Opera Mail Import query

[kendickson13]

kendickson13 last edited by

Is it possible to import stored messages from a Windows Live Mail account into Opera Mail?

[burnout426]

burnout426 Volunteer last edited by

You could import into into Thunderbird first and then import from Thunderbird.

Or, if you want to skip that:

Export your messages/folders to eml files in Windows Live Mail.

Then, use the eml to mbx converter to convert the eml files to mbx files.

Then, set up the account in Opera via "Menu -> Mail and chat accounts -> add".

Then, use "Menu -> settings -> import and export -> import mail -> import generic mbox" to import the messages into the account you created. When you import your sent messages, set "move to sent" in the sent import wizard if it's an option.

Then, for any duplicates you have, delete the import copies and keep the newly-fetched copies in Unread that were downloaded from the server.

If you use IMAP though, you don't import anything and just set up the account in Opera.

See https://www.reddit.com/r/operabrowser/wiki/m2tips/import_contacts_from_other for how to import contacts.

Note though that Opera Mail is no longer being developed and it's an unfinished product based on Opera Mail that's built into the Opera 12.x browser suite.

[kendickson13]

kendickson13 last edited by

To clarify, I've already transferred my WLM mailbox into Opera. The folders I'm now trying to move are old, 'offline' messages that I do want to keep.

Not sure how to export these folders to eml files - can't find that option in WLM.

Thanks for the note about contacts, but I have already done this.

[burnout426]

burnout426 Volunteer last edited by

In Windows Live Mail, goto "Menu -> export email -> export email messages -> Microsoft Windows Live Mail.

Choose a folder to save to.

Either export all folders for all accounts or select "selected folders" and ctrl + left-click to select/deselect folders. For example, you might choose to just export "Inbox", "Sent" and "Trash" under one of the account folders.

Then, in the folder you chose to export to, there will be a folder for each account and in each account folder will be the folders you chose to export for that account. For example, you might have a you@hotmail.com folder with "Inbox" in it.

Each message folder will have a bunch of eml files in it that represent the messages for that folder. Before you can import these messages into Opera, you have to convert all the eml files in each folder to mbox files.

Then, you just use the "Menu -> settings -> import and export -> import mail -> import generic mbox" option to import into the account in Opera.

An alternative would be to temporarily create an IMAP account in Windows Live Mail where you drag the offline messages back to the Inbox to upload them to the server. Then, you could fetch them with Opera.

[kendickson13]

kendickson13 last edited by

Thanks burnout426, I have managed to do that and all my email are now in Opera.

Sadly, the folder structure was completely lost, but that may have been the eml-2-mbox program I used.

Oh well, I guess you can't have everything in life! Cheers.

[burnout426]

burnout426 Volunteer last edited by

Sadly, the folder structure was completely lost

Yeah, Opera doesn't have folders. It has views, which are different. For a POP account, you only get an "Inbox" view and a "Sent" view. But, you're supposed to use the global views under "All Messages" anyway. Although, you can do what you want.

To simulate a folder, you create a label under the Labels access point. Then, in the label's properties, you set "hide these messages from other views". There's no import process that automates that. However, if you import each folder from WLM mail first and import Inbox last, you can do it in steps. You'd import one folder, create a label for it, move the messages to that folder and repeat. Then, when you import the Inbox, you just don't put it in a label. It's different, but it can work. Too late for that now for you though. But, you can create labels and organize message into them. Using the search field might help things move a long. Or, you can use rules for the labels to automatically grab messages, but I'd wait on that.

Opera Mail used to automatically create a label (called a filter back then) when you imported. But, that was removed a long time ago when things switched to labels.