uploading old mail to Gmail

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This request will ring alarm bells for many privacy advocates. I'd
like to request that privacy issues with Gmail not be brought into the
thread, in hopes that I can get answers to my question(s).

I have a folder full of old mail I would like to upload to Gmail. The
only way to get it there is via SMTP. My e-mail client (not freeware)
has a 'redirect' function which is almost what I need; it resends the
mail to another To address, retaining the original From header, and
just stamps it with a Resent-from header. Unfortunately, it resets the
Date header to the current time, whereas I want the mail to retain its
original timestamp.

I can export the pile of e-mail as a Unix mbx file, so I should be able
to work with it with most e-mail tools. Any suggestions of freeware
which would help would be very much appreciated. Windows or Linux
ideas welcome.
 
»Q« said:
I have a folder full of old mail I would like to upload to Gmail.
The only way to get it there is via SMTP. My e-mail client (not
freeware) has a 'redirect' function which is almost what I need; it
resends the mail to another To address, retaining the original From
header, and just stamps it with a Resent-from header.
Unfortunately, it resets the Date header to the current time,
whereas I want the mail to retain its original timestamp.

I can export the pile of e-mail as a Unix mbx file, so I should be
able to work with it with most e-mail tools. Any suggestions of
freeware which would help would be very much appreciated. Windows
or Linux ideas welcome.
Click to expand...

How about a command line e-mailer that sends them as raw text to the
server. You'd need your e-mails as individual files or extract one at
the time to a temp file. Then send away.

Should preserve all headers, if the SMTP server doesn't strip or replace
them (I have no idea if they do that).

Bmail (for Win) works well, just tried it with hamster.
http://www.beyondlogic.org/solutions/cmdlinemail/cmdlinemail.htm
 
How about a command line e-mailer that sends them as raw text to
the server. You'd need your e-mails as individual files or extract
one at the time to a temp file. Then send away.

Should preserve all headers, if the SMTP server doesn't strip or
replace them (I have no idea if they do that).

Bmail (for Win) works well, just tried it with hamster.
http://www.beyondlogic.org/solutions/cmdlinemail/cmdlinemail.htm
Click to expand...

The documentation says that the From header must be specified, and ISTM
they mean it must be specified with the -f option. I hope leaving that
off will cause it to just use the old From header. If it preserves
those, this should work great for me; it's easy for me to export the
e-mails as individual text files.

Servers are another issue, but I have several to choose from.
Hopefully at least one of them will let old Dates pass without
alteration.

Thanks very much for your help. I'll play around with it as soon as I
get the chance.
 
»Q« said:
The documentation says that the From header must be specified, and
ISTM they mean it must be specified with the -f option. I hope
leaving that off will cause it to just use the old From header. If
it preserves those, this should work great for me; it's easy for me
to export the e-mails as individual text files.
Click to expand...

Those "To" and "From" fields are just for the server to know who's
sending them and to who (MAIL FROM and RCPT TO), if you don't specify
the -h switch (to generate headers, which wouldn't work for you).

In my little hamster test I used only these switches:
-m (email.txt)
-f (sender)
-t (receiver)
-s (server)

And I just did another test with a different server and it worked fine.
Servers are another issue, but I have several to choose from.
Hopefully at least one of them will let old Dates pass without
alteration.
Click to expand...

It just occurred to me that if the SMTP server needs authentication then
Bmail wouldn't work.
Thanks very much for your help. I'll play around with it as soon as I
get the chance.
Click to expand...

Np. Hope it works.
 
[snip discussion of details]
Np. Hope it works.
Click to expand...

It works perfectly. But I just realized my usual e-mail app's redirect
does exactly what I want just as well. I was thrown off by Gmail's
behaviour, and I should have looked more closely.

Gmail just sorts on the time a post is received by their server (using
the Received header, it seems), rather than using the Date header.

Thanks again for your help -- it's nice to have Bmail in the ol'
toolbox.
 
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