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I have to move my Alpine account/mail/address book from an old pc to a newer one. I'm searching through the documentation and can't find useful informations about this.

As Alpine is installed to the second pc, copying the /home/old_username/mail directory of the old pc over the /home/new_username/mail directory of the new pc (created by Alpine after installation) is enough?

Michael Mrozek
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Sasha Grievus
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1 Answers1

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There are 3 files and a directory that I'm aware of, that you will need to copy.

  1. The file ~/.pinerc. This is the Alpine config file.

  2. The file ~/.addressbook. This is the Alpine addressbook.

  3. The file /var/spool/mail/username. This is the inbox for user username. NOTE: apparently the "real" location is now /var/mail, and /var/spool/mail which is now a symlink to that. But I'm still using /var/spool/mail from force of habit.

  4. The directory where Alpine stores its mail folders. This is configurable and defaults to ~/Mail. It's controlled by the variable folder-collections in ~/pinerc.

Kusalananda
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Faheem Mitha
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  • It worked! Thank you very much. I could import all the email configurations, address book and emails with their folder structure. In my case, the system user had the same name. It could be a problem doing this with a user with a different username? – Sasha Grievus May 05 '17 at 05:31
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    Hi @SashaGrievus. You write: "In my case, the system user had the same name. It could be a problem doing this with a user with a different username?". I don't understand your question, sorry. Can you give me an example of what you are talking about? – Faheem Mitha May 05 '17 at 12:12
  • Sorry, was a question just for the sake of precision. I was thinking that, precisely, in my main question I was talkin'about an old machine with an /home/old_username/mail and a new machine with a /home/new_username/mail (old_username could be *not* equal to new_username). In that case, this process, I guess, it's still possible? Or maybe pinerc must be edited replacing the string old_username with new_username? And this is sufficient? – Sasha Grievus May 05 '17 at 13:16
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    Oh, I see. I think everything should work the same regardless whether those user names are the same. – Faheem Mitha May 05 '17 at 17:48