Related Resources • Netscape Review

From Netscape 6 Mail ...

Netscape 6.0 was not ready when it was released. It comes with numerous bugs and quirks and problems that make working with it a cumbersome matter.

Unfortunately, you have imported your mail from Netscape 4 to it and now you are bound to use Netscape 6. There's no export mail function, and the other email clients don't have import functionality for Netscape 6 yet.

But there are ways to get your mail out of Netscape 6 and into another email client.

Before you try any of the following, try getting the latest version of Netscape. Since version 6.1 it's a great product and certainly worth a try. I use it daily.

... to Eudora ...

Netscape 6 uses the popular mbox format for storing email messages. So does Eudora. This makes transferring mail from Netscape 6 to Eudora almost a matter of dragging and dropping a file.

But first you have to find out where Netscape 6 keeps your messages. To do so, open its email component and select "Edit | Mail/News Account Settings" from the menu. For each account, select "Server" and at the very bottom of the dialog you will find the "Local Directory".

Open this directory in Explorer (Windows) or Finder (Mac). There, you will find files corresponding to your folders in Netscape 6. Some of them have no file extension, some carry ".msf" as their extension. The latter are index files that allow Netscape 6 to work on mailboxes faster. You can safely disregard them.

Now all you have to do is copy the files that do not carry an extension to the folder where Eudora stores mail. In many cases, this will be the folder where the Eudora executable is located, but on Windows 2000, it may (fortunately) be below your personal directory.

For Eudora to recognize the new files as mailboxes, they need to carry the extension ".mbx", which you should add. When you launch Eudora the next time, it will present you with all the folders you copied from Netscape 6, including all the messages in them.

Unfortunately, Eudora doesn't get attachments right. This won't concern us now, however -- and if you don't plan to use Eudora as your main email client forget about it altogheter.

... to Outlook Express and Other Email Clients ...

Once you have you messages rescued from Netscape 6 to Eudora, you can import them to your favorite email client.

You can, for example, use the wizard for importing messages in Outlook Express 5 for Windows. Choose Eudora (the wizard thinks it can only import from Eudora up to version 3, but this is not true), the Eudora folder and select the appropriate mailboxes.

... to Eudora again

Optionally, you can now also re-import the Netscape folders from Outlook Express using Eudora's import wizard (you can find it via File | Import...) to solve the attachment problem.

"Worse than idle is compassion
If it end in tears and sighs;
Thee from bondage would I rescue
And from vile indignities;
Nurtured, as thy mien bespeaks, in high degree,
Look up--and help a hand that longs to set thee free."

William Wordsworth
The Armenian Lady's Love