Welcome to the Eudora to Unix (Eudora2Unix) page!
Eudora2Unix is a collection of Python scripts that together convert Qualcomm Eudora mail folders to mail directories for unix or Linux. The mail clients Pine and KMail are explicitly supported. I have also tried the output with Balsa, which uses a mailbox structure similar to Pine's.
Beyond doctoring the Eudora mail messages to be in mbox format, Eudora2Unix preserves information that Eudora does not store in the mailbox files. This information includes status info (whether a message has been read or not), message priority, and attachments. For the Windows 3.x versions, it uses other auxiliary files to correctly rename folders and files from their 8-character DOS names to the names that appear in Eudora.
These scripts are placed under the
GNU General Public License
and are free software, both as in freedom and as in beer.
This software is also listed at
Freshmeat.
SourceForge Project Page (bug reports, older versions, more details, etc)
The current version requires Python 2.2.1: eudora2unix-1.3.tar.gz
For older versions of Python (back to 1.5.2), use this separate branch eudora2unix-backport-1.1.tar.gz
Eudora2Unix.py - Eudora mail folder tree walker
Main script that loops over the Eudora folders and calls the next script, Eudora2Mbox.py, for each mailbox therein. It then arranges mail folders in the fashion either Pine or KMail expects.
Eudora2Mbox.py - Eudora to unix mailbox converter
Converts a Eudora mailbox to unix 'mbox' format, fixing some header fields to allow for Eudora's idiosyncracies, as well as those of Kmail and Pine. You can also run the script directly on an individual mailbox or put it in your own script that traverses the Eudora mail folder tree.
EudoraTOC.py - Eudora toc file parser
Makes an educated guess as to the format of the proprietary Eudora '.toc' files, prints out useful info as a text file. This format is known to vary substantially between versions of Eudora, and drastically between the Mac and Windows versions, so it is likely not to work for untested Eudora versions.
Download and unzip the distribution .zip file. On Unix/Linux, you can use the unzip command to do this.
Make the scripts executable:
chmod a+x /path/to/Eudora*.py
Put the scripts, in a directory in your $PATH.
Copy your Eudora directory to your Linux home directory, e.g.:
(If you are using a Mac version that does not use '.toc' files, you will first have to get a converter from the Eudora site, and use it to convert your mailboxes.)
Make sure to transfer the files as binary.
You may wish to copy your attachments too. By default, this folder is in the Eudora mail folder, and named 'Attachments Folder', 'attach', or 'Attach', depending on your Eudora version. You should rename it so as to have no spaces in the file path, and make it a subfolder of the Eudora mail directory. I like to hide it from the mail client by putting a dot at the beginning of the filename.
To identify the attachments forlder to Eudora2Unix, use the option
-a attachments_folder
Convert the entire ~/eudora_folder directory to unix ~/Mail.e2u, suitable for KMail, with:
Eudora2Unix.py -t kmail eudora_folder
Alternatively, try it out on a single mailbox file first:
mkdir ~/tmp; cd ~/tmp
cp -pv ~/eudora_folder/in.mbx in.mbx
Eudora2Mbox.py in.mbx
Follow the instructions given by Eudora2Unix.py and so, remove the Eudora2Unix auxiliary files (*.E2U_*), and the various Windows auxiliary files!
Once you are satisfied with the results, either rename the converted directory to be your mail client directory, or move parts of it over to an existing mail client directory (see the following tip.)
Tip on merging old Kmail $HOME/Mail mailboxes.
If you have a previous ~/Mail directory (with mbox files), you can rename this directory (e.g. to Mail.old), then run Eudora2Unix.py and finally simply copy ~/Mail.old/somembx to ~/Mail/somembx.prev.
In KMail move the mail from the somembx.prev folder (which will pop up in KMail's left folder pane) to an appropiate location or rename the folder, etc.
Eudora2Unix was originally written by Eric Maryniak.
There's no page like Eric's home page.
Eudora2Unix is now maintained by Steve White: (Stevan_White@hotmail.com).
Page last modified on 2003-5-1