Eudora preparation for the Thunderbird migration

Eudora email will be going away this year. The company that makes Eudora is no longer supporting it. Consequently, SCLS staff have researched and identified Eudora's replacement: Thunderbird. The Thunderbird software costs the same amount as Eudora: free.

SCLS Automation is in the process of writing documentation so that you can migrate your own email from Eudora to Thunderbird. In the mean time, it's become clear that you will save yourself some time (and possibly headaches later) if you clean up and organize your Eudora mail now before migrating to Thunderbird. What follows are some instructions on how you can "clean up" and organize Eudora email.

It may be useful to perform the cleanup and organizing procedure twice: one "major" cleanup well in advance of the Thunderbird migration and one "minor" cleanup right before the Thunderbird migration.

There is some risk involved with an email migration or cleanup. Did everything migrate over to Thunderbird? Will I delete something during cleanup that I later wished I hadn't? If either of these possibilities cause you concern, consider archiving all of your email before undertaking either process. Three different archiving procedures are discussed in this document.

You may opt-out of performing many of the suggested tasks in this document. However, you are strongly advised to at least familiarize yourself with the section on Organizing features that will not transfer from Eudora to Thunderbird. There are some new organizational processes that you can create to compensate for "feature loss" if any of these are of interest to you.

All of the procedures in this document assume that your Eudora account was installed and has been used according to SCLS recommendations. If you find that your setup differs substantially from what is described here, call the Automation Help Desk.

Important: Prior to your email migration, your library director will have designated an onsite "resident resource" for this project. The "resident resource" will have been offered migration training by Automation staff and will have been asked to determine email retention requirements for your municipality. Before you begin to delete email, make sure that you are familiar with the data retention requirements for your municipality.

Before you begin the email deleting process, you may decide that you want to archive ALL of your email beforehand "just in case". Archive options are documented in the section titled Archiving and virus scanning (optional). Skip to the archive section first and come back to this section if you are so inclined.

The more email you delete now, the less email you will need to migrate from Eudora to Thunderbird later. That said, be sure to keep any emails that you may need for business/reference purposes.

The end goal of this section is to empty the Trash from your Eudora email. Consequently, as a first step, sort through all of your Trash and verify that your trash is really trash.
Verify that the Eudora setting of "Delete attachments when emptying Trash" has a check mark. This setting is located at Tools, Options in the Category called Attachments.
***By changing this setting to "on", any files attached to an email will be deleted when the email is emptied from your Trash***. If there are attachments you wish to keep but you wish to delete the email, please save the attachment somewhere else before deleting the email.
Go through all the mailboxes (including "In", "Out" and "Junk") and delete unnecessary email.
Delete the mail from your Trash. This can be done by right-clicking Eudora's Trash and selecting Empty Trash.
(Optional): Depending upon how you manage your email, you may choose to undo the "Delete attachments when emptying Trash" setting that you may have activated in step #2.

A few organizing features will not transfer when you migrate to Thunderbird. If you rely upon any of the following features for organizational purposes, you may want to rethink this prior to migrating to Thunderbird. Possible workarounds will be suggested in the next sections

If nothing on the list below impacts you and you are not interested in archiving your email, consider yourself done with this entire document.

Eudora's Reply and Forward symbols do not migrate to Thunderbird. If you have Eudora emails to which you've either replied to or forwarded, the arrow symbols will not transfer when you migrate to Thunderbird.
Both Read and Unread messages will migrate as Unread messages.
Color-coded labels in Eudora will not migrate to Thunderbird.
Emails sent/received in Eudora during Daylight Saving Time will be off by one hour.

"Reply to" and "Forward" symbols do not migrate:
As long as you migrate the contents of your "out" box to Thunderbird, you'll preserve a trail of emails that have been replied to and forwarded.
Both Read and unread messages migrate to Thunderbird as Unread messages:
There are two possible alternatives:
1. Try reading all email before the migrations
2. Create a new mailbox called "Unread" and transfer all unread mail to this mailbox.

Color-coded labels in Eudora will not migrate to Thunderbird:
Eudora allows you to organize you email by color labeling. There are seven labels/colors.

Label 1 = Orange	Label 5 = Dark Blue
Label 2 = Red	Label 6 = Green
Label 3 = Magenta	Label 7 = Brown
Label 4 = Light Blue

If you use labeling and don't want to lose this organizing feature when you migrate to Thunderbird, here's how you can prepare for this in advance:

In Eudora, create a new mailbox for each color/label you use.
Select Edit, Find, Find messages
Select the Mailboxes tab
Place a check mark beside your Eudora.xx folder. This should then also cause all other mailboxes to be selected as well.
In the first sort field, select Label (#1)
In the third sort field, select Label 1 (#2)
Click on the Search button
Once the search is complete, select all matches in the lower window: Edit, Select All
Right-click your mouse and select Transfer.
Select the mailbox that matches the color/label for the search you just performed.
Repeat steps 5-10 until all colored/labeled emails have been transferred to the new color/label mailboxes.

Emails sent/received in Eudora during Daylight Saving Time will be off by one hour:
There is no workaround for this. Just keep this fact in mind.

Before starting the deleting/cleanup process, you may want to backup all of your email (for archival purposes). However, before archiving your email, you should confirm that it is virus-free. Your archive efforts will fail if your email has viruses. This section describes how to scan your email for viruses before archiving the current contents of your mailbox.

+ Scanning Eudora Email for viruses:

Before attempting to archive your email, you should scan for viruses. Failure to scan in advance will cause the archive to fail if viruses are present.

Locate the path to your Eudora mailbox:

Right click the icon that you normally use to launch Eudora.
Select Properties from the context menu.
Locate the field called Start In . The string will read something like "C:\Eudora.xx" where "xx" are your initials.
Make a note of where your Eudora folder is located.
Click the OK button to close the Eudora.exe Properties window.

Navigate to your Eudora mailbox:

Double click on the My Computer icon on your desktop.
Double click on the Local Disk icon.
Locate the "Eudora.xx" folder (where "xx" usually represents your initials) that you identified in the previous step.

Determine the size of your Eudora.xx folder:
This task isn't related to virus scanning but is placed here so that you won't have to retrace your steps to perform this task later.

Right click your Eudora.xx folder
Select Properties.
Locate the entry that reads Size on disk
Record the number that proceeds "MB" in the Size on disk field. You will need this number when you get to the Archiving to CD section.
Click the OK button.

Scan your Eudora mailbox for viruses: (OfficeScan)

Right click on your Eudora.xx folder.
Since we are currently changing our anti-virus software, select either OfficeScan Client or Scan with Sophos Anti-Virus, whichever one appears in the menu.
OfficeScan or Sophos will launch and clean or quarantine any viruses in your mailbox.
Click the OK button and then the Exit button for OfficeScan or the Close button for Sohpos once the scan has completed.

+ Archiving email before deleting content:

Before selectively deleting email content, consider archiving all of it. Archiving is a personal choice; you can choose to skip this step if you prefer. The next section describes three ways to backup your email going from most to least preferred.

+ 1. Archiving to CD:

You will need several resources in order to archive email content to CD:

Resource	Where can I locate this resource:
Information/knowledge on how to burn a CD	This document
Writeable or rewriteable CD disk(s)	Computer stores, Walgreens, office supply stores, WalMart, Kmart, etc.
Writeable CD drive (Some CD drives can read CDs but not write to them)	Writeable CD drive on library staff PC(s). See section below for more details.
Knowledge of the size of the Eudora folder before you back it up.	Your PC. See section above titled "Scanning Eudora email for viruses" and review the "Determine the size of your Eudora email folder" section.

How do I know if my LINK staff PC has a writeable CD drive?

To determine if your PC has a writeable CD drive, follow the directions here.

Evaluate your Eudora.xx folder size relative to the storage capacity of the CD:

Back in the "Scanning Eudora email for viruses" section, you determined the size of your Eudora.xx folder. Burnable CDs have a finite storage capacity (usually 650-700 MB). The packaging that comes with the CDs will provide the actual storage capacity information. Make sure that the size of your Eudora.xx folder is less than the storage capacity of the CD.

Preparing to burn a CD:

In order to get a "clean archive", close out of your Eudora mail before proceeding. Burning to CD when Eudora is open will generate errors.

Burning to a CD from a LINK staff Windows XP PC:

Follow the directions this link:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/maintain/copytocd.mspx

Verify (superficially) that the archive was successful:

You can do a quick and dirty archive verification by comparing the number of files and folders burned to CD to these same parameters on the Eudora.xx folder on your PC.

Identify the number of files and folders associated with the Eudora.xx folder on the CD:

With the CD in the drive, double click the My Computer icon on the Desktop.
Right click the CD drive within My Computer and select the Explore option.
The right hand pane will list Files Currently on the CD
Right click the Eudora.xx folder that you just burned to CD and select Properties
Write down the numbers associated with Files and Folders.
Click the Cancel button.

Identify the size of the data and number of files and folders associated with the Eudora.xx folder on your PC:

Double click the My Computer icon on the Desktop
Double click on the Local Disk (C:) icon .
Navigate to your Eudora.xx folder
Right click the Eudora.xx folder and select Properties
Compare the numbers here for Files and Folders with the numbers that you recorded previously. These numbers should be the same.
Click the Cancel button.

Store your archive CD for easy access:

Store your archive CD in a location where either you and/or other library staff can easily locate it.

+ 2. Archiving to USB Flash drive:

USB Flash drives go by many names: USB stick, memory stick, flash drive, memory drive, thumb drive, USB drive, USB pen, etc...

Archiving to a USB Flash drive is less preferable than to CD because USB flash drives:

Tend to have a higher failure rate (can lose data written to them).
Are small and easily lost.

You will need a few resources in order to archive to a USB Flash drive.

Resource	Where can I locate this resource?
USB Flash drive that has a storage capacity as large as your Eudora.xx folder	Computer stores, Walgreens, office supply stores, WalMart, Kmart, etc.

Evaluate your Eudora.xx folder size relative to the storage capacity of the USB Flash drive:

The evaluation process for archiving to a USB Flash drive is the same as to a CD. Back in the "Scanning Eudora email for viruses" section, you determined the size of your Eudora.xx folder. USB Flash drives have a finite storage capacity that is usually written on the flash drive. The packaging that comes with the flash drive can provide the actual storage capacity information as well if you are looking to purchase one. Make sure that the size of your Eudora.xx folder is less than the storage capacity of the flash drive. The size capacity of newer flash drives is usually seen in gigabytes (GB). One GB is roughly 1000 MB.

Prepare to copy Eudora.xx to a USB Flash drive:

In order to get a "clean archive", close out of your Eudora mail before proceeding. Copying to a USB Flash drive when Eudora is open will generate errors.

Copy your Eudora.xx folder to a USB Flash drive:

Insert the USB flash drive into an available USB port on your PC.
On your PC, navigate to the Eudora.xx folder that you want to archive. Scale the size of this window so that it only takes up part of your screen and leave the window open.
In a separate window, navigate to your USB flash drive and "open" it. Scale the size of this window so that it only takes up part of your screen and leave this window open. You should be able to see both windows simultaneously.
Drag the Eudora.xx folder from your PC to the USB flash drive. This does not move your Eudora.xx folder, it copies it.

Step 2	Step 3

Verify (superficially) that the archive was successful:

You can do a quick and dirty archive verification by comparing the number of files and folders saved to your USB Flash drive to these same parameters on the Eudora.xx folder on your PC.

Identify the number of files and folders associated with the Eudora.xx folder on the flash drive:

With the flash drive plugged in, double click the My Computer icon on the Desktop.
Right click the flash drive within My Computer and select the Explore option.
The right hand pane will list Files Currently on the flash drive
Right click the Eudora.xx folder that you just burned to CD and select Properties
Write down the numbers associated with Files and Folders.
Click the Cancel button.

Identify the size of the data and number of files and folders associated with the Eudora.xx folder on your PC:

Double click the My Computer icon on the Desktop
Double click on the Local Disk (C:) icon .
Navigate to your Eudora.xx folder
Right click the Eudora.xx folder and select Properties
Compare the numbers here for Files and Folders with the numbers that you recorded previously. These numbers should be the same.
Click the Cancel button.

Eject the USB drive:

Once you have verified the archive was successful, stop the USB flash.
Click on the USB drive icon in the system tray and then click on Safely remove USB mass storage device.
Remove the USB flash drive from the USB port.

+ 3. Archiving to the My Documents folder on your PC:

This option, while possible, is the least preferred. Archiving to the My Documents folder has some significant limitations.

If your PC's hard drive crashes, your Eudora.xx folder may be lost forever.
When a LINK PC is replaced, the contents of the My Documents folder is copied from the old PC to the new PC. Copying your Eudora.xx folder between PCs for perpetuity isn't an efficient use of staff resources.

Prepare to copy Eudora.xx to the My Documents folder:

In order to get a "clean archive", close out of your Eudora mail before proceeding. Copying to the My Documents folder when Eudora is open will generate errors.

Copy your Eudora.xx folder to the My Documents folder:

Navigate to the Eudora.xx folder that you want to archive. Scale the size of this window so that it only takes up part of your screen and leave the window open.
In a separate window, double click on the My Computer desktop icon.
Click on the down arrow at the end of the Address bar and select My Documents. Scale the size of this window so that it only takes up part of your screen and leave this window open. You should be able to see both windows simultaneously.
Go to the first window, right click on your Eudora.xx folder and select Copy.
Go to the My Documents window, right click and select Paste.

Verify (superficially) that the archive was successful:

You can do a quick and dirty archive verification by comparing the number of files and folders saved to the My Documents folder to these same parameters on the original Eudora.xx folder on your PC.

Identify the number of files and folders associated with the Eudora.xx folder in My Documents:

Double click the My Computer icon on the Desktop.
Click on the down arrow at the end of the Address bar and select My Documents.
Right click the Eudora.xx folder that you just copied to My Documents and select Properties
Write down the numbers associated with Files and Folders.
Click the Cancel button.

Identify the number of files and folders associated with the Eudora.xx folder on your PC:

Double click the My Computer icon on the Desktop
Double click on the Local Disk (C:) icon .
Navigate to your Eudora.xx folder
Right click the Eudora.xx folder and select Properties
Compare the numbers here for Files and Folders with the numbers that you recorded previously. These numbers should be the same.
Click the Cancel button.

Eudora cleanup and organization

+ Introduction:

+ Delete unnecessary email:

+ Organizing features that will not transfer from Eudora to Thunderbird:

+ Workarounds for organizing features that do not migrate to Thunderbird:

+ Archiving and virus scanning (optional) :

+ Scanning Eudora Email for viruses:

+ Archiving email before deleting content:

+ 1. Archiving to CD:

+ 2. Archiving to USB Flash drive:

+ 3. Archiving to the My Documents folder on your PC: