[MlMt] Mass importing from Gmail via Takeout?

[Bill Cole]

On 2024-11-14 at 10:44:41 UTC-0500 (Thu, 14 Nov 2024 16:44:41 +0100)
Robert M. Münch <mailmate at lists.freron.com>
is rumored to have said:

> Hi,
>
> I have a new system and about 300.000 emails in Gmail. The big 
> question is how to get these into MailMate best.

There are 2 options:

1. Re-download all the messages into a new MM account.

2. Trick MM into thinking that it already has that account and all of 
its messages.

> Since my other system's MM installation is pretty old and has some 
> quirks, I want to start fresh with MM.

Option #1 it is then.

> Has anyone tried to use Google Takeout to export all Gmail content and 
> import it into MM? Does that work? What if I already downloaded some 
> emails via IMAP? Are duplicates recognized?

That's an Option #2 variant and is not going to work.

The message-per-file layout of the MM local message store is easily 
understood by a human looking at it, but it is not in any way a standard 
that Google Takeout would follow.

It should theoretically be possible to copy all of the messages in an 
existing account from one Mac to another, if you can do a perfect copy 
including the essential extended attributes that MM adds to every 
message file. You could then have MM rebuild its indexing database from 
the existing messages. Benny has never fully documented a good way to do 
this, but multiple people have suggested  procedures here in the past 
that seem reasonable. Obviously, that is NOT a "fresh start."

-- 
Bill Cole
bill at scconsult.com or billcole at apache.org
(AKA @grumpybozo at toad.social and many *@billmail.scconsult.com 
addresses)
Not Currently Available For Hire
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