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Importing Mailman Archives Into Outlook
Perl
Posted on 4/21/2006 12:51 pm in Perl

There isn't an easy way to do it. I've looked, but that's never stopped me before. I will finish out this post later, but for now, I'm getting the details in so I don't forget.

Requirements: (To do it the way I did.)

  • *.txt files from Mailman's list archives
  • Unix shell and FTP access
  • unix2dos command for Unix
  • minimail - Cut+paste perl code to parse/create mbox files and mail messages
  • Mark Lyon's GMail Loader (GML)
  • A POP email account
  • Outlook

Overview:

  • Combine *.txt files for a list into one *.mbox file. (cat *.txt > listname.mbox)
  • Append headers using minimail.pl.
  • Convert to DOS text file format.
  • Send to POP account using GML.

We append the "Sender:" and "To:" headers so that the rules I use in Outlook will auto sort them.

Append Headers Code: (Replace the last {} block in minimail.pl with this, making appropriate changes for each list.)

{
        sub rd { <> }
formail(&rd, sub {
        my $mymail = shift;
        append_header($mymail, "To: 'List Description' ");
        append_header($mymail, "Sender: listname-bounces@listserver.com");
        print mail2str($mymail);
        });
}

To Do List:

  • Need to unobscure the email addresses so they aren't all "user at server.com".

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