Nicholas Saunders <saunders.nicholas@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm just looking to read old messages offline and local.
>
> I backed up the .pinerc file and have a foo.mbox file
> which I'd like to add. When I launch pine I see a list
> of old file. Can I somehow add or import this mbox to
> that list?

In your .pinerc, you need to define folder collections
with something like this:

folder-collections=Mail/[]

If you want to add more folders, separate their names
using commas.

Then just move your mbox file into the right directory:

mv -iv foo.mbox ~/Mail

You can then read your mailbox directly by using:

alpine -f foo.mbox

Or you can choose the correct folder from Folder List
menu that is in alpine's main menu.

br,
KK

On Monday, 27 November 2023 at 12:32:55 UTC-8, Kalevi Kolttonen wrote:
> Nicholas Saunders <saunders...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I'm just looking to read old messages offline and local.
> >
> > I backed up the .pinerc file and have a foo.mbox file
> > which I'd like to add. When I launch pine I see a list
> > of old file. Can I somehow add or import this mbox to
> > that list?
> In your .pinerc, you need to define folder collections
> with something like this:
>
> folder-collections=Mail/[]
>
> If you want to add more folders, separate their names
> using commas.
>
> Then just move your mbox file into the right directory:
>
> mv -iv foo.mbox ~/Mail
>
> You can then read your mailbox directly by using:
>
> alpine -f foo.mbox
>
> Or you can choose the correct folder from Folder List
> menu that is in alpine's main menu.
>
> br,
> KK

Thanks, and that's what I've done. However, it just loads as a massive text file and not individual e-mails:

ALPINE 2.25 FOLDER LIST Folder: INBOX No Messages

INBOX sent-mail saved-messages 22aug_saved foo.mbox foobar sent-mail-aug-2022 sent-mail-dec-2022 sent-mail-may-2022 sent-mail-nov-2022
sent-mail-oct-2022 sent-mail-sep-2022

It's the "foo.mbox" which I'm looking at.

I'm thinking there's a setting in the pinerc to parse mbox?

Nicholas Saunders <saunders.nicholas@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks, and that's what I've done. However, it just loads as
> a massive text file and not individual e-mails:

Well, mbox-format *is* a massive or not so massive text file.

> It's the "foo.mbox" which I'm looking at.
>
> I'm thinking there's a setting in the pinerc to parse mbox?

Alpine should do that automatically as far as I know.

br,
KK

According to Nicholas Saunders <saunders.nicholas@gmail.com>:
>I think that I'm using the "maildir" format.

No, maildir puts each message in a separate file. This sounds like it's
just a bunch of messages dumped into a file.

In an mbox file each message is preceded by a 'From ' line like the
one below with the sender's address and a timestamp. The first line in
the file has to be a From line.

From johnl@iecc.com Sun Sep 18 08:53:38 2016 -0400

>How do I switch to mbox?

If you're exporting the messages from Thunderbird, I am reasonably
sure that it uses mbox as its internal format, so I'd just look for
the mailbox you want in Thunderbird's directory and copy it.

--
Regards,
John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

On Tuesday, 28 November 2023 at 19:16:05 UTC-8, John Levine wrote:
> According to Nicholas Saunders <saunders...@gmail.com>:
> >I think that I'm using the "maildir" format.
> No, maildir puts each message in a separate file. This sounds like it's
> just a bunch of messages dumped into a file.
>
> In an mbox file each message is preceded by a 'From ' line like the
> one below with the sender's address and a timestamp. The first line in
> the file has to be a From line.
>
> From jo...@iecc.com Sun Sep 18 08:53:38 2016 -0400
> >How do I switch to mbox?
> If you're exporting the messages from Thunderbird, I am reasonably
> sure that it uses mbox as its internal format, so I'd just look for
> the mailbox you want in Thunderbird's directory and copy it.
>
> --
> Regards,
> John Levine, jo...@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
> Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

That's where I'm confused. It's IMAP and Gmail. I couldn't find such files, at least on Linux (Ubuntu). I even downloaded a plugin. But the backups from the plugin weren't readable by even mailutils. The Pine local storage is readable by the mail command, which is enough portability for my purposes. Probably I wasn't doing the backups from Thunderbird correctly, but I never figured it out.

Pine's working fine for this. I was using export at first, but it was suggested to use save and that works fine.

-Nick