How do I import a Thunderbird inbox using Mail.app?

Question

Hi all:)
I've managed to convince my mother she should get a Mac, and so far she's loving it. The only problem is that I can't import her emails from Thunderbird (Windows version) onto Mail.app. I followed the instructions on the Mozilla website (http://www.mozilla.org/support/thunderbird/faq.html#export) for exporting emails, but Mail insists that those are not compatible .mbox files.
I then found this article (http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050402143519725) on Mac OS X Hints, but even following its instructions, I couldn't work it out (Mail kept giving me the same error).
Does anyone know how to import Thunderbird's inbox onto Mail? Any help it appreciated
Cheers
Daniel

Answer 1

Hi Daniel.
It isn’t clear what the problem really is with the information you’ve provided — what does “Mail insists that those are not compatible .mbox files” mean?
Anyway, you’d get better results using Eudora Mailbox Cleaner to do the conversion. Eudora Mailbox Cleaner requires rebuilding the imported mailboxes in Mail afterwards, but instead of rebuilding them one by one, you can re-create the entire index as follows:
1. Quit Mail if it’s running.
2. In the Finder, go to ~/Library/Mail/. Make a backup copy of this folder, just in case something goes wrong, e.g. by dragging it to the Desktop while holding the Option (Alt) key down. This is where all your mail is locally stored.
3. Locate Envelope Index and move it to the Trash. If you see any other “Envelope Index”-named file there, delete it as well.
4. Open Mail. It will tell you that your mail needs to be “imported”. Click Continue and Mail will proceed to re-create Envelope Index — Mail says it’s “importing”, but it just re-creates the index if the mailboxes are already in Mail 2.x format.
Note: For those not familiarized with the ~/ notation, it refers to the user’s home folder. That is, ~/Library is the Library folder within the user’s home folder, i.e. /Users/username/Library.