Tech: Archiving emails on Netscape

Subject: Tech Help: Archiving emails on Netscape
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 10 Jan 02 - 06:05 PM

Well, folks, it's 70 degrees here and the sun is just peeking through the clouds, which means it's spring cleaning time on the old laptop. I'd like to put a bunch of my old emails on a ZIP disk, but the last time I tried it, Netscape wasn't able to find them. I tried the Help file on Netscape, which was smugly silent on the topic. (Isn't it amazing how those voluminous Help files never seem to have the answer to your particular question? Makes you wonder just what they do fill them with; maybe back issues of the Congressional Record.)

So, any of you have a suggestion as to how I can safely archive emails to a ZIP disk so that my poor benighted browser will be able to find them again? I'm using Netscape 4.79.

And no, I wouldn't rather use Outlook, or Eudora, or Juno, or whatever. I have enough continuing education requirements as it is, without having to learn to deal with a new email program. Besides, a friend who uses Outlook (well, the computer of a friend who uses Outlook) just tried to send me the BadTrans virus. Fortunately I keep my virus definitions up to date, even if I do let my email folders get full to bursting!

And no, I wouldn't rather ask this question on a tech site. I like asking my friends for help.

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: Tech Help: Archiving emails on Netscape
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 10 Jan 02 - 06:11 PM

Ummm... I'm pretty sure that Netscape mail folders are already compressed, but I'm not 100% on that...

Ummm... try this...

Look in (I'm assuming) Program files/Netscape/Program/Mail or something like that, and see if ya can't find the files corresponding to the folders ya wanna back up... Some .SNM files and some files without exensions...

"COPY" them to somewhere else on yer hard drive, then try to zip 'em on to yer floppy from there...

*this from the guy who just realised he has 6+ MEGS in his INBOX folder!! LOL!!!!*

Subject: RE: Tech Help: Archiving emails on Netscape
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 11 Jan 02 - 12:01 PM

My sincere apologies if I don't really understand your question but have you tried the obvious?

After reading the email but while it is still open on the screen, click on "File" and then "Save" or "Save as". Give the file a descriptive name and select your zip disk as the destination.

That's how I do it with my AOL account.

Subject: RE: Tech Help: Archiving emails on Netscape
From:
Date: 11 Jan 02 - 03:12 PM

Just tried a similar thing to Russ's sugestion. Highlight all the e-mails in your inbox (say) by using clicking on the first file and "shift" clicking on the last; or clicking on the e-mails you want whilst pressing "ctrl". Then right click on the mouse while still holding the shift or ctrl down and save as file - saves as a text file which you can edit.

Rana

Clinton's work but when I checked it had all my stuff in even that which I had deleted.

Subject: RE: Tech Help: Archiving emails on Netscape
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 11 Jan 02 - 06:50 PM

oh ya.. I probably shoulda started there... organise all the stuff ya wanna save, empty yer trash and then save the relevant files...

Or just don't save any of the files named trash...

Subject: RE: Tech Help: Archiving emails on Netscape
From: catspaw49
Date: 11 Jan 02 - 07:03 PM

Hey Mark.....Try THIS LINK

Spaw

Subject: RE: Tech Help: Archiving emails on Netscape
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 11 Jan 02 - 09:49 PM

'Spaw, that is absolutely BRILLIANT!!! Whoever wrote that should get some kind of major prize. My screen was blurring from the tears that were filling my eyes because I was laughing so hard. Man, where do you get these things, anyway? Incredible! You know, I really admire the way you put that link there just because it's so damn funny...even though this was a serious thread that I started. I have to hand it to you, guy, you are a general in the comedy army. Damn the context, damn the constituency, damn the damn dam if it comes to that, the joke will go through! I admire that. And it is one hell of a funny joke. I mean, I was laughing so hard my staff asked me if a baby had just widdled on my pants. So hard I even forgot that I had asked a serious question. Of course, your link didn't exactly answer the question, but that's OK--it was funny as hell! I mean, it almost made me forget I had even asked the question. Until I thought about it, of course, and wondered what kind of a jackshit moron would send somebody to a link that he SAID was going to help, only instead made that somebody feel insulted and jerked around and generally made to feel like three different breeds of leftover dogshit, but that's OK, because it was only a joke, RIGHT? I mean, what are "Feelings" except a bad song, RIGHT??? I mean, who the hell cares about this poor lonely guy stuck out there on an island in the middle of the Pacific fucking Ocean with nobody even to celebrate his birthday with, who just asked a simple technical question of his FRIENDS, RIGHT????? Because he didn't want to have some unknown techno-snob geeks laughing up their snotty sleeves at him, and he thought that his FRIENDS might help him out, but NO-O-O-O-O-O-O, instead one of his "quote-unquote" FRIENDS decided to slam him with some low cheap-ass insult that he thought would be OK to send because it was a JOKE, and JOKES ARE ALWAYS OK.....RIGHT??????

I feel much better now. Thank you.

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: Tech Help: Archiving emails on Netscape
From: CarolC
Date: 11 Jan 02 - 10:11 PM

Pobrecito, Mark.

Subject: RE: Tech Help: Archiving emails on Netscape
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 11 Jan 02 - 10:19 PM

OK, now that that's out of the way...it seems that I didn't state my question clearly enough. My problem is not how to get the emails onto the ZIP disk, it's how to get the email program to read them once I've put them there. When I'm in Netscape Messenger (the Netscape email program, not to be confused with MSN Messenger, the Microsoft instant message program), there's a box near the top of the screen that usually says "inbox", and you can pull down a menu to get to "Trash", "Sent", etc. But I can't figure out how to make my the files on my ZIP drive (G:\ or G:\email) appear on that pulldown menu so the program will look at it. It keeps wanting to add them as subdirectories to "Trash" (maybe it knows what's in my emails?), but they're still not accessible.

Does that make my problem any clearer? (Well, this particular computer problem, at least...!)

Aloha,
Mark

(That really was a wickedly funny link, 'Spaw. Especially if you're an IE user.)

Subject: RE: Tech Help: Archiving emails on Netscape
From: catspaw49
Date: 11 Jan 02 - 11:12 PM

Actually Doc, your post was a lot funnier!!! Matter of fact, to use one of kat's terms, it was BRILL! Considering my thoughts beforehand really made it that much funnier again.............Now as to your real problem...........well,uh...............I haven't got a clue!

Spaw

Subject: RE: Tech Help: Archiving emails on Netscape
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 12 Jan 02 - 12:15 AM

The problem described is not peculiar to Netscape. Outlook, Outlook Express, and all the other popular email programs behave similarly - so far as I have observed.

Mickey$oft lists 87 separate entries in the index of their "official" Win2000 Reource Kit under "save." The words "recover," "restore," "return," "replace," or even "get the sh...t back" DO NOT APPEAR.

Instructions given for how to save or backup email for Outlook Express omit a small, but critical detail. You are told to "compact folders" before saving - which is a fine idea. Then you are told to copy the files to some place where you want to keep them. The critical piece of information is that one of the files you need to copy is the "folder" file - which doesn't look quite like one of the email folders, but is necessary if you are going to succussfully restore anything you save.

The difficulty comes from each email "folder" being a single file which may contain several "email messages." Without the "folder file" (isn't redundancy great?) it is impossible (nearly) to tell where one message ends and the next one begins - so you can't easily "restore" messages if you don't have the "folder index" contained in the "folder file."

If you create - in your email program - a "folder" that has the same (exact) name as the file you want to restore, the email program can usually be "tricked" into importing the file (this works usually, but not always). The current "folder file" in your working email directory will be updated the next time you "compact folders."

Best bet - as mentioned above - is to "save as .txt" when you read your mail, and store something you can read elsewhere.

You can also "save as email" and get a single message file that can be opened in your program. The problem is that the "file date" on the .eml file will be the date you saved it, not the date of the mail - so if you go through a bunch a files to "clean house" you will be unable to tell files with similar names apart later. Messages with the same subject will also use the same default filename, so it is easy to overwrite an old message you might want to keep.

And of course - don't forget to save attachments, and invent your own way of telling which attachment goes with what piece of mail.

John

Subject: RE: Tech Help: Archiving emails on Netscape
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 12 Jan 02 - 02:58 AM

John,

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUGHHHH!!!

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: Tech Help: Archiving emails on Netscape
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 12 Jan 02 - 12:13 PM

JohnInKansas's brilliant and detailed reply to your real question is exactly why I save my email the way I do. I realize that once I save a message as a text file, I lose the ability to deal with it in my email program, BUT that is OK. It is a trade-off I am willing to make.