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...
- Save a copy of the Eudora Settings file containing the open windows (such as from the backup).
- Extract resources from the Eudora Settings file into a text file using DeRez. In Terminal: /Developer/Tools/DeRez Eudora\ Settings > resources_open_windows.
- Using a text editor, edit the resources_open_windows file created above.
- 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).
- 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).
- 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.
- Use Calculator to convert the decimal inode number to hex.
- 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.
- 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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