I noticed these commands $ pkg search pop3 ; how does one do that ?
Back to the topic. My wife is running the Samsung email app on her tablet. Long story short, it’s not the most wonderful email app. We want better arrangement of folders, POP3 and be able to delete from server. Fairly simple.
Have tried many of the commonly known apps, but they were either transitioning away from POP3 for IMAP, or just didn’t have POP3 at all. So, now have a Moto G32 that has been ‘de-googled’ (by Freedom tech Solutions) and can test a few email apps on that. It’s running Andriod version 14, with CalyxOS on it. Not sure what version of Android is on the tablet.
Can all the emails on the tablet be exported and imported into another email app, or do all email apps simply use the same (email) database.
The Moto G32 has K9-Mail but it seems from POP3 Server Settings - K-9 Mail that nothing has changed since the last time I looked at it. Meaning it is only IMAP where the messages can be deleted from the server.
It was nearly 3 years ago that I asked the question on the K9 forums at How long will K9 support POP3? - #5 by zrx8 - Support - K-9 Mail Forum . Possibly one of the F-Driod apps is a fork of K9 that will bear some resemblance to fully enable POP3 usage ? Let people do what they want to do, not 'force" everyone to IMAP. It doesn’t suit everyone.
Oh, maybe along the lines of proprietary and unknown ? FairEmail can import an ‘mbox’ file, which is great, but I would need name/location. I guess I can go look for some sort of export of the emails from the Samsung app. I did read somewhere it was SQLite format.
A cursory glance and the common method is to use IMAP to push all the emails to a server and then retrieve them via POP3 in the new email app. Whether that keeps folder structures or not I have no idea.
Have recently installed the FairEmail app as I needed a replacement POP3 email client. It’s easy to setup and use, loads of features, plus the author has been very helpful. Just documenting the experience with importing past emails from a Samsung email app.
Is is a well known fact that Samsung do not make it public the location of the email box. It’s also not known if it is MBOX or MAILDIR, but that doesn’t really matter. Further to this ‘proprietary’ stance, one cannot even ‘view’ the location by searching through a phones directory. Either hidden file/s or the need to ‘root’ the phone to be able to start. No thanks.
There are many tools for backing up an Android system but most fail to backup emails. That would be because of point 1 I assume. There are a number of tools for importing settings, contacts, etc, but in my (somewhat) frustrating search for several days, found nothing to import emails. Some tools were close though.
The reference to ‘transferring’ emails from one phone to another or between phone and PC was usually high on a search list. However it entailed using a Google cloud as the intermediatry location. Emails files on a cloud, so that equates to zero privacy to me, …no thanks.
The Samsung option of using Smart Switch appeared to be very flakey and in the end not able to transfer from phone to PC. But even that tool appears to not include emails.
There is some ‘import’ tool for Thunderbird. Not sure by the docs if it did actually import emails on an Android ? If one can’t see/view the location, how can an import even commence ?
So, several days of trying to find some ‘method’ to import the emails. By ‘shelving’ the idea/concept of doing it that way, another method became clear …
The Samsung app has been used as POP3, so no emails on the server
Add a new IMAP account within the app
Now we have the Samsung app with a POP3 account and a IMAP account
Although tedious, it is possible to move emails from one account to the other, from the POP3 to the IMAP. Then the emails at least get to the server.
Have only tested with a few emails. Possibly a complete folder can be moved (or copied ? ) from the POP3 account to the IMAP account ?
