Hi,
I have just upgraded from Mandrake 10 to Mandriva 2008.
I have a question about transferring the mail content, from Kmail Rev. 0.8 (from Mandrake 10) to Kmail 1.9.7 (Mandriva).
It used to be a hidden file, called ".Mail" with all emails in it.
I don't see it in Madriva.
Does anybody know where it is and, if it's a different structure, how to transfer the mail? I have that ".Mail" file backed-up on a disk but I don't see a place for it.
thanks

It was moved to /home/username/.kde/share/apps/kmail

But you don't want to copy .Mail to kmail, but the content within .Mail into kmail

Hope this helps.

My procedure for moving mail to a new distro:

Find your old mail (usually easy enough!)
Start kmail at least once on the new distro, for the default directories to be created.

Close kmail.
Navigate to ~/.kde/share/apps/kmail/mail
Select View ... Show hidden files in Konqueror.
If you see any .*index* files, delete them all.
Now, move your old mail directories into ~/.kde/share/apps/kmail/mail but do not copy any of the .*index* files from the old distro.

Now, start kmail
It will start slowly if you have a lot of mail, with a lot of disk activity, because all the index files need to be re-created.
Then all should be well

Your old address book can be exported from your old distro, and imported into the new one.
I have found moving my kmail mail-filter rules between different distros to be much more difficult, and have always had to recreate them manually

It worked. I can see the mail content now.
There is one problem with it though:
I can see the old emails but when I click on them they turn into "unknown sender, unknown date of arrival and no subject" and there is no content.
Am I missing some steps here?

thanks

Interesting.

I have been using kmail since Mandrake 7.2. I currently am at Mandriva 2008. I have upgraded along the way (never reinstalled). My mail is still in ~/.Mail.

I wouldn't move the mail; I would simply symlink from the new location to the old .Mail directory. Or else configure kmail to look for its mail there. Lots easier and bound to be fewer problems.

You can configure this for kmail by editing ~/.kde/share/config/kmailrc and under the General section locate the line folders= and make sure it says folders=$HOME/.Mail .

@zebra90210
This is weird. I never experienced this. Are your mails in Mbox (some big files, each with many emails in it) or Mdir (Directories, containing many, small, individual email files) format? Mine are the latter. Not that it should matter.
Just a thought - you did copy the mail files, NOT the index files? And you DID delete all the (hidden) index files (on your new system) before you copied your mail over?

I recently got an Asus eee PC701, and in setting up kmail on that I accidentally downloaded all my mail from my ISP's server. Normally my mobile PCs leave mail on my ISPs server, so ALL my incoming emails eventually end up on my email PC (which does delete downloaded mails from my ISPs server).

I basically followed the above procedure to merge the new emails on my eee with the ones on the server. Result: No mail lost, or in the wrong place, but I did have to click on each mailbox (Inbox, Outbox, Family, Work, Purchases etc.) in turn for the "Total" and "Unread" columns to be populated correctly. Thereafter, no problems.

@jiml8
I am amazed. But perhaps that is what you get for sticking with one distro, and upgrading along the way?

@Both of you:

I'm not sure what the "correct" answer is
zebra90210 should perhaps make a backup of his Mail/* somewhere before he points his (newer) version of kmail at the old mail (by making a link or changing config files, as jiml8 says). The last time I looked into it, kmail was writing quite a lot of stuff about which version was used to access mail the last time to the config files. Maybe it is clever enough to sort things out for you??

I am interested to hear how you manage to get things worked out. There is precious little documentation for "Moving my mail to another distro / version of kmail"!

that worked. Thanks!

Well, that's good

But, please tell us exactly what didn't work before, but does now.

Was my /our explanation incorrect?
Did you misunderstand something?
Exactly what did you do to make it all "work"? Make a link? Delete index files? Copy mail? Change the config files? Restart kmail one more time?

Please describe your exact steps as though you were taking to a "newbie". That way, others, searching for this thread are likely to find the answer they need, without further input from any of us. Happiness all round

Please do it now, before you forget (and have to say something useless like "I clicked on something and then, well, you know, it, like just worked" )

We have helped you solve your problem, so it's only fair that you share the solution

what "that" worked?

well, finally I used the original advice given by tredegar.
I opened the new Kmail. It generated the new inbox folder in ~/.kde/share/apps/kmail/mail
I had to close the Kmail, go to that directory and delete all index files.
Then, I copied all individual inbox folders (I have separate folders for approx. 15 people I write with), ONE FOLDER AT THE TIME, from my backup DVD. That did it. I have access to all my old email and nothing turns into "unknown sender". Woohoo! thanks guys!