My HD crashed, and with it my mail archive which I held in KMail. Fortunately, I had a backup of these files. I reinstalled a new version of Slackware, and I decided to restore the mail directory from backup. However, KMail turns out to be configured differently, and it has a config file with only the standard folders in it, so I cannot simply replace the mail directory. How can I recover the rich array of folders which I had, without having to import them one by one?

To get your emails back I'd suggest the following:

Run kmail once, to create the directory structure (You have already done this). Close kmail.
Copy ALL your old mail directories and files into the new mail directory.
Delete all the old *.index and *.index.ids files from the new mail directory (or do not copy them in the first place!).
Restart kmail, it may be slow in starting as it will have to re-create the index files.
Your mail should be readable.
Restoring filters and your address book is more complicated, and depends on which version of kmail you are trying to restore from and to.

HTH

Hello,

Thanks a lot. I got it working. Not exactly the way you suggested, but near enough, and it certainly helped.

Thanks again!