The Haus

Migrating from Pegasus 4.x to Mozilla Thunderbird

October 1, 2005 -- by The Master

Last Updated: October 1, 2005

When I decided that it was time to fill my need for a fresh look at my email, I first tried out Gmail. While I like Gmail, and have moved to it as my primary mail server, I still wanted something fresh for my desktop mail solution.

Since A.T. has been a fan of the various new Mozilla clients, I figured I'd give them a fresh look. After doing a bunch of Google searches, I came away with the following for migrating my current email from Pegasus 4.x to T-Bird. These steps are written for someone who likes it simple and well-documented. Like myself :-) Note that these instructions have only been tested against Pegasus mail format folders, and I did not migrate my addressbook. Address books in Pegasus were always very clunky, so I never used them.

  1. First, you need to get ALL your Pegasus mail sorted into folders. Create folders and move all your mail out of the New Mail folder into subfolders. This is necessary because Pegasus does NOT store New mail in the same format as it stores folders.
  2. Now, copy down all your various mail server settings from Pegasus for migrating to Thunderbird. I had to migrate my Gmail and RoadRunner settings, so I had two sets to copy down.
  3. Download Thunderbird from the Mozilla website.
    1. Install it and start it as requested.
    2. Configure all your email accounts. When you configure the folder, use the Local Folders default for mail destination. This keeps all your accounts merged into one place. I prefer this myself instead of managing multiple account folders.
    3. Test your ability to connect and download email.
    4. Shut down Thunderbird so you can continue conversion.
  4. Download the following utilities:
    • Mailconv.zip -- 16-bit mail conversion program that converts Pegasus mail to Netscape format. Local copy is here.
    • PegasusRen, an application that will properly rename the folders generated by mailconv into folder names that can be used in T-Bird. Local copy is here.
  5. Decompress the entire mailconv.zip and run the setup.exe file that it contains. This will install mailconv into C:\MAILCONV on your system.
  6. Copy your entire c:\pmail\mail folder into the c:\mailconv directory. This should result in a new subfolder containing all your mail in the mailconv directory.
  7. Create a new \convert folder under c:\mailconv using Windows explorer.
  8. Move the cache.pm and hierarch.pm folders from your mail folder copy to the convert folder.
  9. Move the PegasusRen.exe program you downloaded to the convert folder as well.
  10. Run the mailconv application link that was installed.
    1. Switch the Source folder to the subfolder you created with your copy of your Pegasus mail.
    2. Switch the Destination folder to the convert folder you already created.
    3. Use the Folders->Export from Pegasus->Netscape menu option to convert your mail. It should create new files in your convert folder.
      4. Quit mailconv
  11. Run the PegasusRen program and hit Execute. This will create renamed copies of the folders you generated with mailconv in a new subfolder Convert.
  12. Move the copies of these folders into your Local Mail folders. You can find out where this is using Tools->Account Settings->Local Folders and look at the "Local Directory" field. This is the folder you need to move the files into from the c:\MAILCONV\Convert\Convert folder created in step #.
  13. Restart Thunderbird. You should now see all your newly converted mail folders in the Local Folders listing. Clicking on each new folder will load it's file counts, etc, into Thunderbird. With some large folders you might need to click twice in the folder.
  14. That's it. Enjoy your new mail client!