Replies

Wavy “I store all my mail on my computer with a POP account.”

So do I, but, as far as I understand this, JohnW is right: when using POP, some providers do not keep your email in servers, some do. Regardless, you can always keep automatically, without even trying, your emails in your computer alone, or as well. With IMAP all providers, yours included if this were the case, keep your emails in their incoming server, because that is how IMAP is meant to work. What shows up in your Inbox folder is what is in the server. You can keep a copy of your emails in your computer only if you copy them from the Inbox to another client’s folder to archive them there.

If the incoming emails accumulated there, perhaps over the years, for whatever reason are deleted from the IMAP server and you have not copied them to a folder in your client, in your computer, then they are gone gone, gone.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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JohnW

Just tried messaging you from “New Message”, as I have always done. Same as before, it did not work. When I entered your name I got a drop list of names with ‘Charlie’ or ‘charlie’ somewhere in them among other things (i.e. “Charlie Alpha”), but not plain ‘Charlie’. (Yes, I tried one of those; whoever got the message obviously was not you.) But it works when sending messages to other people just fine. By the way, I have tried this using Waterfox, Chrome, Vivaldi and FireFox, as suggested by Susan: same negative result every time.

A really long, long session last night, with her and I exchanging messages about what to try, and nothing doing.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

Alex, Thanks. Good to know. And you just might have, with this comment, returned its balance to the world! I don’t have, as already mentioned, a smart phone with islands rising dynamically from it or otherwise: I’m just an AskWoody Lounger who is interested in learning about the wonder of it all.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

Charlie, the problem is the other way around. You can contact me, that means I can be contacted by others with a PM. Good to know: as far as the PM software is concerned I, have not vanished from this Earth! (Yet. Give it time, give it time …) But you seem to have.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

mngerhold: “but someone, somewhere, may have done it – good luck in your hunting.”

Thanks, I am trying to figure out if, assuming there is no suitable application for the Mac, I could be that “someone” and do it  “somewhere” in my very own home. Given enough information (that is what I am trying to get here) to: (1) decide if this is a likely proposition and (b) if I figured out it is, then proceed to figure out exactly how to do it and (3) do it.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

And, again, I do not have Windows programs, because I do not have Windows. And I am trying to understand where the metadata happens to be, not necessarily looking for an application to do the job, because I happen to know how to code one, just for the fun of it, as long as I have enough information to understand what needs to be done.

Geez! So many repetitions trying to get the answer to a simple question. That you might have finally answered, maybe. If so, thanks. (Please, do not help me.)

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

I do not have any kind of smart phone, but I have read in several places that this “island” is not liked very much by many of those who have them. Maybe it’s too dynamic?

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

Slowpoke: “So I just unplug the disk. Question- is this ok?”

It might be OK: I have done this a few times without bad consequences. (Although always getting a note from the system complaining about it.) Not when running Linux, but when running Windows 7 and, specially since January 2020,  macOS.

However, there might be a software way to force it to quit. In Macs this can be done using the main application “Finder”, that does as its name indicates, plus several other important things for managing files and other applications from the GUI rather than the command line. Maybe, if you have Linux in dual-boot with Windows, what you would need for the clean eject of a stubborn external disk is in the “Computer” section listed in the Windows 10 Start menu? (If one can switch systems without disconnecting the external disk — and that might do the trick, anyway — and if Windows 10 release No. whatever still has a Start menu; I’m a bit rusty when it comes to Windows.)

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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Slowpoke47

A recollection of another funeral occasion that comes to mind and might be appropriate to mention here:

When Diana was killed in a car accident, I was living for a while in Holland and saw there, on a real-time rebroadcast of BBC TV, the arrival of her body to London and its procession to Westminster Abbey, I think it was, for a final service there. In her coffin, she was coming back from a tour of England and probably also Wales, because of her title, perhaps Scotland too, and everywhere multitudes had lined the road in deepest silence as she went by. And so it was as well in her last journey through London.

It was haunting:

The BBC commenter in voiceover said: “Never since the Middle Ages such an expression of popular grief has been seen in this country as it is happening now.”

As the funeral cortege approached it, the bells of the church sent shivers up and down my spine as they suddenly started pealing the two notes of a tolling for the dead. Very loud and very, very jarringly.

I shall never forget those bells.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

I thought about this and concluded the some thing. Because I remembered later on that I had once sent a message to someone blocking them, and got a notice from the system that this person did not answered messages. The message would be different if the person were blocking just my messages: I imagine that there would be another message, sort of a “cease and desist” one, abut that person blocking me, so I know and stop trying to send this messages. Also: the handle of these two people not appearing in the drop down list must mean that the search for it has failed, not that I am blocked from receiving mails from X or Y. The system, because of the fact I have already mentioned, is nicer than that

Not only there was no such message, but when I tried to message someone else: “Y”, with whom I have corresponded often, to ask if he had received the message OK, as I already explained I did with others, then Y, the name in Y’s Profile, was not found either.

This looks to me now very much as if the system is “forgetting” peoples Profile handles and cannot find them now, although it could before.

If that is the case, then this a serious bug.

So I hope that someone who has the knowledge, the means and is in the position to do something about this, takes note and acts accordingly to fix it.

And, as far as I am concerned, at this point I have said all I have to say. Thank you.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

Thee seems t be some real confusion here:

For a start, one of my own: alejr mentions: “The messages and their associated “metadata” are in the files called Inbox, Drafts, Sent, Spam, Templates, Trash, Unsent Messages, etc., etc. (none of which have an extension) that represent the “folders” you see in TB.”

Is alejr saying the metadata is in the folders (directories) themselves? But then alejr says that they can be read, and folders cannot be read with a text editor. They are the OS GUI (or UI) way of displaying the links to those directories. So I don’t understand what alejr is telling me here.

But there are some other confusions that are not mine. For start, and it is I hope clear from my signature panel that appears below this comment I am typing now, as it does below any other comment I have posted in AskWoody in the last four years and I update when necessary, I do not have a Windows-running computer, I have a Mac.

So trying to explain things to me as if I were using Windows 10? Not helpful.

Also, even if it is true, and I believe it is true, because it seems necessary for this to be true, that there are files with the metadata somewhere in the directories and subdirectories where TB lurks, and if they can be read with, for example, a text editor or any other common kind of application software, then that would be very good to know!

Because another confusion not my own is that, in statements to the effect that even if there are such files that can be read by me, for example using a text editor, there is no application that can be used to do what I want.

But, as I thought I have made clear in my opening comment when I started this thread, if there is such a file, but there is no application available to do what I want with it, then it is possible to write such an application oneself, at least in principle. And that, as far I am concerned and tried to make clear at the beginning of this thread, is what my question is all about: If one can read the metadata file, then, at least in principle, one can write a script or a program (words also in my opening comment) to display the contents of the program in tables when opening the external (to TB) folder with the copied emails, and probably to create links with cute icons in the table to the corresponding .eml files, so I can click on them and open the selected email.

I hope this clears things up and this thread can now move to something germane to answering  my question. That, as I also wrote in my opening comment, may be also of interest to other people who can write code and do not depend essentially on some one else’s applications for everything:

So now, and perhaps clearly enough to prevent further confusion: If there are files with email metadata, what are their precise names and where are they to be found in Thunderbird?

Of course, if there are application for doing what I have explained I would like to be done with those files, that would also be good to know. As long as there are versions of them for the Mac.

Heartfelt thanks in advance for any practical and to the point answers.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

Alex, thanks, but … hmmmshhggh  … I don’t know …

It does not seem to be something that makes and displays a table of metadata like the one I would like to see on opening the folder with the copied emails and have described, I thought, in enough detail in my opening statement in this thread. I don’t need to see my personal and business emails from everywhere in the world, specially by keeping them in a Google server.

Also there is this exchange in the article you’ve linked between a dissatisfied user and the developer:

” Great tool when it works, but sadly the ‘Export Folder with Structure’ option stopped working almost a year ago (likely due to the TB core changes). It gives no indication of an error, but fails to back up the selected accounts content. This has been reported as a bug, but has not been addressed for most of that time.If you need reliable backups, beware of this function (the Backup option does seem to work).
This user has a previous review of this add-on.

Christopher Leidigh  [Developer]
I am playing catch up.
I found and replied to your GH post to try and address this.
Note on my windows /v12.0.1 setup export with structure behaves as expected.
We can figure it out…
Christopher

So …

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

It could be that the problem is with “X”. After my last comment, I have been able to message some other “not X” AskWoody people I know without trouble, in the usual way  (until tonight): opening the “New Message” window, entering the Profile name of the person I wanted to contact (other than X), and “Have you received this email?” in “Subject”, then clicking “Send” and receiving from the system the notification that my message was “Successfully sent.” And even got replies!

I have tried this with three different browsers and it worked with each as described above. Not by sending more messages to those I had sent one already, but merely making sure with each browser that when entering their Profile handles in the box for the name of whom to send the message, the box for writing the message actually opened and that I got no weird drop list.

It might be that “X” has blocked messages, but if so, clicking on “Directory” and choosing there “Blocked messages” as filter, it came up with nothing about “X”. Assuming that is the right way to figure out this.

Because after four years hanging around here, this is my first time having to do with all this unwelcome homework.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

I believe that there is a file with all the metadata information in TB and that a copy can be used, somehow for what I would like to do (the question is how) . Please, read my original comment.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

I have done this several times. Today it has not worked, every single time. Besides  none of this has ever been necessary: Using the New Message box was always very straightforward: enter the Profile name of the intended recipient in the Name box, and click on a button that is not there now, then the box for writing and then sending the message appeared. That was all.

Sending the first message on a new topic is the issue here. Answering a message is not a problem

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV