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Home / Win2Lin MIGRATION STORIES / discussion best way to use same mailboxes on a dual-boot system?

best way to use same mailboxes on a dual-boot system? (modified 0 times) walterbyrd I have a Linux/XP dual-boot system, and I want to use the same email mailboxes on both. Obviously I wont be able to use OE or Outlook on the windows side. Fine by me, I strongly dislike both of those email clients. I have the mailboxes in a FAT32 partition, and use the standard mbox format. I have been using Eudora-Pro on the XP side. I'm happy with Eudora, but I would be willing to use another email client - if it was decent. I have read that I can configure KDE mail to read eudora's mail boxes. Haven't tried this. Seems like it might be possible to run Mozilla thunderbird email client on both XP and Linux. That would give me a familiar interface on both sides. But, I don't like thunderbird much. I don't like the way thunderbird handels headers, and I like eudora's spell checker. Any other ideas appreciated. Thank you. 09-26-2003 07:59:11

RE:best way to use same mailboxes on a dual-boot system? (modified 0 times) Wrath Hmmm. I was going to recommend Netscape/Mozilla as the client on both OSes. Then it would simply be a matter of a) pointing your mail preferences to your FAT32 partition, or b) symlinking your mail folders to the FAT32 partition. But working with software you like is important. Here's another thought: does your mail provider (assuming it's your ISP) offer IMAP mail, or only POP3 mail? The reason I ask is that IMAP allows you to leave your mail on the server and connect with any IMAP capable client. We use IMAP accounts at the place I work and I have connected to my account with Netscape Messenger and MS Outlook under Windows and with Mozilla Mail and Evolution under Linux. We also have a nice Web front-end for our mail so I can work with it via pretty much any modern browser. Might be worth a call (or email) to your ISP? 09-26-2003 08:57:09

RE:best way to use same mailboxes on a dual-boot system? (modified 0 times) walterbyrd I don't have that much diskspace for email at my ISP. Only about 5MB, that would fill up fast. I might go with mozilla/thunderbird solution. How do I point my email clint to the mboxes? 09-26-2003 09:50:16

RE:best way to use same mailboxes on a dual-boot system? (modified 1 times) motub Profile On Moz/Thunderbird, open the mail client, go to Tools=>Account Settings (Thunderbird) or Edit=>Mail and News Account Preferences (MozMail). In the "Server Settings", at the very bottom of the dialog is the setting "Local Directory". Change this from the default location to the shared location. Close Mozilla/Thunderbird and restart. If Mozilla, close all parts of Mozilla. Warnings: When setting up a new account, do not let Moz/T-bird download the mail immediately as it wants to (just uncheck the checkbox). Also uncheck the "Download messages immediately" setting while you're in the Server Settings dialog-- probably not an issue as it doesn't have your password, but let's keep it safe and organized until you've got it set up. Be aware that while your mail filters will transfer, because they are kept in the shared mail folder (this means you can add a filter under either OS and have it work immediately ith the other one, same with creating filter folders), your address book will not transfer, so make sure to export it to LDIF once and put it somewhere where you can reach it to import it into both installations. Anyway, this definitely does work, as I have 6 OSes (4 Linux, 2 Windows) on my machine at the moment and they all use the same folder on my FAT32 partition. But then again, I've been using Netscape/Mozilla/Thunderbird for a looooong time, and have never used Outlook/OE (though I tried TheBat! once), so actually converting and transferring my mail to a new client has never been an issue. But as far as I know, importing from Outlook or OE or even Eudora shouldn't be any trouble. 09-26-2003 13:43:39

RE:best way to use same mailboxes on a dual-boot system? (modified 0 times) motub Profile You might also consider using Opera under both OSes-- I didn't much like their mail system, but you might, and I'd think it might be shareable under similar rules. 09-26-2003 14:02:22

RE:best way to use same mailboxes on a dual-boot system? (modified 0 times) Wrath I'm glad motub is about. I was taking some much needed time away from computers and am just no getting back. Thanks, motub, for a good explanation. Since Mozilla isn't my client of choice at present, I would have had to fiddle with it to give a good response. It also occured to be that IMAP may not be the best solution for dial-up users. If I recall correctly walterbyrd, you use a dial-up account. You are also correct that 5MB would fill up awfully fast. I had to manually (?) delete messages from a workmate's mail folder today because some sod had sent her three 7MB attachments. 09-26-2003 19:46:14

RE:best way to use same mailboxes on a dual-boot system? (modified 0 times) walterbyrd motab: thanx. should be no trouble importing eudora to mozilla. wrath: yep, still using dial-up. have been waiting for comcast for 3.5 years. I live in denver, a few miles from where comcast took over at&t; broadband headquarters. 09-27-2003 09:59:36

RE:best way to use same mailboxes on a dual-boot system? (modified 0 times) walterbyrd >>In the "Server Settings", at the very bottom of the dialog is the setting "Local Directory". Change this from the default location to the shared location.<< I don't think that will work with Mozilla 1.5. The "local director" is there, but it can not be edited. 11-18-2003 12:13:07

RE:best way to use same mailboxes on a dual-boot system? (modified 0 times) motub Profile Can't be edited? You mean the path is unselectable and undeletable? Now, that's odd. This might be a bug in a particular trunk of 1.5. It does work in 1.6a and b, which is what we have here at my house (though I actually use Thunderbird, where it also works). 11-26-2003 04:19:27

RE:best way to use same mailboxes on a dual-boot system? (modified 0 times) walterbyrd >> Can't be edited? You mean the path is unselectable and undeletable? << There is noting there. The words "Local Directory" are there, but there is nothing under it. I believe that in mozilla 1.4, and after, they started "salting" the mail-box directory. So mail is put in something like: ildkXyu89766Xfkuiw867b, for security reasons. I couldn't find a way to import mozilla 1.1 email into mozilla 1.5, or thunderbird. 11-26-2003 07:24:15

RE:best way to use same mailboxes on a dual-boot system? (modified 0 times) Dagarath The 'best' way to do it is to use IMAP. This would require a second pc to act as the imap server. IMAP would allow you to use almost any email client on either operating system to access the same mailboxes. 02-24-2004 20:29:51

RE:best way to use same mailboxes on a dual-boot system? (modified 0 times) carmishk Using the NTFS (as opposed to the FAT32 file system) wouln't work; correct? 08-23-2004 20:04:10

RE:best way to use same mailboxes on a dual-boot system? (modified 0 times) SM.... You could try mailsync although I don't know if any Windows mail clients use a compatible mailbox format. http://mailsync.sourceforge.net/ Alternatively you could set up your MTA to alias email to two different users so that your incoming emails are copied to two separately downloadable email accounts. With some email clients you can copy all outgoing emails to another account. This is somewhat similar except deletions will not be replicated. 08-26-2004 06:21:33

RE:best way to use same mailboxes on a dual-boot system? (modified 0 times) helo If the mail server is imap-based or web-based, you can leave the emails in the server. Otherwise, mozilla/thunderbird works perfectly sharing emails in different platforms. You can even share the configuration settings. If you are adventurous, why not store all your mails in a samba/nfs server? That does mean you have to have another computer as a server, but that's how I manage at home with one computer for each family member storing everything in a server. No multiple maintenance headaches. 10-14-2004 14:54:09

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