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How can I locally open a read-only Maildir backup archive in Windows in order to browse through e-mails, run keyword searches, filter/sort by date or recipient, extract attachments, display e-mails chronologically vs. as conversations etc.?

Here is a screenshot of the folder structure. The files inside the cur folders have names such as

5286806512.M446716P63625.mail,S=1879880,W=2290677_2,Sa
5286806512.M256849P63625.mail,S=4059,W=6731_2,FS
5286806512.M860467P63625.mail,S=19629,W=43009_2,S
sarahstern
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1 Answers1

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  • Using Thunderbird: Install Thunderbird; configure the 'Local Folders' pseudo-account to use Maildir storage; create an empty folder; manually load the Maildir contents (i.e. the cur, new, tmp directories) into the corresponding directory in Thunderbird's profile (under %APPDATA%\Thunderbird\...\Mail\Local Folders). Might need to remove the *.msf cache files.

    Repeat for each sub-folder as Thunderbird doesn't recognize the 'Maildir++' .Subfolder layout.

  • Using Dovecot, where the backup came from: Install Dovecot IMAP server on WSL or other Linux; copy the entire Maildir to ~/Maildir; mass-rename files to recover the : character that's supposed to be in file names (straight up replace each _2, with :2,); connect Thunderbird or any other IMAP client to Dovecot.

grawity
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