Exporting emails (and address book) from Turnpike v6 to Outlook Express

[mjt]

Having used Turnpike since 1999 - and been generally happy with it, it's
kept my system virus free! - I face a limitation in its scope. Nothing
connects to it. I can't use it as a personal organiser like Outlook
Express (and connectable items, eg. mobile phone), I can use Turnpike
only as an email/newsgroup base.

So, I think I need to migrate reluctantly to OE.

Having looked into OE, I can't see how OE can import the email base.
Turnpike will export in "Berkeley Mailbox file, *.txt", but OE cannot
import that. Apparently, it will import a plain text email file *.eml,
but only one message per file.

From 1999 to 2006..... !!!!

I need to keep these emails, for these emails are relevant to my role as
a company director.

The address book looks like an absolute nightmare. I might have to do
that manually.

Does anybody know how to migrate these emails?

[Tony Firshman]

Post by mjt
Having used Turnpike since 1999 - and been generally happy with it, it's
kept my system virus free! - I face a limitation in its scope. Nothing
connects to it. I can't use it as a personal organiser like Outlook
Express (and connectable items, eg. mobile phone), I can use Turnpike
only as an email/newsgroup base.
So, I think I need to migrate reluctantly to OE.
Having looked into OE, I can't see how OE can import the email base.
Turnpike will export in "Berkeley Mailbox file, *.txt", but OE cannot
import that. Apparently, it will import a plain text email file *.eml,
but only one message per file.
From 1999 to 2006..... !!!!
I need to keep these emails, for these emails are relevant to my role as
a company director.
The address book looks like an absolute nightmare. I might have to do
that manually.
Does anybody know how to migrate these emails?

I haven't any knowledge about how to import to Outlook.
However I successfully migrated to Thunderbird, and the key was
pre-processing export files to convert into an acceptable import file
format.

Find out what the required Outlook import format is and convert your
files. That should be easy with good text matching expressions (Perl is
perfect for that!).

I would hate, though, to see you migrate to Outlook (Express). Have a
look at the specs of the excellent Mozilla Thunderbird. If it can
support what you want then importing is easy. If it doesn't, have a look
through the hundred or so extensions.
It accepts "Berkeley Mailbox File" with a few minor edits.
... and I can give you my Perl program (with custom mods for you) to
convert the address book export file. I only used (and transferred) a
few fields.

I really liked Turnpike, and I only moved because Connect could not
collect mail from my new IMAP server.

I (and you) will miss the regexps in filters. "V.a[g]+[r]+a" for instance!
I miss a number of other TP features too - I am considering writing
extensions to Thunderbird!

[Dominic]

Post by Tony Firshman

Post by mjt
Having used Turnpike since 1999 - and been generally happy with it, it's
kept my system virus free! - I face a limitation in its scope. Nothing
connects to it. I can't use it as a personal organiser like Outlook
Express (and connectable items, eg. mobile phone), I can use Turnpike
only as an email/newsgroup base.
So, I think I need to migrate reluctantly to OE.
Having looked into OE, I can't see how OE can import the email base.
Turnpike will export in "Berkeley Mailbox file, *.txt", but OE cannot
import that. Apparently, it will import a plain text email file *.eml,
but only one message per file.
From 1999 to 2006..... !!!!
I need to keep these emails, for these emails are relevant to my role as
a company director.
The address book looks like an absolute nightmare. I might have to do
that manually.
Does anybody know how to migrate these emails?

I haven't any knowledge about how to import to Outlook.
However I successfully migrated to Thunderbird, and the key was
pre-processing export files to convert into an acceptable import file
format.
Find out what the required Outlook import format is and convert your
files. That should be easy with good text matching expressions (Perl is
perfect for that!).
I would hate, though, to see you migrate to Outlook (Express). Have a
look at the specs of the excellent Mozilla Thunderbird. If it can
support what you want then importing is easy. If it doesn't, have a look
through the hundred or so extensions.
It accepts "Berkeley Mailbox File" with a few minor edits.

Edits? I just export from turnpike as text, (selecting a whole turnpike
folder full of messages first), dump the text file into Thunderbirds mail
directory, then restart thunderbird, and the mails appear as a new
folder inside thunderbird from where they can be moved to wherever.

So... what needs editing? What can go wrong! I must have missed
something. :-(

I've only tried it with a few messages at a time, but with our current
rogress at getting a turnpike multiuser license out of demon, there's a
chance that I'll begin to wonder if I may have to start thinking about
entertaining the possibility of a future move to Thunderbird (and
perhaps an IMAP server for our shared email database)...

dom.

[Tony Firshman]

Post by Dominic

Post by Tony Firshman
I would hate, though, to see you migrate to Outlook (Express). Have a
look at the specs of the excellent Mozilla Thunderbird. If it can
support what you want then importing is easy. If it doesn't, have a look
through the hundred or so extensions.
It accepts "Berkeley Mailbox File" with a few minor edits.

Edits? I just export from turnpike as text, (selecting a whole turnpike
folder full of messages first), dump the text file into Thunderbirds mail
directory, then restart thunderbird, and the mails appear as a new
folder inside thunderbird from where they can be moved to wherever.
So... what needs editing? What can go wrong! I must have missed
something. :-(

I meant edits of the filename - sorry. I found removing the extension,
for instance, is necessary.
.... and I found they needed to be put into "Local Folder" mail
directory - which is well hidden under "Documents and
Settings\<user>\Application Data\Thunderbird\..." .

Post by Dominic
I've only tried it with a few messages at a time, but with our current
rogress at getting a turnpike multiuser license out of demon, there's a
chance that I'll begin to wonder if I may have to start thinking about
entertaining the possibility of a future move to Thunderbird (and
perhaps an IMAP server for our shared email database)...

It works very very well - and is _unfortunately_ essential for IMAP server.
I was very happy with Turnpike.

[Dominic]

Post by Tony Firshman

Post by Dominic

Post by Tony Firshman
I would hate, though, to see you migrate to Outlook (Express). Have a
look at the specs of the excellent Mozilla Thunderbird. If it can
support what you want then importing is easy. If it doesn't, have a look
through the hundred or so extensions.
It accepts "Berkeley Mailbox File" with a few minor edits.

Edits? I just export from turnpike as text, (selecting a whole turnpike
folder full of messages first), dump the text file into Thunderbirds mail
directory, then restart thunderbird, and the mails appear as a new
folder inside thunderbird from where they can be moved to wherever.
So... what needs editing? What can go wrong! I must have missed
something. :-(

I meant edits of the filename - sorry. I found removing the extension,
for instance, is necessary.
.... and I found they needed to be put into "Local Folder" mail
directory - which is well hidden under "Documents and
Settings\<user>\Application Data\Thunderbird\..." .

Aha. True. Yes. Forgot I had to do that bit!

dom.

[Lee Emms]

Post by Dominic

Post by Tony Firshman

Post by Dominic

Post by Tony Firshman
I would hate, though, to see you migrate to Outlook (Express). Have a
look at the specs of the excellent Mozilla Thunderbird. If it can
support what you want then importing is easy. If it doesn't, have a look
through the hundred or so extensions.
It accepts "Berkeley Mailbox File" with a few minor edits.

Edits? I just export from turnpike as text, (selecting a whole turnpike
folder full of messages first), dump the text file into Thunderbirds mail
directory, then restart thunderbird, and the mails appear as a new
folder inside thunderbird from where they can be moved to wherever.
So... what needs editing? What can go wrong! I must have missed
something. :-(

I meant edits of the filename - sorry. I found removing the extension,
for instance, is necessary.
.... and I found they needed to be put into "Local Folder" mail
directory - which is well hidden under "Documents and
Settings\<user>\Application Data\Thunderbird\..." .

Aha. True. Yes. Forgot I had to do that bit!
dom.

Any chance someone could post a definitive guide of how to export from
Turnpike to Thunderbird? I migrated a week or so back but more or less
gave up on exporting my emails which I'd very much like to retain as
they go back to 1995 (though why on earth I need to keep them, I really
don't know). Clearly, from the posts so far, there are a number of tips
and tricks.

The address book is less necessary, though if I cleaned mine up it would
be helpful to have this too.

Many thanks in advance.

[Paul Terry]

Post by Lee Emms
Any chance someone could post a definitive guide of how to export from
Turnpike to Thunderbird? I migrated a week or so back but more or less
gave up on exporting my emails which I'd very much like to retain as
they go back to 1995 (though why on earth I need to keep them, I really
don't know). Clearly, from the posts so far, there are a number of
tips and tricks.

I'm certainly not going to try a definitive guide, simply because I last
tried Thunderbird quite some time ago - I thought it much better than
Outlook Express, but nowhere as good as Turnpike, and left it at that.

But I had no real difficulty in transferring data. As I recall:

I just renamed the exported email file from Turnpike with an .mbx
extension and then imported it into TB as a Eudora file.

The TP address book can be exported to the Windows Address Book and then
imported directly into Thunderbird (TB calls it "Outlook Express"
Address Book). IIRC, the Thunderbird import routine allows you to match
fields during the import. It is possible to import the TP address book
directly, but I think this results in mis-matched fields.

[Tony Firshman]

Post by Lee Emms
Any chance someone could post a definitive guide of how to export from
Turnpike to Thunderbird? I migrated a week or so back but more or less
gave up on exporting my emails which I'd very much like to retain as
they go back to 1995 (though why on earth I need to keep them, I really
don't know). Clearly, from the posts so far, there are a number of tips
and tricks.
The address book is less necessary, though if I cleaned mine up it would
be helpful to have this too.
Many thanks in advance.

I have done it all successfully quite recently.

I ought to say I was very happy with TP, and it is the only mailer I
have ever used before TP. I though now need to get mail from my own
IMAP server, which Connect cannot do ( 8 - (#

MAIL
----

It is easier to accept Thunderbirds insistence in putting all sent mail
into the "Sent" folder.
I quite liked Turnpike's mixing. However it is unmanageable in TB as
there are no suitable in-built filters.

So in each TP folder display incoming and outgoing separately.

Open the folder and select all (CTRL A).

Then "File | Export | Berkeley Mailbox Files" and give it the folder
name you want in Thunderbird. You can rename the folder later. It
makes sense to append "-sent" to the outgoing export mail. After export,
remove the ".txt" extension.

All these files then need copying into the "Local Folder" in
Thunderbird. This is in my system - "Documents and
Settings\<user>\Application
Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\28t8c2kz.default\Mail\Local Folders\"
Phew. The .default directory I suppose may have a different name, but
it is the _only_ folder there.

Then start up Thunderbird. When you click on a new folder, it will
index it. If you are running an IMAP server you will need to make
folders there. I found the only reliable way of copying was to open a
"Local Folders" directory, select all messages (CTRL A), and copy using
"right click" menu. .... but that might just be my system.

Copy all the contents of "-sent" folders to the "Sent" directory.

That is all I needed to do with mail. The tree structure was worked out
very well from the subject.

I did not bother to export news. I simply added the relevant news
accounts, and downloaded all available news.

ADDRESS BOOK
------------

This is more complicated. "File | Export" as .txt file.
This is CSV (comma separated).

The file though cannot be used by Thunderbird without pre-processing.

Remove manually the first line - I think it was "CONTACTS". There is
also a section after the CSV lines that needs removing.

I only used First names, Last name, Label, and email address.
Unfortunately Thunderbird import cannot handle the TP email "Firstname
Secondname <email address>" format. Also it needs a display name.

I pre-processed with a perl file to convert TP emails into email address
only. I then made display name with "Firstname Surname".

http://firshman.co.uk/temp/export.zip is the pre-processing program.

This is a pretty trivial perl program, and is easy to modify if you want
to process other fields. I did not have any nicknames, but if that is
there, it should, I suppose, be the TB display name.

Importing into Thunderbird is pretty easy. One has to move around the
Thunderbird import items to match the TP Address book fields, and
uncheck the others. TB does not have a 'label' field. I used
'Organisation'

... and that is it.

There are two TP features I miss in Thunderbird.

1) Regexps in filters
2) Folder personalities for individual mail folders.
Sending mail from sub-folders becomes more difficult - one has to choose
a personality afterwards. Also To: is not filled. I find it easier to
'reply' and edit personality afterwards. Messy though. TP was so _easy_.

The individual addressee entries, rather than a formatted line, is much
better in TB. It is very easy then to move addressees about between To:
CC: and BCC:

[Paul Terry]

Post by Tony Firshman
ADDRESS BOOK
------------
This is more complicated. "File | Export" as .txt file.
This is CSV (comma separated).
The file though cannot be used by Thunderbird without pre-processing.
Remove manually the first line - I think it was "CONTACTS". There is
also a section after the CSV lines that needs removing.
I only used First names, Last name, Label, and email address.
Unfortunately Thunderbird import cannot handle the TP email "Firstname
Secondname <email address>" format. Also it needs a display name.

If you export the Turnpike Address Book to the Windows Address Book, and
then import THAT into Thunderbird, all these problems are handled
automatically by Thunderbird - no pre-processing is necessary.

First and last name are concatenated and get put into the "Display Name"
field, the email address goes into the correct field, and both are
concatenated to produce the "To:" field (i.e. Fred Bloggs
<***@isp.com>. Like Tony, I don't use other fields, so can't confirm
if they also transfer correctly.

The only drawback is that both first and last name are entered as first
name (as they are in the Display Name field of the Windows Address
Book). I didn't find this a problem, because I always start by typing
the addressee's first name, leaving auto-complete to do the rest - it
would be a problem for anyone who prefers to start by typing the surname
of the addressee.

The TB conversion process is surprisingly slow, given the data involved
- several minutes for about 60 addresses - so don't panic if it seems to
have stalled!

[Tony Firshman]

Post by Paul Terry

Post by Tony Firshman
ADDRESS BOOK
------------
This is more complicated. "File | Export" as .txt file.
This is CSV (comma separated).
The file though cannot be used by Thunderbird without pre-processing.
Remove manually the first line - I think it was "CONTACTS". There is
also a section after the CSV lines that needs removing.
I only used First names, Last name, Label, and email address.
Unfortunately Thunderbird import cannot handle the TP email "Firstname
Secondname <email address>" format. Also it needs a display name.

If you export the Turnpike Address Book to the Windows Address Book, and
then import THAT into Thunderbird, all these problems are handled
automatically by Thunderbird - no pre-processing is necessary.

I wish I had known that ( 8 - )#
Still the pre-processing was dead easy!

Tony

Post by Paul Terry
First and last name are concatenated and get put into the "Display Name"
field, the email address goes into the correct field, and both are
concatenated to produce the "To:" field (i.e. Fred Bloggs
if they also transfer correctly.
The only drawback is that both first and last name are entered as first
name (as they are in the Display Name field of the Windows Address
Book). I didn't find this a problem, because I always start by typing
the addressee's first name, leaving auto-complete to do the rest - it
would be a problem for anyone who prefers to start by typing the surname
of the addressee.

Ahha - that is what I often do.
...... so I feel better then about doing it my way. At least I have
_exactly_ now what I had in TP.

Post by Paul Terry
The TB conversion process is surprisingly slow, given the data involved
- several minutes for about 60 addresses - so don't panic if it seems to
have stalled!

Copying my 16,000 addresses did not take very long. There was, I
recall, a progress monitor in the status bar.
Don't say it - it took me a long time before I stopped the auto address
book for received mail! I am trying to clear the spam (8-)#

Copying my 100,000 or so emails into my IMAP server took maybe 36 hours,
but of course the IMAP server had a part in that!


Tony

[Paul Terry]

Post by mjt
Having used Turnpike since 1999 - and been generally happy with it,
it's kept my system virus free! - I face a limitation in its scope.
Nothing connects to it. I can't use it as a personal organiser like
Outlook Express (and connectable items, eg. mobile phone), I can use
Turnpike only as an email/newsgroup base.

I'm not sure how you use OE as an organiser - but don't forget that you
can set Turnpike to use the Windows Address Book (i.e. the same system
that OE uses for storing contact details).

Post by mjt
Having looked into OE, I can't see how OE can import the email base.

The easiest way is to switch on Turnpike's POP3 (or IMAP) server, and
then point OE at that - Google Groups should pick up previous references
to this in this newsgroup.

Post by mjt
The address book looks like an absolute nightmare.

Not really. Go to the TP address book, choose File, Windows Address Book
and then "Export to".

I agree with others that OE is far from the best choice if you are going
to replace Turnpike with something else.

[mjt]

Thanks for your comments so far guys. I note your general antipathy
towards OE, so I will take that on board and see what alternatives I
have.

Thunderbird is one.

What I need would be Turnpike as it is, plus a calendar and a to-do list
that could synchronise with a Nokia handset.

Is this possible? It is a development already on Turnpike's drawing
board?

[Wm...]

Post by mjt
Thanks for your comments so far guys. I note your general antipathy
towards OE, so I will take that on board and see what alternatives I
have.
Thunderbird is one.
What I need would be Turnpike as it is, plus a calendar and a to-do
list that could synchronise with a Nokia handset.
Is this possible? It is a development already on Turnpike's drawing
board?

TP is not being developed further as far as anyone knows. Integration
with a calendar would be too much too expect.

Other people seem to have missed your desire for calendar / e-mail /
address book etc interaction.

Lightning (part of the Mozilla family) is heading that way along with
Sunbird (ditto) but isn't ready for real life use unless you are brave.
Interaction with handsets is not a priority for either of those
projects.

To a large extent the problem is the people who make the Nokia et al
s/w. They don't want to interact much. Have a moan at them :)

As others have pointed out TP can use the WAB.

[Mark Browne]

Post by Wm...
Lightning (part of the Mozilla family) is heading that way along with
Sunbird (ditto) but isn't ready for real life use unless you are brave.
Interaction with handsets is not a priority for either of those projects.
To a large extent the problem is the people who make the Nokia et al
s/w. They don't want to interact much. Have a moan at them :)

As far as I am aware, most phones that have calendar functions are
intended to synchronise with a PC using well-defined protocols. The
problem is that TP was never intended to be anything other than a mail
and news reader, thus the only possible synchronisation is those two
plus address book.

[Wm...]

Post by Mark Browne

Post by Wm...
Lightning (part of the Mozilla family) is heading that way along with
Sunbird (ditto) but isn't ready for real life use unless you are
brave. Interaction with handsets is not a priority for either of those
projects.
To a large extent the problem is the people who make the Nokia et al
s/w. They don't want to interact much. Have a moan at them :)

As far as I am aware, most phones that have calendar functions are
intended to synchronise with a PC using well-defined protocols.

I don't think all the protocols are open though.

Post by Mark Browne
The problem is that TP was never intended to be anything other than a
mail and news reader, thus the only possible synchronisation is those
two plus address book.

Sorry if I wasn't clear. I was saying Sunbird and Lightning don't sync
with phones at the moment.