Recently in my office an Ubuntu user was given a Vista notebook.  The task of migrating his stuff fell on me. Having a heterogeneous  network consisting of Macs, different versions of Windows and Linux  is fun. Repetitive work (Read as boring monkey work) is scarce and there is always an opportunity for jogging your Grey cells.  Migrating his documents was a cinch…  (everything in the home folder) but email was more difficult. I’ve tried it before and usually ended up with the users emails all in one folder and endured spiteful looks from their owners for quite a while. Here is a how to  for the same. The platforms used in the example are Ubuntu (read as Gnome Desktop) and Windows Vista business. Here we go.

Open a shell prompt on your Ubuntu machine and install Thunderbird ( sudo apt-get install thunderbird worked for me) or use your favorite package manager to do it.

1. Run Thunderbird (Applications > Internet > Mozilla Thunderbird)
2. Next setup your email account (or a dummy account) in Thunderbird. This is important as it will not create its default mail folder unless an account is first setup.
3. Quit Thunderbird
4. Open Nautilus (Your file browser) by clicking your home icon
5. Press Ctrl H to show your hidden files (files starting with a . (dot))
6. From your home folder navigate to your .mozilla-thunderbird folder
7. You will find a folder with some random characters followed by a .default in my case tprqy92c.default
8. Open this folder, then Mail > Local folders

This is how your folder should look

• Keeping this window open, repeat steps 5 & 6
• Navigate to the .evolution > mail  folder
• Make a copy of the local folder for backup purposes -just in case you mess up.
• Then enter (double click) the  local folder
• From here, copy the following files and paste them into the Thunderbird local folders overwriting any existing files.

Inbox, Outbox, Drafts, Templates and Sent. Note that these files do not have any extensions such as .msf

View of Evolution's local folder

• If you had sub-folders in Evolution, copy the folder .#evolution.sbd into Thunderbird’s folder too.  (I have yet to verify this step)
• Start Thunderbird (Applications > Internet > Mozilla Thunderbird) and check whether your emails and folders tally.
• Next copy the Thunderbird folder (Refer Steps 5-8) into a pen drive or other storage media.

On your Windows Vista machine,

• Open Control Panel > Folder Options.

• Under the view Tab, select show hidden files and folders
• Click OK.
• Download/Install Thunderbird from http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/thunderbird/
• Next click Start > Run
• Type %userprofile% and press Enter
• Navigate to AppData > Roaming > Thunderbird > Profiles
• Here you should find a folder with some random characters followed by a .default in my case qnobgmve.default
• Enter this folder and further navigate to Mail > Local Folders
• Plug in your removable media, and paste (overwrite)  the files you backed up into this folder.
• Run Thunderbird. If you followed the steps correctly, your email should have been migrated.

Thunderbird Path in Windows Vista

You would probably want to undo the show hidden folders option which can be from Control Panel > Folder options.  Click on restore defaults and then on OK.

Migrating your Contacts:

There are 3 different ways to go about this and you can take your pick. The first step is essentially common for all three methods.

Open your contacts folder in Evolution, click a contact, press Ctrl A to select all your contacts, right click and save in Vcard (.vcf) format, or click on the name od the contacts folder (e.g. personal) and click save as Vcard.

Step 2 (use one of the three methods)

• Using KAddressBook: Import the .vcf file into KAddressBook and export the contacts again in ldif format. Then import the ldif file into Thunderbird.
• Using an online conversion tool at http://labs.brotherli.ch/vcfconvert/ convert your vcf file to a ldif and then import into Thunderbird.
• Download this add in (http://nic-nac-project.de/~kaosmos/morecols-en.html)  for Thunderbird. Install it through  Tools > Addons > Install, open your addressbook, right click on the right pane and click import Vcard/vcf.

Migrating your Calendar:

• Download the Lightning extension for Thunderbird from https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/2313
• In Thunderbird, click on Tools > Addons > Install and browse to the lightning.xpi file you just downloaded. After it installs restart Thunderbird.
• Lightning should automatically prompt you to import your calendar data from Evolution.

Migrating your Tasks:

• Right click your task list and save it to disk in the .ics format.
• In Thunderbird, Click on the Calendar icon on the bottom left and then click File > Import Calendar. Browse to the task list you saved and import it into the appropriate calendar.

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