Recover open Eudora windows after restoring from a backup

Dec 29, '09 07:30:00AM

Contributed by: emailboy

I don't know how many of us die-hards still use Eudora for Mac OS X, but for those who do, it can be very annoying to lose your open windows list after restoring from a backup. The culprit is that Eudora keeps track of things by directory ID (inode number on OS X), and restoring from a backup usually changes this. Here's one way to recover...

  1. Save a copy of the Eudora Settings file containing the open windows (such as from the backup).
  2. Extract resources from the Eudora Settings file into a text file using DeRez. In Terminal: /Developer/Tools/DeRez Eudora\ Settings > resources_open_windows.
  3. Using a text editor, edit the resources_open_windows file created above.
  4. Eudora's open windows are in dJvU resources. The first two bytes are the type of window; message windows are 0x0024.The next four bytes are the directory ID (inode number). Because the mailbox was restored from a backup, it will have a new directory ID (inode).
  5. If most of your open message windows were in one mailbox, for example an IMAP personality's Inbox, find the directory ID in the text file that is a likely candidate (e.g., occurs most often).
  6. Find the new directory ID (inode) for the mailbox parent. An IMAP mailbox exists as a directory containing two mailbox files, one for hidden messages and the other for visible messages. So, for an IMAP personality's Inbox, the actual Inbox mailbox is IMAP Folder/Personality/Inbox/Inbox, and the directory ID is that of the IMAP Folder/Personality/Inbox/ directory. So, use ls -i IMAP Folder/Personality/Inbox/ to find the inode.
  7. Use Calculator to convert the decimal inode number to hex.
  8. Use the text editor to replace the old directory ID with the new. For example, if the old directory ID was 0x49F73B and the new is 0x11981A9, then search for {rt$"0024 0049 F73B and replace all instances with {rt$"0024 0119 81A9.
  9. Use Rez to compile the text file into a Eudora Settings file. (If you've run Eudora since restoring the mailboxes, you can use a current Eudora Settings file by extracting its resources into a text file as above, deleting the dJvU entries, and pasting in the edited ones you created in the previous step). To compile in Terminal: /Developer/Tools/rez -o Eudora\ Settings < resources_file.
Many, many thanks to Steve Dorner for giving me this information.

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