When I do a File-> Save As, it does not ask for a location, or file name. Where is it saving to?
I don't use Thunderbird to send and receive emails. But I do use it to read EML files that I save from GMail to preserve web page links and attachments. I save GMail message as EML by selecting "Show original" then selecting "Download Original" and saving the resulting TXT file as an EML file, with the date, sender and subject as part of the file name.
With the EML file open in Thunderbird, and with the ImportExport add-on enabled, I am unable to save as any of the variations offered. With the add-on disabled, I try File -> Save As to change the file name, but Thunderbird does not ask for a file name or a location. Where does it save messages to?
Is this a 'feature' of reading messages that are not downloaded via Thunderbird?
I could use Windows Live Mail, or Outlook, but I like the concept of Thunderbird being a community-supported program.
Chosen solution
Thank you for your answer. Your "atypical" comment made me ponder why I want to do this. After some fiddling I found that I was trying to save an existing EML file, and I realized that Thunderbird and the ImportExport add-on work only with MBOX files (or whatever is inside the .msf file in my profile), which explains why neither asked for a file name or file location of a saved file.
A bit of background: Since 1999 I had accumulated over 30,000 emails in Outlook (the results of numerous email providers and accounts), and decided to get a handle on what to save and what to delete. Using various tools, I was able to get rid of the Outlook messages, archiving the information in associated folders according to subject, mostly as plain text files with unique file name that include date, sender, recipient and subject. I started using EML files to preserve web page links and attachments, and developed workflows to save messages from GMail as either plain text, or as EML files, depending on content. Now that my GMail inbox is down to less than 20 messages, I want to use Thunderbird as my email client, and do a better job of managing my emails. It's a learning curve, and you have helped. Thank you.
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Your usage of Thunderbird is so atypical that I doubt anyone would know for sure what is going on. Do you do all this in Local Folders? I suspect that not having a real working account set up, you are missing some key element (e.g. folder pathname, user identity, etc) that the export process relies on.
What you are doing sounds like an awful lot of additional work given that you have in front of you an email client that is perfectly capable of downloading messages directly from Gmail's servers. I presume that being able to view messages offline is an important part of your workflow? I'd be wary; even when there is no email server, Thunderbird is capable of reaching out to web servers etc. to linked URLs and downloading remote content.
You already have the txt/eml file; what do you get by saving messages from Thunderbird? OK, thinking about it, you get a properly rendered message, not whatever encoding is in use.
Chosen Solution
Thank you for your answer. Your "atypical" comment made me ponder why I want to do this. After some fiddling I found that I was trying to save an existing EML file, and I realized that Thunderbird and the ImportExport add-on work only with MBOX files (or whatever is inside the .msf file in my profile), which explains why neither asked for a file name or file location of a saved file.
A bit of background: Since 1999 I had accumulated over 30,000 emails in Outlook (the results of numerous email providers and accounts), and decided to get a handle on what to save and what to delete. Using various tools, I was able to get rid of the Outlook messages, archiving the information in associated folders according to subject, mostly as plain text files with unique file name that include date, sender, recipient and subject. I started using EML files to preserve web page links and attachments, and developed workflows to save messages from GMail as either plain text, or as EML files, depending on content. Now that my GMail inbox is down to less than 20 messages, I want to use Thunderbird as my email client, and do a better job of managing my emails. It's a learning curve, and you have helped. Thank you.
Modified by donstrack
Another reason to use stand-alone EML files for messages that have links or attachments, is that I can use a third party text editor to edit a message's subject line, to match the content of a single message that may have drifted from the subject of a larger conversation. Using a text editor, I can open an EML file and carefully edit the subject line to better describe the content.