Importing email from Outlook and Outlook Express
As mac Minis and iPods tempt users over to the Mac platform, some will be looking to bring their emails with them.
There are a number of ways to get your emails over from a PC to a Mac (e.g. doing “The IMAP Shuffle” or using a program like Outlook2Mac), but you can also do it using an open source utility called DbxConv. Here’s how:
1. Download DbxConv and unzip it into a new folder on your PC’s c: drive (e.g. c:\emails).
2. Locate all your Outlook Express mailboxes (search for *.dbx in Windows Explorer) and copy them over into the same folder (e.g. c:\emails). If you use Outlook, you could try importing all the mail in your .pst file into Outlook Express first and then copying the .dbx files into the folder after that.
3. Open a DOS prompt window (Start Menu > Programs > Accessories > DOS Prompt) or click on Run in the Start Menu, type in cmd and press enter.
4. Navigate to the folder you created (e.g. c:\emails).
5. Type:
6. All your .dbx files will be converted into .mbx format.
7. Transfer all the resulting files over to your Mac and put them in a folder (maybe on your Desktop).
8. Open Mail and select “Import Mailboxes” from the File menu. Select “Other”, then check the “Mailboxes (mbox format)” and tell Mail where you saved the transferred files.
9. Voila! All done.
UPDATE: Or you could try this method using Mozilla to convert Outlook’s *.pst files.
Similar Posts:
- Importing Contacts from Outlook or Outlook Express
- From Outlook to Mail.app with libpst
- Switching from Outlook to Apple Mail via Mozilla
- ABFiller: Importing Outlook Contacts made easy
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Tags: Apple Mail, dbx, dbxconv, importing email, mail.app, mailboxes, outlook, outlook express, switching
September 14th, 2005 at 11:41 pm
[...] Switchers moving over to Mac will want to bring their contacts with them after importing their mail into Apple Mail. I know of two ways to move contacts over. [...]
September 30th, 2005 at 10:01 pm
[...] Getting your head around the new software is one thing. Moving your mail over from Outlook or whatever PC client you used is another. You can read some tips about how to do that here and here. [...]
November 22nd, 2005 at 11:55 pm
[...] I’ve blogged before about using DbxConv and Outlook2Mac to switch Outlook messages, contacts and calendars over to Apple Mail. [...]
December 12th, 2005 at 9:30 pm
hi im just wondering if u kno any web sites dat r quicker at sending messages than msn messenger but onne dat u have 2 sign on from line like msn hotmail.co.uk for example
plz ur a life saver if their is on thanxz
December 12th, 2005 at 10:03 pm
Hi Tracey. I use Fastmail for my email. I think it is a terrific service.
Fastmail has free accounts, but you do have to sign up for them. I can’t think of any service that would give you email without the need to sign-up to create an account.
February 3rd, 2006 at 3:30 pm
I just wanted to say THANKS! for this great tutorial to assist in transfering mail from outlook express on the pc to mac mail! It worked like a charm and now my girlfriend loves me again. Yes, I introduced the MAC into this relationship and not getting all her mail over immediatly was having a bit of an impact
February 3rd, 2006 at 4:14 pm
Good news!
I love a happy ending :)
April 23rd, 2006 at 9:55 pm
Hi ,
You are great ; great prog !!!!
You saved me in corner .
Patrick
I changed to Mac Book Pro , I love it ! Why the f..k I don´t changed bevor
October 17th, 2006 at 5:59 am
any ideas on how to switch from mac mail to outlook? i am working remotely and using broadband dialup. mac not so cool for that. want to switch my mailboxes from mac mail to outlook on my macbook pro…
October 17th, 2006 at 7:15 am
Hi Rob,
Are you using Panther or Tiger? The mailbox structure is quite different in each.
I wonder if the suggestion at the end of this post will help:
http://www.hawkwings.net/2005/10/23/switching-from-thunderbird-to-apple-mail/
December 8th, 2006 at 5:31 am
Hi
I have saved my .dbx folders on a portable hard drive and no longer have my PC just my macbook pro. Is there anyway I can convert to my .dbx folders to .mbox on the mac without using a pc?
Thanks
Rosie
December 8th, 2006 at 9:21 am
Hi Rosie. I wonder if emailchemy will help you. It converts an astonishing amount of formats.
December 27th, 2006 at 2:21 am
Just want to thank you for the tip! I’m gradually transfering all my stuff – music, photos, email, etc. – from my trusty old Dell desktop PC to a shiny new Mac Book Pro. Thanks to you (and of course the author of dbxconv.exe) transfering the email has been totally painless.
December 30th, 2006 at 9:11 pm
Thank you, thank you for the great tips & app!
January 21st, 2007 at 9:55 pm
Thank you for the tip. dbxconv works well indeed! Oh yes, it might be obvious but it’s easy to forget: don’t copy *.dbx files while Outlook Express is running it can lead to data corruption.
January 26th, 2007 at 11:41 pm
Hello,
I tried using this tip, it worked (even though it was very slow…:-)).
But do you know how to transfer your outlook express emails in a way that the organization of the folders is transfered as well (I have around 400 folders… and now they all appear one below the other in Mail.app… and all the hierarchical structure is gone).
If you know how to do that, that would be great!
Thanks for the great tip and content of your site.
Regards,
Julien
January 27th, 2007 at 8:35 am
Julien, I’ve never tried to do this myself, but I wonder if using Mozilla as the middle man will give you better results:
http://www.hawkwings.net/2005/11/22/switching-from-outlook-to-apple-mail-via-mozilla/
Another option is to move all your email to IMAP, which will not only keep your folders intact, but help you to sync your email between multiple computers and give you extra insurance against data loss.
February 7th, 2007 at 12:26 am
Help! Some of our important e-mail on outlook express is going directly into the delete file.
Could you please help me as to the solution.
Thank you very much. Pete
vobeda@alynk.com
February 7th, 2007 at 12:30 am
Switch to Apple Mail.
February 20th, 2007 at 7:27 pm
Thank you so much for this amazing program and web tutorial! This literally recovered e-mail I had in storage for 2 or 3 years! THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
March 18th, 2007 at 8:02 pm
POP @ mac -> IMAP -> Big mess with Stupid Outlook Express on XP -> back to mail.app !
Works like a charm ;)
Thanks !
April 30th, 2007 at 10:07 am
Great!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
May 17th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
This is a great tip.
If somebody is looking for a more automated way of converting Outlook email to mbox files, check out our product – MessageSave –
http://www.techhit.com/outlook/export_import_outlook_mac.html
May 21st, 2007 at 1:46 pm
Thanks for posting this. I found that my version of Mail (2.1.1) does not have the “Mailboxes (mbox format)†checkbox and would not recognize the *.mbx files. I renamed them to *.mbox and everything worked fine.
November 3rd, 2007 at 3:46 am
Hi there. I’m evangelising Macs to my website clients and most of them will be adopting Mac’s Mail to replace the Outlook Express they are familiar with, mostly on the basis of not getting virused up every week and having to get someone to de-louse their PC. They will need to bring their old messages over to their Mac in most cases before they scrap the PC altogether and it looks like your method will save a lot of hassle for Switchers.
I think you could write a nice Switcher’s guide article for the excellent UK-based magazine MacFormat which caters for PC to Mac switchers in it’s articles. The editor’s (Graham Barlow) email is: gbarlow@futurenet.co.uk
I would strongly suggest you send them a proposal for an article.
By the way – thanks for saving my reputation!
best of luck,
James Burke
Ireland
June 19th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
Works great for me..
(outlook express 6.0019 to IMail 2.1.3)
Many thanks !
Leo Bakker
Netherlands
June 20th, 2008 at 12:11 am
would like to add that I had to move the imported folders (in Imail) from the import folder to another folder otherwise the e-mails were not readable after a whiie..
August 28th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
The website list in “1.” above (DbxConv) is German. Is there an equivalent English site? Thanks!
October 7th, 2008 at 10:35 am
What do you suggest if the PC is not working? I’m getting the hard drive info off of it but I imagine that functionality will be limited. I can export directly, but probably won’t be able to save the files as a different file name or into a different program before taking it off the computer.
December 8th, 2008 at 3:44 am
[...] called DbxConv and is available here: http://people.freenet.de/ukrebs/dbxconv.html This site – Importing email from Outlook and Outlook Express | Hawk Wings – gives a good description of how it works so I’m going to give it a go tomorrow. K86 – I’m going [...]
December 28th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
Did you think that you can import your email with duplicate emails? If you don` t want to import them you should use outlook 2007 duplicate email remover
May 24th, 2010 at 6:56 pm
This worked really well for me. Thanks for the clear instruction!
June 18th, 2010 at 9:13 am
((If you use Outlook, you could try importing all the mail in your .pst file into Outlook Express))
Hi
Thanks for this tip
I feel there is a typo ,,,,,shouldn’t be “exporting” instead of word “importing” ?
Thanks