Netscape mail-file heirarchy is destroyed by Windows! >:-<

[dthievin]

Has anyone ever tried to move Netscape mail folders around with Windows Explorer? I recently had a crash and was forced to reinstall Netscape on a new hard drive. Try merging original mail files with new ones. NOT! Unless I find a remedy, my precious files will be unaccessible forevermore.

This entire Netscape juggernaut is also at work if you simply copy your mail files to a new location. It appears that Netscape subfolders disappear, jumble, or lose their heirarchy at once. Of course Netscape does not provide a utility for any of these operations, which surprises me since I'm hardly the only person who's ever encountered this.

I'm stumped. Can anyone help me to retrieve my files, and for that matter, to merge my original mail files with my new ones?

 

[sisiro]

has your problem been solved?

 

[dthievin]

Sisiro:

No, this problem hasn't been solved. Thanks for asking.

 

[nerdo2]

Copying the entire folder is not good if the hierarchy has been corrupted. I'm assuming you want the files with the actual mail messages? Go to Program Files / Netscape / Users and select the profile you want to copy from. Go to the Mail folder and copy all those files to the new Mail folder in your new profile. I don't know if this will help because I would like to know more details about your problem and what it is you want to recover. Feel free to email me directly or post again: carolyn.casey@wpni.com.

 

[sisiro]

Go to C:\Program Files\Netscape\Users\<yourprofilename> directory. This is where your mail is stored.

Copy the previous mail files to this directory. In case the filenames already
exist, copy them with -old suffix, to this
directory. Remove the .snm files (moving to some other directory wud be better, so that
you can always move them back, in case this
hasnt work for you), restart
Netscape (File->Exit, then start), and check
it out. Now you will see all the folders.
The only thing you need to do now, is to select a bunch of mails from old folders and copy them to corresponding new folders. Do this till you move all your mail. Once you do this, you can delete the old folder directories.HTH

 

[layneev]

The other replies may have solved your problem, but here's one more variation on the theme. This worked for us when we were trying to move Netscape messages from an old Windows 95 computer to a new Windows 2000 computer. (1) Go to your Netscape Inbox (or Sent, this works for that, too). (2) Highlight the messages you want to copy. (3) Go to &quot;File&quot;, &quot;Save As&quot; (4) Pick &quot;HTML&quot; as the format to save in. (5) Copy them into a folder. For example, A:\Archive1. (6) On the other computer, through Explorer or My Computer go to Program Files/Netscape/Users/Mail. (7) Copy the folder (in this example, Archive1) into the Mail subdirectory. (8) Now in Netscape you should be able to click on this folder (Archive1) and your messages should show up in the right hierarchy. Once in a while we'll get a message &quot;Can't find folder&quot; but then we just click again and it does open. Hope this helps somebody, it worked like a charm for us, to our surprise.

 

[Guest_imported]

Thanks, everyone.

I eventually retrieved most of the files using a combination of the suggestions you've sent over the past months.

The problem is by no means solved. In a nutshell, Windows refuses to see the directory system that Netscape establishes in its mail folder. Netscape refuses to see the directory system that Windows perceives. Files and folders exist in one that don't exist in the other, and vice versa.

This is evident if I switch back and forth from Windows Explorer to Netscape's mail feature. By the way, that's with closing and rebooting between every operation. There is still a glaring incompatibility here, and I don't think that it has anything to do with corrupt files. I've encountered this before.

I'm fingering Netscape here for building a messaging system with flaws. I might try Eudora soon. If I knew of a more stable system that allowed me to import my Netscape files, I'd buy it in a heartbeat. Suggestions?

-dt-