How to Import POP Messages and Retain Folder Structure

• In Opera, goto "Menu -> Mail and Chat Accounts -> add" to start the mail account wizard.

• Enter the settings for the POP account, but do not set a username and password. After the account is created, you can edit it and uncheck "Check for new messages every..." and "Include this account when checking manually" on the "incoming" tab in the account's properties so that Opera doesn't bug you about the username and password not being set.

• Once the account is created, use the account selector to show only messages for that account.

• Then, goto "Menu -> settings -> import and export -> import mail -> import generic mbox -> add folder".

  Choose the folder of mbox files you want to import and choose what account to import into (the account you just set up) and whether or not to move those messages to "Sent" or not.

  But, you must import each folder into the account in steps in the following order. And, always fully close out of the import wizard after each time you import something. Don't click "back" and select another folder.

• Import the Trash folder. Once the messages are imported, select them all in "All Messages/Received" and press delete to move them to the trash.

• Right-click on "All Messages/Spam", goto properties, then options and uncheck "learn from labeled messages". You can check it again after you're done importing all accounts if you want.

  Then, import the spam folder. Once the messages are imported, select them all in "All Messages/Received" and mark them as spam. Then, click the view button on the mail toolbar above the message list, goto "show" and uncheck "Show Spam".

• Use ctrl + left-click to deselect any labels that are selected in the "Labels" access point.

  Then, right-click on the "Labels" access point header and choose "New Label". Make the name of the label your email address for the account, "you@example.com" for example.

• For *each* of the custom folders (as in, not, "Inbox", "Trash", "Spam" or "Sent") you want to import, you need to do the following.

  • Under the "Labels" access point, left-click the you@example.com label you just created to select it.

  • Right-click on the you@example.com label and choose "New Label". Name the label the same name as the folder you're going to import.

  • Right-click on the label and goto "properties", then "options" and check "hide these messages from other views".

  • Import the custom folder. Once the messages for it are imported, select them in "All Messages/Received" and label them as the label you just created.

• Import the sent folder with the folder selected in the "move to sent" drop-down. Then, click the view button on the mail toolbar above the "All Messages/Received" and "All Messages/Unread" lists, goto "show" and uncheck "show sent" if you want. Do this for other views too if you want.

  Actually, you can't select a folder in the "move to sent" drop-down. So, as a workaround:

  Create a standalone installation to a folder on your desktop. Use the generic mbox importer and use "add folder" to pick the folder that has all the sent mbox files in it and then just import them as regular messages. Then, right-click on "All Messages/Received" and export all the messages as a single mbs file (due to a bug, you may have to use a the English locale in Opera for Opera to save the file). Then, in your normal Opera, you'll just have that one mbs file that you can choose in the "move to sent" drop-down.

  You don't have to use a standalone installation though. You could import into a new account in your current Opera and use the account selector so that "All Messages/Received" only shows messages for that account so you can export just those messages. When you're done, you can delete that temporary account. Same thing with the standalone installation. You can close it and delete its folder when you're done with it.

• Import the Inbox folder.

• Go into the account's properties and set your username and password. Also, check "Check for new messages every..." and "Include this account when checking manually". Then, hit the check/send button to fetch messages from the POP server.

• If any messages you imported were also fetched from the POP server, you need to delete the read, imported copies and keep the unread, newly-fetched copies. Once you're done removing duplicates, you can mark any of the messages in "All Messages/Unread" as read if you want.

• Repeat all of the above for each POP account.