Trouble with Email Client & FRM Files

[HoppaLong]

(I apologize for the length of this post. This problem is complex.

I didn't want to leave out anything that might lead to a resolution.)

My dad is a Juno dial-up subscriber. It's cheap, but more importantly

Juno provides an incredibly simple email client, which is perfect for

my dad because he uses the internet for email only.

He called me the other day because the backup file he creates to

save his emails was expanding in size at an alarming rate. His

email folders are approximately 10MB. The file mailbackup.jbk

was 400MB! Each time he ran the backup wizard the file got bigger.

All email folders are stored as frm text files. In an attempt to

resolve this problem I came across this DOS application. It's

called Juno5bdb. Here's the link:

http://www.ephemeraleuphoria.com/media/juno5bdb.html

The ReadMe file for this app explains that several email clients follow

something called the "MBOX Format," using these frm files. FRM

files are complex text files that store all the data about your email

folders. Eudora, Netscape, Mozilla, and a few others use this MBOX

Format.

In Juno, all frm folders are stored in a file called mailbox.bdb. Juno5bdb

extracts all the frm files into a folder called "mbox." All my dad's email

folders were easy to recognize by name, except for one. Its called

Juno.Internal.frm. This file is occupying almost all the space in the

mailbox.bdb file. Its about 390MB! This Juno Internal file is suppose

to be included in the mailbox.bdb, but it's obviously corrupt. The

growth of this file is at an exponential rate. Even the largest capacity

hard drives would eventually be filled by this one file, because it keeps

doubling in size!

The terrible thing is there appears to be no fix. He's using the latest

version of Juno, 8.8. The older versions of Juno included an "import

folder" option, which is missing from 8.8.

Juno has two mailbox files, called mailbox.bdb and mailbox.atr. If

they are deleted Juno automatically creates fresh copies. If the

"import folder" option was available, I could delete these corrupt

mailbox files. After Juno created fresh copies I could import all my

dad's legitimate frm files back into Juno. This would recreate all his

email folders without that corrupt Juno.Internal.frm file. Problem

solved.

Now, I don't know what to do. Do I uninstall 8.8 and reinstall an earlier

version of Juno that has the "import folder" option? (Contacting Juno

tech support is a complete waste of time.)

Is it possible to recreate the mailbox.bdb file without Juno.Internal.frm

included? My final thought is to figure a way to import these frm files

into version 8.8, even though this option is no longer available.

My brain is twisted into knots! Maybe I could send my dad's emails

to an online account like gmail, and then return them to the Juno email

client.

I'm so angry with Juno I want my dad to change ISPs. He's reluntant to

switch because he likes the simplicity of Juno. He knows almost nothing

about computers, except how to use Juno and its email client.

Edited January 16, 2010 by HoppaLong