On 17:58 6 Mar 2023, Jim H said:

> On Mon, 6 Mar 2023 08:06:38 -0800 (PST), in
> <b1d86859-4be4-437d-b050-57383a4faa99n@googlegroups.com>,
> "gnuarm.del...@gmail.com" <gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On Monday, March 6, 2023 at 10:18:35?AM UTC-5, len.s...@gmail.com
>>wrote:
>>> On Sunday, March 5, 2023 at 11:12:33?PM UTC-8,
>>> gnuarm.del...@gmail.com wrote:
>>> > On Sunday, March 5, 2023 at 12:35:17?PM UTC-5, len.s...@gmail.com
>>> > wrote:
>>> > > Editing a mailbox outside of Eudora generally not a good idea.
>>> > > If the size changes at all, it will make the corresponding
>>> > > table-of-contents (.toc) file invalid. That's where Eudora
>>> > > stores all sorts of status flags about the messages in the
>>> > > mailbox.
>>> > My understanding is that the .toc file can be regenerated by
>>> > Eudora. No?
>>> Yes, but then you lose the saved information about all messages in
>>> the mailbox: their status (whether they have been read, forwarded,
>>> replied to, sent, or queued), the labels that were applied to them,
>>> etc. If you don't care about that, then having Eudora regenerate
>>> the .toc file works ok.
>>
>>I don't believe that is true. I've done this many times and not lost
>>such information. In fact, deleting the .toc file is a recommended
>>way to recover a munged mailbox. I've done this a number of times in
>>the 20+ years I've been using Eudora. I think I would have noticed
>>the loss of such information.
>
>
> If you never noticed the loss of any information, then you never had
> the sort of information that will be lost. If you have nothing but
> received messages, all read, none forwarded, none replied to, no
> embedded images, no labels, maybe more, then and only then can you
> delete the toc and regenerate it without losing anything.
>
> It's simply not a good idea to delete the toc for a mailbox
> containing many messages just because you need to edit one of them.
> If you must edit a message outside Eudora, minimize potential loss by
> moving it to an empty mailbox, edit it there, then move it back where
> you want it. Always close Eudora whole editing. Yes, you can probably
> get away with not closing Eudora to edit one message in an otherwise
> empty mailbox, but it's a bad habit to get into.

I think I'll play it safe and not edit the message with Eudora closed,
although it's useful to know from "Gnuarm" that it's possible.