Help me fix my corrupted Eudora mailboxes.
February 13, 2011 7:27 PM Subscribe
Help me fix my corrupted Eudora mailboxes.
On Feb 2, I had a terrible crash while pulling down my email (gmail) via Eudora (v6.2.4 for Mac OS X). Several mailboxes got corrupted.
I had a busy week and haven't addressed the problem. Meanwhile, I've just been downloading my mail per usual via Eudora.
Tonight, I did the following:
1) I backed up and then trashed all corrupted mailboxes.
2) I found earlier, non-corrupt versions of those mailboxes from a Time Machine backup, and threw them into my mail folder.
3) I went through my gmail via browser interface, putting all mail since Feb 2 into my inbox and marking it unread. 700 emails in total.
4) I had Eudora pull in my email, figuring it would all come flooding in, but....nada
5) I went into my gmail settings (via browser) and checked "Enable POP for all mail (even mail that's already been downloaded)", and tried again.
I got some, but not nearly all. Any ideas?
Note: I know the mailboxes are text files, and that there are ways to try to straighten out the corruption that way. But I'm more interested in knowing why I'm unable to re-download the mail via Eudora.
On Feb 2, I had a terrible crash while pulling down my email (gmail) via Eudora (v6.2.4 for Mac OS X). Several mailboxes got corrupted.
I had a busy week and haven't addressed the problem. Meanwhile, I've just been downloading my mail per usual via Eudora.
Tonight, I did the following:
1) I backed up and then trashed all corrupted mailboxes.
2) I found earlier, non-corrupt versions of those mailboxes from a Time Machine backup, and threw them into my mail folder.
3) I went through my gmail via browser interface, putting all mail since Feb 2 into my inbox and marking it unread. 700 emails in total.
4) I had Eudora pull in my email, figuring it would all come flooding in, but....nada
5) I went into my gmail settings (via browser) and checked "Enable POP for all mail (even mail that's already been downloaded)", and tried again.
I got some, but not nearly all. Any ideas?
Note: I know the mailboxes are text files, and that there are ways to try to straighten out the corruption that way. But I'm more interested in knowing why I'm unable to re-download the mail via Eudora.
Scratching my head (haven't seen or used Eudora in years!), but … isn't there a setting somewhere to limit the number of emails downloaded in a session?
I may be wrong on that, but istr something along those lines causing problems for me back in the day (pre-gmail, btw!). It was a real pita, because it only downloaded the most recent x messages - and, of course, when it issued the POP LAST command to see if there was more mail, it saw the same last msg # and thought there was no new mail…
Alternatively: gmail has (had?) a total size limit per session for msgs downloaded via POP, that seems to hit most people at around 200~400 messages. Some mail clients - and I think Eudora was one of them, by default - don't close the session after checking mail; they just send periodic IDLE messages to keep the session alive & the occasional LAST to see if there's new mail. What happens if you close Eudora, wait 10 minutes, then try again?
posted by Pinback at 8:39 PM on February 13, 2011
I may be wrong on that, but istr something along those lines causing problems for me back in the day (pre-gmail, btw!). It was a real pita, because it only downloaded the most recent x messages - and, of course, when it issued the POP LAST command to see if there was more mail, it saw the same last msg # and thought there was no new mail…
Alternatively: gmail has (had?) a total size limit per session for msgs downloaded via POP, that seems to hit most people at around 200~400 messages. Some mail clients - and I think Eudora was one of them, by default - don't close the session after checking mail; they just send periodic IDLE messages to keep the session alive & the occasional LAST to see if there's new mail. What happens if you close Eudora, wait 10 minutes, then try again?
posted by Pinback at 8:39 PM on February 13, 2011
I haven't used Eudora in forever, but I think it uses the standard mbox format, doesn't it?
What usually works is to delete the index file for the mailbox, and then relaunch the program. Look in your data directory, you should have a bunch of files named something like inbox.mbx and inbox.idx. The data file will be large, the index will be smaller. Delete the idx file ad restart eudora. There might also be a folders.idx kind of file. (Do this with the original corrupted files.) Restart eudora and it will rebuild the indexes.
But check the eudora documentation before doing any of this, I might be completely wrong.
If the data files are corrupted, this might fail. What you can do is open the data files with a text editor and go all the way to the bottom and delete anything that doesn't look right. I believe the message delimiter is a single line with a period on it.
As for getting gmail to synch properly, I think that is a setting in the client that says something like "do not download messages I have already fetched". Untick that. Go into Gmail, see if there is a similar setting. It might be as simple as turning pop off, saving, and turning it back on. Then find the oldest message in gmail, and then delete anything in Eudora newer than that so you don't get duplicates. Fetch and you should be good.
posted by gjc at 7:18 AM on February 14, 2011
What usually works is to delete the index file for the mailbox, and then relaunch the program. Look in your data directory, you should have a bunch of files named something like inbox.mbx and inbox.idx. The data file will be large, the index will be smaller. Delete the idx file ad restart eudora. There might also be a folders.idx kind of file. (Do this with the original corrupted files.) Restart eudora and it will rebuild the indexes.
But check the eudora documentation before doing any of this, I might be completely wrong.
If the data files are corrupted, this might fail. What you can do is open the data files with a text editor and go all the way to the bottom and delete anything that doesn't look right. I believe the message delimiter is a single line with a period on it.
As for getting gmail to synch properly, I think that is a setting in the client that says something like "do not download messages I have already fetched". Untick that. Go into Gmail, see if there is a similar setting. It might be as simple as turning pop off, saving, and turning it back on. Then find the oldest message in gmail, and then delete anything in Eudora newer than that so you don't get duplicates. Fetch and you should be good.
posted by gjc at 7:18 AM on February 14, 2011
Response by poster: Yeah, it's giving me 400 or so at a time, and it's starting from the very earliest stuff, back in 2006.
At this point, I've isolated the problem to 20 corrupted emails I want to reload into Eudora, but there's no way I can trick Gmail + Eudora into sending them to me as if new again. I can forward them to myself, but then they'll have the wrong "From" address header, and not show up on searches.
posted by Quisp Lover at 7:53 AM on February 14, 2011
At this point, I've isolated the problem to 20 corrupted emails I want to reload into Eudora, but there's no way I can trick Gmail + Eudora into sending them to me as if new again. I can forward them to myself, but then they'll have the wrong "From" address header, and not show up on searches.
posted by Quisp Lover at 7:53 AM on February 14, 2011
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How do you make Gmail send a given bunch of emails via Pop to a Pop client that's already downloaded those emails?
posted by Quisp Lover at 8:20 PM on February 13, 2011