Thunderbird 1.0 OPML Import/Export

Stumble It!
Thunderbird OPML Import/Export

Thunderbird OPML Import/Export

Aha! I was digging around some more, and thought I’d see if there was any kind of official movement on OPML import for Thunderbird. So I wandered over to the Mozilla bug tracker, and did a search for “OPML” in the “Thunderbird” project. That turned up a single hit, which was Bug #258102. Towards the bottom, were some patches from Justin.

At first, I wasn’t sure how to apply them. His patch touches a file named “subscriptions.js”, which I couldn’t find in my Thunderbird installation. But then I realized that it was packed up in a .jar file. I unpacked the ‘newsblog.jar’ file (it’s just a .zip by another name), applied the patch, repacked the jar, dropped it back into my Thunderbird installation, and voila!

This still needs some work, it is alpha quality at best. Proceed at your own risk. Here there be dragons. Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball. The imported feeds will all be under your main feeds folder, it will not auto-create subfolders for you. The feeds will get imported, but don’t show up in the list when you “Manage Subscriptions”. On a similar note, only your manually added feeds will get exported. I’m sure that these bugs will be fixed at some point. Update: this appears to be a problem on my laptop installation of Thunderbird 1.0. It works better on my Debian Linux install of Thunderbird 0.8 at work.

If the above problems don’t bother you too much, and you just want to get a bunch of feeds imported now, here’s what to do:

  1. Exit Thunderbird
  2. Download my patched copy of newsblog.jar
  3. Find the original newsblog.jar file for your installation, rename it (e.g. ‘newsblog.jar.orig’), and put the new version in its place. Under a standard Windows installation, it should be under “Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird\chrome”. Under Linux/FreeBSD, try something like “/usr/share/mozilla-thunderbird/chrome”
  4. Restart Thunderbird, and go to the “Manage Subscriptions” option of your News & Blogs folder to see your shiny new OPML buttons!

Note: I did not write the OPML import code. All I can take credit for is bringing it to your attention. All kudos belong to Justin Kirby (hey look, another WordPress blog :) ), as far as I can tell.

Stumble It!

This entry was written by Dougal, posted on January 3, 2005 at 3:32 pm, filed under Blogs, Tech and tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.

47 Comments

  1. M Says:
    January 20th, 2005 at 10:57 pm

    Works like a charm in 1.0 on windoze! Thanks, was looking for this.

  2. Weblog for Costin Manolache Says:
    January 21st, 2005 at 1:11 am

    Reading mail list over RSS

    Probably old news - but I just found it today. Gmane - the mail-list-to-news gateway I’m using for most mailing lists - is also providing an RSS feed.For example: http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.comp.jakarta.tomcat.devel Also a ‘weblog-like’ view - check…

  3. Rerum Varium Says:
    January 21st, 2005 at 8:22 am

    Importar OPML en Thunderbird

    Si no fuera por Dougal Campbell, ya habría desechado Mozilla Thunderbird como cliente de correo y News. En el artículo citado hay una lista infalible de pasos para agregar soporte de importación de archivos OPML. ¡Gracias!…

  4. Christopher Carfi Says:
    January 27th, 2005 at 6:37 pm

    Heh. “Do not taunt the Happy Fun Ball.” Damn…I haven’t thought of that in years.

    Oooh! The doorbell!!! I wonder if that’s my new Bass-O-Matic?

  5. Ed's Blog Says:
    February 1st, 2005 at 3:39 am

    Import/Export rss feeds with Thunderbird

  6. Dan Semaya Says:
    February 7th, 2005 at 12:15 pm

    This works on Mac OS X. The newsblog.jar file that you need to replace is inside the Thunderbird application bundle. To get to it, control-click (or right click) on the Thunderbird icon in the Applications folder, select “Show Package Contents” and navigate to Contents/MacOS/chrome . Then the two buttons will appear. Thanks for this trick. It has worked great for me.

  7. Iban Says:
    February 8th, 2005 at 5:36 am

    MUY UTIL !!!

    Thank you very much / Mutxas gracias / Eskerrik asko !!

  8. Rob Says:
    February 15th, 2005 at 4:23 pm

    Beautiful! Works like a charm on Thunderbird 1.0/Windows!

    Thanks!

  9. Gordon Says:
    February 18th, 2005 at 10:42 am

    Worked first time on XP Pro/Thunderbird 1.0. Cheers!

  10. ShuMann Says:
    February 25th, 2005 at 11:43 am

    Whoa - great :)

    Haven’t tried this yet, but I’ve been looking for something like this for weeks. I hate not remembering and having the SAME newsfeeds on all my systems, and both work workstations (Linux/Windows).

    If it works as advertsed, I’ll be ONE happy puppy! Thanks!

  11. Ted Says:
    March 8th, 2005 at 5:46 pm

    You rule. This was exactly what I needed, and it works — two things that don’t often go together.

  12. hugoyg Says:
    March 9th, 2005 at 8:51 pm

    it work well,tkx

  13. none Says:
    March 17th, 2005 at 7:49 pm

    Thank you, this worked. It drove me nuts not having the same newsfeeds on all my systems.

  14. sninky-chan Says:
    March 19th, 2005 at 12:53 pm

    Thanks, this JFW’d! Saved my life. Well done!!

  15. Mike’s Geek Web Blog » Blog Archive » Import / Export RSS Feed tool for Mozilla Thunderbird Says:
    March 22nd, 2005 at 5:54 pm

    [...] as getting tired of keeping my aggregators at the house and at work in synch until I found this. This just made my life alot easier. This entry was po [...]

  16. Travellers Tale Says:
    April 6th, 2005 at 5:21 pm

    の読み込み、書き出しができないこと。これじゃ使えないと思っていたところ、OPML が扱えるように機能拡張したファイルを配布しているところを発見。 geek ramblings » Thunderbird 1.0 OPML Import/Export NetNewsWire Lite から OPML

  17. soeren says Says:
    April 13th, 2005 at 9:26 am

    It also provides tighter integration, for example, using a Firefox plug-in, you can click and link or go to any page and try and subscribe to it from the contextual menu. That’s all fine and dandy. After I figured out how to patch my Thunderbird to allow for OPML export , I had most of my feeds set up, except that it ignored the hierarchy (I’m not sure whether Thunderbird’s export was hierarchical in the first place, however, so this may not be Bloglines’s fault at all). Here

  18. soeren says » Blog Archive » Bloglines Says:
    April 14th, 2005 at 1:46 am

    [...] menu. That’s all fine and dandy. After I figured out how to patch my Thunderbird to allow for OPML export, I had most of my feeds set up, except that it ignored the hiera [...]

  19. Verstehen & Gestalten - Weblog @ myblog.de Says:
    April 16th, 2005 at 7:27 pm

    eine praktische Angelegenheit, es ist ein XML-”Dialekt”, der alle (Bloglines-)Feeds sammelt und in eine Datei packt. Zunächst war ich etwas enttäuscht: Soll ich nun die ganzen Feeds von Hand eintragen? Nach kurzer Suche stiess ich zum Glück auf diese Anleitung : man muss eine Datei namens “Newsblog.jar” bei Thunderbird aufspüren ( im Ordner “chrome”) und mit der vom o.g. Blog überschreiben. Beim Mac (OSX) hab ich erstmal ne Weile gesucht, bis ich die newsblog.jar Datei gefunden habe:

  20. sequential statements » Thunderbird 1.0 Import/Export OPML Says:
    April 25th, 2005 at 11:43 am

    [...] herf=”http://mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/”>Thunderbird’s lack of ability to import/export OPML. It’s a quick install and works flawlessly.

    [...]

  21. Max At Eleven - Blog Says:
    May 3rd, 2005 at 5:28 pm

    My definitive solution to the RSS/Atom feeds problem Finally, I solved my problems with reading the RSS/Atom feeds. Better, I hope so. The ingredients of this temporary success are: An USB pen drivePortable MozUp Thunderbird MozUp Launcher Thunderbird 1.0 OPML Import/Export Before, I’ve been searching for a solution to get readable and portable feeds. What I needed was an RSS/Atom aggregator for Windows freeware, without .NET platform necessity, stable and portable. Until now, I tried some aggregators, always

  22. Citizen Keith Says:
    May 8th, 2005 at 11:49 am

    [...] city’s 60s and 70s R&B scene. Straw - I finally settled on a Linux aggregator. Thunderbird OPML Import/Export - I didn’t realize that Thunderbi [...]

  23. WhisKiTo Says:
    May 8th, 2005 at 1:02 pm

    Really good Extension

    Why doesn’t it appear in Official Thunderbird Extensions?

    thanks man ;)

  24. Jorge Laranjo Says:
    May 12th, 2005 at 10:35 am

    Hi!
    It’s works well on my MAC OS X (10.3.9) and using Thunderbird.
    Just two negative points.
    Does not support OPML using levels (subfolders) and doesn’t support ATOM feeds.

  25. Siim Says:
    May 17th, 2005 at 1:48 pm

    Hi,

    Thanks for saving couple of hours my time :)

  26. Over 40 Says:
    May 20th, 2005 at 6:19 am

    RSSリーダーソフトに再挑戦してみる

    そういえばHeadline-Readerに送金していたのを思い出した。 1年くら…

  27. richard-heider.de [Scrapbook] Says:
    May 21st, 2005 at 10:45 pm

    Thunderbird 1.0 OPML Import/Export Convert Thunderbird Subscriptions to OPML

  28. Blogs Of The Day » popular articles on WordPress blogs Says:
    June 3rd, 2005 at 4:55 pm

    Franto.com Flash blog » Hapland2 solution. Flash CLAMP Campus Adventures » Is Apple OSX Tiger Inherently Insecure? Tech macewan » Ubuntu Hoary with F-Spot, Evince & more Ubuntu Linux geek ramblings » Thunderbird 1.0 OPML Import/Export Blogs, Web, Tech Een frisse kijk op.. » MSN Virtual Earth Overig

  29. Nuudelisoppa Says:
    June 11th, 2005 at 1:56 pm

    geek ramblings Ed’s blog Tried it with Thunderbird 1.0.2 (20050317) and it works.

  30. Max At Eleven - Blog Says:
    June 15th, 2005 at 11:47 am

    Finally, I solved my problems with reading the RSS/Atom feeds. Better, I hope so. The ingredients of this temporary success are: An USB pen drive Portable MozUp Thunderbird MozUp Launcher Thunderbird 1.0 OPML Import/Export Before, I’ve been searching for a solution to get readable and portable feeds. What I needed was an RSS/Atom aggregator for Windows freeware, without .NET platform necessity, stable and portable.

  31. Adam Saunders Says:
    July 15th, 2005 at 2:05 pm

    This is great. Do you know of an extension that will import email and folders from Entourage? I’ve made the transition on my work/PC and I’m trying to finish moving my home/Mac account to Thunderbird.

  32. Tony Harper Says:
    July 29th, 2005 at 9:38 am

    Excellent! Thanks for the info.

  33. Leander de Graaf Says:
    August 2nd, 2005 at 5:10 am

    I succesfully exported my RSS feeds from MacOS X 10.4 to Windows XP and vice versa using Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.6, except for my folder structure, but that is not a big problem for me i’m glad you have made this patch available to the public.
    Maybe it will be nice to make an official extension for this functionality or even suggest it for the official client?

  34. Jalansutera Says:
    August 10th, 2005 at 9:37 pm

    thanks for the step-by-step howto. it works on my thunderbird

  36. Chow Crave :: News Aggregator / Syndication / RSS|Atom Feeds : เมื่อเกิดอาการ blog overload :: August :: 2005 Says:
    August 11th, 2005 at 7:53 am

    [...] มาถึงตรงนี้บางคนอาจจะสังเกตเห็นว่า เอ๊ะ ทำไมหน้าต่างนี้ของบุกถึงมีปุ่มขึ้นมาพิเศษสองอันที่ (ปุ่ม Import / Export OPML…) ไม่เห็นจะมีในหน้าต่างของเพื่อนๆเลยล่ะ อันนี้ก็เพราะว่าบุกลง patch พิเศษที่ทำให้มีปุ่มพิเศษสองปุ่มนี้เพิ่มขึ้นมาน่ะค่ะ ข้อดีของการลง patch นี้ก็คือทำให้เราสามารถ save (export) รายการเว็บที่เราสมัครไว้ไปใช้กับโปรแกรมอ่านข่าวตัวอื่นๆ (โดยการ import) ได้ ไม่ต้องมานั่ง add ทีละรายการอย่างที่เรากำลังจะทำต่อไปนี้อีกหลายๆรอบน่ะค่ะ ถ้าเพื่อนๆสนใจจะลง ก็ทำตามวิธีทำในเว็บที่บุกได้ลิ้งค์แล้วกันนะคะ บุกขอไม่เขียนถึง [...]

  37. b’s mixed bag :: News Aggregator / Syndication / RSS|Atom Feeds : เมื่อเกิดอาการ blog overload :: August :: 2005 Says:
    August 17th, 2005 at 3:59 pm

    [...] มาถึงตรงนี้บางคนอาจจะสังเกตเห็นว่า เอ๊ะ ทำไมหน้าต่างนี้ของบุกถึงมีปุ่มขึ้นมาพิเศษสองอันที่ (ปุ่ม Import / Export OPML…) ไม่เห็นจะมีในหน้าต่างของเพื่อนๆเลยล่ะ อันนี้ก็เพราะว่าบุกลง patch พิเศษที่ทำให้มีปุ่มพิเศษสองปุ่มนี้เพิ่มขึ้นมาน่ะค่ะ ข้อดีของการลง patch นี้ก็คือทำให้เราสามารถ save (export) รายการเว็บที่เราสมัครไว้ไปใช้กับโปรแกรมอ่านข่าวตัวอื่นๆ (โดยการ import) ได้ ไม่ต้องมานั่ง add ทีละรายการอย่างที่เรากำลังจะทำต่อไปนี้อีกหลายๆรอบน่ะค่ะ ถ้าเพื่อนๆสนใจจะลง ก็ทำตามวิธีทำในเว็บที่บุกได้ลิ้งค์แล้วกันนะคะ บุกขอไม่เขียนถึง [...]

  38. Vishal Says:
    August 18th, 2005 at 1:23 pm

    Thanks a lot, the step-by-step instructions work perfectly.

  39. geek ramblings » Firefox and Thunderbird Betas Says:
    September 14th, 2005 at 10:23 am

    [...] The new version of Thunderbird has added improvements to the RSS handling, so that hacks aren’t needed anymore. You can import and export feed lists in OPML format, and you can even have sub-folders now — sortof. You can add multiple feeds under a single folder. But the feeds won’t be individually selectable — the items all just intermingle together under the folder. There’s also no auto-detection of feeds, or drag-and-drop, both of which would be really good additions. [...]

  40. TarGz Says:
    September 17th, 2005 at 10:06 am

    Very cool,
    that’s work’s fine on my “portable thunderbird” who run from my usb key.

    Thanks

  41. Mick Says:
    October 12th, 2005 at 12:29 am

    Cheers. I searched all over for how to do this. Thanks.

  42. Entrepreneur Geek » Blog Archive » ThunderBird and OPML Says:
    January 2nd, 2006 at 8:04 am

    [...] I read about newsblog.jar on Dougal Campbell’s blog. Many people wrote about it, including Wayne Graham and Gumuz. Dougal has basically added some functions to a JavaScript file in the newsblog.jar file that provide OPML import / export. I thought of giving it a try. [...]

  43. oemebamo Says:
    January 7th, 2006 at 1:08 pm

    [...] Google Reader? Aha. Opml Import? Mja. Thunderbird Opml Export? Hmm, naaah. Of toch? Aha. Fijn! google rss thunderbird google» rss» thunderbird» [...]

  44. Too Many Words » Blog Archive » Thoughts On Pluck Says:
    January 9th, 2006 at 1:26 pm

    [...] And if anyone is using Thunderbird and is hesitating to switch because of the hassle of re-entering all the feed URIs, download this nice little extension from Dougal Campbell’s Geek Ramblings to add OPML support to Thunderbird. Dougal is one of the developers of WordPress, another worthy project if you’re not already running it (eyes towards all you Blogger people). Technorati Tags: about.com, amphetadesk, dcist, dougal campbell, firefox, metroblogging dc, newsgator, opml, pluck, rss, searchfox, thunderbird, washington post, wordpress [...]

  46. A Says:
    May 2nd, 2008 at 2:40 am

    Cannot find the newsblog.jar. What is the new link ?

  47. Dougal Says:
    May 2nd, 2008 at 8:04 am

    A: This is no longer needed. OPML support has been in Thunderbird officially for quite a while now. When I moved hosts, I didn’t bother moving some old files, like the newsblog.jar.