I’ve been thinking of switching from Netscape 7.2 (for Macintosh). Firefox is an attractive possibility. If I were to do so, I would use Thunderbird, since one of the things that has me sticking with this version of Netscape is the e-mail capability.
Is there a way to convert both my address book and my current inbox to Thunderbird, should I make such a switch? The Netscape mail program is set to download mail from the server (at least with my primary address), and I’ve recently compacted the folders.
I have no idea how this works on a Mac. I can tell you how I’ve done it on a PC and hope the process is similar.
What I have done in the past is set up the new client program with exactly the same account settings as the old one, and then replaced the new client’s inbox files with those of the previous client. On a PC, (if Netscape works the same way the old Mozilla suite did) this should be a matter of searching for something like C:\Documents and Settings\Your Username\Application Data\Netscape\Profiles\something_random\Mail\youremailserver. You would take everything inside this folder and copy it to the similar folder (the random name will be different) for the Thunderbird client. To snag the address book, back up a couple of folder levels and look for abook.mab. Copy this file to the corresponding folder for the new client.
If you do this, you will overwrite any messages that you have downloaded into the new client.
Hopefully someone knows a better way. Mine is ugly but it’s worked for years.
A few months ago I could have written that OP myslef (except for the Mac part). I stuck with Netscape just for the e-mail. When I downloaded and installed Thunderbird it just asked me if I wanted to import an existing e-mail program. It imported my Netscape mail and address book flawlessly, even multiple usernames under Earthlink.
