Location of Kmail inbox folder

[HoaniP]

I've just installed Mageia 4, and love it.

I want to load all my emails, but I can't find where Kmail keeps its Inbox contents.

I expected to find them in /home/.local/share/local-mail, but they're not there. The folders are there, but the files are not.

Where will I find them?

Thank you.

[tom_]

kmail keeps the email in a database.
if you want to migrate your account this guide should help you:

http://userbase.kde.org/KMail/FAQs_Hints_and_Tips#Transfer_mail_and_settings_to_another_computer_.28or_another_user_account_on_the_same_machine.29

[HoaniP]

Thank you for your help. The link you gave me says that, "The messages are typically in ~/.kde/share/apps/kmail/. For very old installations of KMail, the messages can also be in ~/Mail. Note that KMail uses hidden sub-directories inside that directory, so you need to make sure to copy hidden directories as well."
I've checked for ~/.kde/share/apps/kmail/, but there is no such folder. There is a folder called ~/.kde/share/apps/kmail2, but my current emails are not in there.
They must be somewhere, because they show up in my KMail client. I've even tried using the Find function in Dolphin, but it returns, "No items found."
Is it possible that they are stored in the Root directory somewhere?
I've checked in every folder in my Home directory, and in the hidden folders, such as .kde4 and .local/share. I've spent several hours, now, and I can't proceed until I know where my emails are being stored.
Thank you.

[oldcodger]

Version 4.10.5 stores the mail in various folders in ~/.local/share/local-mail/
Previous versions store it in the places you have already searched.
Are you trying to locate the mails from a previous version?

[HoaniP]

No. I'm not trying to locate emails from a previous version. Here's what happened:
I bought a new hard drive.
I saved all my emails from my old hard drive onto an external HD.
I installed Mageia 4 onto the new HD.
I installed KMail 4.11.4 from the repo., and used the wizard to set it up.
Before I used KMail, I transferred all my old emails, going back to 2003, into .local/share/local-mail/inbox/cur folder. They are still there.
I then used KMail, and noticed that none of my old emails was in the Local Folders > Inbox, on the GUI.
I checked the .local/share/local-mail/inbox/cur folder, and found all my old emails there, but not the new ones.
I've searched everywhere I can think of, but can't find them.
I have noticed a couple of things: firstly, none of my new trashed or sent emails is in the local/share.... folders, either. Secondly, .kde4/share/apps does not contain a KMail folder. It does contain a KMail2 folder, but this does not contain my new emails.
I wondered if they were stored in RAM, but, when I turned the machine off for about eight hours, they were still there, when I turned it back on.
I would just start again and do a complete reinstall, but this would wipe the emails, a couple of which are important to me. I can't save them, because I don't know where they are.
It's all a mystery to me. I hope someone can help. Thank you.

[yankee495]

Ok, I thought I'd look at my Akonadi and just tell you.
My recently sent mail is here: /home/john/.local/share/local-mail/

Can't you "Import" your old emails and let it place them where it wants?

I think you can. File > Import Messages and select Kmail...

[HoaniP]

Thank you. Sorry I've been away so long: we've had a few issues. I've checked that folder, and it contains only the old emails, from 2003 till 16 February 2014, that I put there from my previous install. There are none of the present emails there.

I've spent many hours searching all the hidden local folders, but nothing. Today, I started searching through every ROOT folder and found a folder called:
/home/papa/.local/share/akonadi/db_data/akonadi/parttable.ibd, which is shown in Dolphin as a txt file.

I opened it and found a whole lot of meaningless (to me) characters, with some whole sentences and paragraphs, which are meaningful.

At the top of the text document is a note - presumably generated by KWrite - saying:

The file /home/papa/.local/share/akonadi/db_data/akonadi/parttable.ibd was opened with UTF-8 encoding but contained invalid characters.
It is set to read-only mode, as saving might destroy its content.
Either reopen the file with the correct encoding chosen or enable the read-write mode again in the menu to be able to edit it.

So, I suppose this is some progress.

Can anyone help, please?

[yankee495]

Did you try:

Import your old emails and let it place them where it wants.

File > Import Messages and select Kmail...show it where they are, you said "I saved all my emails from my old hard drive onto an external HD".

[HoaniP]

Thank you, again, for your help

After receiving your last message, I tried to import the data, but the import wizard freezes.

On opening the wizard, I selected "Import KMail Maildirs and Folder Structure", as the program I want to import from, and "local-mail/" as the location to import to. When I start the import, it starts the first folder, then freezes with a message, which says, "Error: Could not add message to folder new. Reason: Unknown collection for '46'."

I notice that each time I try again, after deleting the folder, which is installed in KMail, the number at the end changes: last time it was 38.

I then have to keep clicking on the X in the top right to till I get a message, asking me if I want to terminate kmailcvt.

I have to say, I'm getting sick of this. I've been using KMail for about 14 years; I've installed new distros and different versions of distros, and have never had this problem before. I see, on the internet, that many people are having problems with KMail, and are abandoning it too. I will shortly, if I can't fix it.

Any other ideas?

Thank you.

[madeye]

Did you try to place your old email in a different folder? Like documents/oldmail, and import them from there?
If Kmail tries to import from its local mail folder to itself, it may give some strange problems.

I recently imported some emails into kmail (for my parents), and had no problem. But the old email was not stored in ~/.local/share/local-mail when I did it.

Myself, I have moved to claws mail a long time ago. I tried kmail a couple of weeks ago to see how it was now, only to find it was even worse than when I moved away from it initially.
There is also a new client that looks a lot like kmail did in kde3. Don't remember the name right now. it still lacks in functionality, but could be a good replacement for kmail/akonadi and "friends".

[HoaniP]

Thank you all for your help. I've given up on KMail, after trying the solutions you and others have provided, ending in total failure.

I've installed Thunderbird. its set up was ridiculously easy.

All I need to do now is to work out how to transfer my old KMails to Thunderbird...but that's another story.

Let the games begin!

Thank you again. I appreciate your help.

[doktor5000]

All I need to do now is to work out how to transfer my old KMails to Thunderbird...but that's another story.

check e.g. https://getsatisfaction.com/mozilla_mes ... hunderbird