patch, which updates Entourage 2001 to version 9.0.1.

Addresses: You can use drag-and-drop to import addresses from Entourage. First, drag the addresses from the Entourage address book to the Finder. Entourage will create a vCard formatted text file (with a ".vcf" extension) for each address. You can then drag these vCard files from the Finder to Mailsmith's Address Book window to import them.

Outlook Express

Mailboxes: Outlook Express does not directly support exporting to mbox formatted files. You can, however, export OE mailboxes to mbox format using AppleScript.

Addresses: Importing addresses from Outlook Express into Mailsmith couldn't be much simpler. Launch both Outlook Express and Mailsmith, and open the Contacts window in OE and the Address Book in Mailsmith. In the Contacts window of OE, select the addresses you want to import into Mailsmith. Then, drag them to the Mailsmith Address Book window.

Note: This only works for individual people. There is no support for importing groups from Outlook Express into Mailsmith.

Mailsmith does not import Outlook Express filters.

Netscape Mail

Mailboxes: Netscape stores mail in a file format based on the Unix mbox format. These mailbox files can be imported into Mailsmith using the procedure described above.

Addresses: The easiest way to import addresses from Netscape mail is via drag-and-drop. Simply open the address book windows in both Netscape and Mailsmith. Then select all the addresses from Netscape you wish to import and drag them into the Mailsmith address book window.

Note that this only works for individual contact entries -- there is no provision for importing Netscape "lists" into Mailsmith.

Mailsmith does not import Netscape filters.

Unix (pine/elm)

Mail: Pine, Elm, and various other Unix-based mail programs store mail in the Unix mbox format. These mailbox files can be imported into Mailsmith using the procedure described above.

Addresses: Pine and Elm "alias" files can be imported by dragging them from the Finder into the Mailsmith Address Book window. Individual addresses as well as group addresses in these files will be added to the Mailsmith Address Book.

Note: Because of differences in how Mailsmith and Pine/Elm handle groups, you may find that the import process causes some duplicate entries to be created. You may want to manually remove extra entries from the Mailsmith Address Book after importing from an alias file.

Exporting Mail and Addresses

Mail: The Export command in the File menu allows you to export messages and mailboxes from Mailsmith using the standard mbox file format. If you invoke the Export command with a selection of one or more messages, those messages will be exported to a single mbox file. If you invoke the Export command with a selection of mailboxes, an exported mbox file will be created for each mailbox. You will be prompted to choose a name and location for each mbox file, using a standard Save dialog.

You can use the following AppleScript to export all your mailboxes at one time, to individual mbox files, without being prompted for a name and location for each mailbox. You'll be prompted once at the beginning to choose a location for all the mbox files. 

global export_folder

on doTask(mbox)
   tell application "Mailsmith"
	  export mbox to export_folder as alias
   end tell
end doTask

on run
   tell application "Mailsmith"
	  set export_folder to choose folder with prompt ¬
		 "Choose a folder to export mailboxes into."
	  set ct to count mailboxes
	  repeat with i from 1 to ct
		 set obj to mailbox i
		 my process_mailbox(obj)
	  end repeat
   end tell
end run

on process_mailbox(mbox)
   tell application "Mailsmith"
	  my doTask(mbox)
	  set ct to count mailboxes of mbox
	  repeat with i from 1 to ct
		 set obj to mailbox i of mbox
		 my process_mailbox(obj)
	  end repeat
   end tell
end process_mailbox

Addresses: The easiest way to export addresses from Mailsmith is by using drag-and-drop. Simply open the Mailsmith Address Book window, select the addresses you wish to export, and drag them to the Finder. Mailsmith will create a text clipping with the contents of the dragged addresses in the following format: 

jane@example.net (Jane Doe)
john@example.net (John Doe)