How to import an mbox file into the Pine or Alpine mail client?

Question

I'm a light Alpine e-mail client user.

If I navigate into ~/mail and run mail -f baz I'll get an expected list of old alpine/pine messages.

Alpine doesn't use mbox.

I added an mbox backup to that directory. When launching Pine I certainly can see that mbox.

From the Pine mail client I can see a list of mail directories:

  ALPINE 2.25   FOLDER LIST                                                                           Folder: INBOX                                                                           No Messages
INBOX               sent-mail           saved-messages      22aug_saved         foo.mbox            foobar              sent-mail-aug-2022  sent-mail-dec-2022  sent-mail-may-2022  sent-mail-nov-2022
sent-mail-oct-2022  sent-mail-sep-2022

There's the foo.mbox as expected. But, because it's mbox, and not whatever Pine will normally use, it just opens as one massive email.

How can I open this mbox file from Pine properly?

new information:

I downloaded a sample mbox file and imported it to Alpine fine, as described by the solution from the new user. So it's something about the Thunderbird mbox file which is wonky. No doubt PEBKAC of some variety. I'll ask a new question.

Answer 1

This almost works for me:

Locate Your Alpine Configuration: First, make sure Alpine is installed on your system. Find the directory where Alpine stores its mail configuration. This is typically located in your home directory and might be named .alpine or .pine.

Place Mbox File in Mail Directory: Copy or move your mbox file into the Alpine mail directory. You may need to create a new folder within the mail directory to organize the imported messages.

Launch Alpine: Open the Alpine mail client. You can do this by typing alpine in the terminal and pressing Enter.

Access Folder List: Once in Alpine, press M to access the main menu. Select "Folder List" from the menu.

Subscribe to New Folder: If you created a new folder for your Mbox file, you may need to subscribe to it. Press L for "Folder List" and then S to subscribe to a new folder. Choose the folder you created for the mbox file.

Check Imported Mail: Navigate back to the main menu (M) and select the folder where you placed the mbox file. Alpine should recognize the Mbox file, and you should see the imported emails.

for conversion of MBOX use this MBOX suite https://www.softaken.com/mbox-suite

as a general solution, that should work. Or so I understand. It's not working for the mbox file which I've downloaded from Thunderbird for unknown reasons. I'm trying to validate the mbox, or find a sample to validate.

I'm adding this as an answer because it's the general solution so far as I'm aware and therefore useful, as well as being fairly detailed.