Every once in a while, we get questions like the following our inbox:
“I have an MBOX file from Mac Mail. I would like to open it in Outlook 2019 client in Windows but there’s no such option to do. I am stumped. Is there anyway I can do this that doesn’t required hours of manual and high technical work?”
One Cannot Open MBOX in Outlook 2019, Why?
The above question is posed by Sally, one of the regular readers, someone with very elemental knowledge on emails and email clients.
Such questions are too frequent. Our first and direct answer, and somewhat harsh sounding, is always, “You Can’t”.
Which is technically right. MBOX is not the format applicable in Windows Outlook clients (any version). But we realized that it’s not that they want MBOX file in Outlook 2019 but want to import the data in MBOX in Outlook. There’s a difference.
And that’s what you can do: convert MBOX to PST and then import PST using Outlook’s import feature.
One of the tools we recommend to Sally, and anyone with the same question, is “Mail Extractor Pro”. One of the main reasons is that it is Mac supporting. It’s better to convert MBOX file in Mac than in Windows.
Here’s how to Open MBOX in Outlook 2019:
- You launch it in MacOS, load the MBOX file, choose folders to convert (select all for full conversion)
- Specify maximum size for PST file you want (larger files will be split)
- Click Convert
- Then go to the output folder, copy PST files, and move them to windows PC.
- Launch Outlook -> go to Import/Export -> Import from a program or file -> Outlook data file (.pst) -> select the PST file (or files)
There you go. You have not technically imported MBOX to Outlook 2019, but the results are same.
Way to Open MBOX in Outlook 2019
“Mail Extractor Pro” makes it so much easier and effective than any other tool you can find.
- It also gives you the option to convert “Mail” database directly to PST files. So, you might not actually need MBOX files in the first place.
- But if you have MBOX from other sources, you can use the MBOX to PST conversion feature as you want.
- The tool features other conversion options too for the interested users: It can convert Thunderbird, Postbox, Mac mail, and MBOX files to PST as well.
- The PST file the tool generates is applicable (import-able) in all Outlook versions, including the latest Outlook 2019 edition.
- You can avoid getting too large PST files, which often proves to be detrimental in importing them. Much better to have multiple reasonably sized files than a single massive one.
- The tool retains all the original properties, metadata, and structure. Including Unicode characters, images, folder hierarchy, headers, MIME content, and attachments.
There’s a free edition for you to get up close with all the features and see it in action directly.