[KDE] kontact

[przxqgl]

i'm currently on bionic (18.04) and kontact 5.7.3.

i rely on email, which is one of the reasons i did NOT upgrade from trusty until other things started breaking: i have read some things about the intermediary versions of kontact/kmail that sounded like it was not going the way that they had hoped.

finally, other things started breaking, and i bit the bullet, backed up all 4GB of data (including an email backup that only partially worked), did a clean install of bionic, and...

suddenly i am confronted with the problem that i've read everybody griping about with the previous version of kontact: the "getting folder contents. please wait…" message which won't go away.

so far i have only experienced it once -- FOR THREE DAYS -- before i learned that restarting akonadi (sometimes) fixes it. it worked, this time, but now i get back to the main point, which is that I RELY ON EMAIL.

i wonder why it is that they put a defective version of kontact in the repositories with the LTS version of the system?

i also wonder when the non-defective version will make it down to the LTS repositories? i don't want to have to switch email clients until then, because kontact, literally, does everything i need it to... when it works.

lastly, i wonder how i can upgrade kontact with the repositories i have, WITHOUT having to upgrade my system to cosmic, which is not a LTS version?

[jglen490]

Sorry for your problems, and someone else will actually be helpful. I dumped the whole KDE PIM/Akonadi mess a long time ago - it just isn't worth the effort to fix WHEN it goes wrong. The one-time pain of converting kmail to Thunderbird was well worth it.

[SpecialEd]

Sorry for your problems, and someone else will actually be helpful. I dumped the whole KDE PIM/Akonadi mess a long time ago - it just isn't worth the effort to fix WHEN it goes wrong. The one-time pain of converting kmail to Thunderbird was well worth it.

What he said!

[GreyGeek]

What he said, what he said!

[przxqgl]

will thunderbird allow me to create my own custom "X-Benediction" header?

it's a local email client, right? not some web-based thing?

[Thomas00]

will thunderbird allow me to create my own custom "X-Benediction" header?
it's a local email client, right? not some web-based thing?

Don't know about the header part but can confirm that Thunderbird is a local email client.
The one you'll get via the Kubuntu ppa via "apt-get install" is a bit dated though (at least when I checked last), hence you may consider downloading directly from the Mozilla website. v60 is the most current version.

I have been a Thunderbird user for years but switched to KMail/KOrganizer when installing 18.04 just to see if I like it and what closer KDE integration may give. But only yesterday I finally gave up on it and went back to Thunderbird/Lightning. Main reason was not so much KMail but rather KOrganizer which did not properly handle events which led to a few unpleasant situations, something I can not afford. Didn't use any of the other Kontact features such as journal and ToDO.

[Thomas00]

Sorry for your problems, and someone else will actually be helpful. I dumped the whole KDE PIM/Akonadi mess a long time ago - it just isn't worth the effort to fix WHEN it goes wrong. The one-time pain of converting kmail to Thunderbird was well worth it.

Almost forgot this part! Given that I like a clean system along the line of "what I don't use I don't want installed", did you remove or simply stop? "removepkg akonadi" vs. "akonadictl stop"

[jglen490]

I remove every part of KDE PIM after every fresh install of the latest LTS. Yes, that's a lot of work, but it's way less work than trying to repair it. In my opinion, the whole KDE PIM and its Akonadi-related underpinning is way too complex to remain stable for very long, and completely unnecessary. Thunderbird and its calendar module, Lightning, are simply better.

[przxqgl]

Main reason was not so much KMail but rather KOrganizer which did not properly handle events which led to a few unpleasant situations, something I can not afford. Didn't use any of the other Kontact features such as journal and ToDO.

i already don't use korganizer. i use kmail and akregator, and, quite simply, i don't know where to start to "migrate" my mail to something else. and i'm guessing i'd have to find another application to replace akregator... and i really like my custom X-Benediction header. i've had it for closing in on twenty years...

[przxqgl]

In my opinion, the whole KDE PIM and its Akonadi-related underpinning is way too complex to remain stable for very long, and completely unnecessary. Thunderbird and its calendar module, Lightning, are simply better.

while i don't necessarily disagree with you, i've used kmail and/or kontact for close to twenty years, and i'd like to stick with it if at all possible. as i said, i don't use korganizer, and i do use akregator, and i don't know of anything that would be an appropriate alternative to kontact at this point. do you?

[przxqgl]

okay, i've bit the bullet and downloaded Thunderbird...

where is the mail directory that contains all the mail that i've already received?

i know it's one of those dot-folders, but it doesn't appear to be ~/.kde or ~/.local...

and it's not the default, which is ~/.thunderbird

any clues?

[jlittle]

where is the mail directory that contains all the mail that i've already received?
...
and it's not the default, which is ~/.thunderbird

Well, that's where my thunderbird puts its data, in a directory with a randomly generated name.

If in thunderbird you click Help, Troubleshooting Information, aboutrofiles, it should tell you.

[WWDERW]

and it's not the default, which is ~/.thunderbird

any clues?

That's where it puts mine as well. As jlittle also mentioned, it's usually a random generated name. Unless you were moving an existing one to a new install and you didn't run that new install for the first time to generate it's own folder (at least that was my way around it and it still seems to be working unless an update killed that ability).

[przxqgl]

clarification:

i have been running Kmail/Kontact for many years, and have recently installed Thunderbird.

i can see all of the email that i have received when i can get Kmail to work, but i CANNOT see that same mail in Thunderbird.

what i want to do is connect Thunderbird to the same place that Kmail is connected to, so that i can see, and respond, to emails that i have already received.

[jlittle]

what i want to do is connect Thunderbird to the same place that Kmail is connected to, so that i can see, and respond, to emails that i have already received.

If you've set up your mail accounts properly in thunderbird, maybe they're using POP? If your mail provider supports IMAP, I suggest moving to IMAP, but that can be tedious.

If you have mail that's not on your mail provider's server, and so is only in kmail, you'll have export the mail from kmail, and import it into thunderbird.