Using Pine Folders with POP Mail Programs

Pine Folders
Setting Pine to Export Folders
Exporting a Pine Folder to a File
Importing a Pine Folder Into a POP Mail Program

Pine Folders

Pine saves messages in folders. Each folder can contain many messages. A folder is a file in the Unix mbox file format. You can export a folder from Pine, download it to your PC, and import it into another mail program that can import Unix mbox files. Pegasus, Eudora, Netscape Mail and some others can do this. Then you can resend, forward, quote or otherwise use the messages in the folder as if you'd originally sent or received them with your PC's mail program.

After you've imported a folder into your PC's mail program, you can delete the folder in Pine, if you no longer need to use it on SCN.

You also can separately store old Pine folders on your PC that you no longer need to have in your mail program. For example, you might want to have the text of archived messages available for reference when using non-mail applications. You can read an mbox file into a word processor like Word or Wordpad, and then export it from the word processor as a text (.txt) file. The resulting plain text file will be compatible with a wide range of other applications.

Setting Pine to Export Folders

Applying Commands to Multiple Messages

SCN's Pine ordinarily is set up to export only individual messages. To export all the messages in a folder at the same time, you'll need to enable aggregate commands on the Pine setup menu.

From Pine's main menu, press S for Setup, then C for Config. Go to the second screenful of setup options. Find

• enable-aggregate-command-set

Highlight it with the arrow keys, then press Enter. An X will appear in the checkbox on the line.

Displaying and Exporting Full Headers

You might want to keep all the header information that Pine stores with each message. Otherwise, when you export a message, Pine removes all but the basic header fields.

On the third screen of Pine setup options, find the line

• enable-full-header-cmd

Highlight it with the arrow keys, then press Enter. An X will appear in the checkbox.

Automatically Saving a Copy of Each Message

You can set Pine to automatically keep a copy of each message you send. This is easier than adding your e-mail address on the Cc: line in each message. On Pine's setup menu, "fcc" is an abbreviation for File Carbon Copy.

On the first screenful of setup options, find

• default-fcc

Highlight that line with the arrow keys, then press Enter. Type a filename. The most common name to give the folder is sent-mail.

Exporting a Pine Folder to a File

After you've set the above options, you can export a Pine folder to a file in your work directory, while preserving all the message headers in their original form.

To export a folder, go to the Pine main menu and

• Press L to list folders
• Highlight the folder name and press Enter
• Press H to toggle full header mode on
• Press ; (the semicolon key) to select multiple messages
• Press A for all
• Press A to apply a command to all the selected messages
• Press E for Export
• Type a filename to give the exported file in your work directory

You can then download the file in the usual way.

Importing a Pine Folder Into a POP Mail Program

To use a Pine folder with a PC mail program like Pegasus, Eudora or Netscape Mail, rename the downloaded file to have a .mbx file extension. Move the .mbx file to the directory where the mail program stores your mail folders.

Pegasus v3.0 automatically finds and indexes any new .mbx files in your directory, each time it runs. For other mail programs, check the documentation about how to import Unix mbox files.

Updated May 15, 1999 - help@scn.org