Useful Ways to Accomplish Thunderbird to Outlook Transfer

Windows Mac

   

   

As we know that email messaging is the most popular means of digital communication. It is widely used at the general and enterprise levels. Also, email clients play a vital role in accessing email messages.

We use different email clients to access email messages as per our requirements. Based on client-server architecture, an email client can be defined as an application that runs on an individual PC or workstation. This application enables smooth email communication via sending, receiving, and organizing e-mail. An Email client stores mailbox items like email messages, attachments, calendars,s and other mailbox items. We mostly configure our email accounts on different email clients like Gmail, Yahoo, Rediffmail, and others to access our email messages. These email clients have native data storage file that works well in the same client but is not accessible on other different email client application.

Know About MBOX and PST files

Mail Box abbreviated as MBOX is one such email storage format that stores email messages in plain text form in a single text file. This format is used by many email clients like Entourage, Thunderbird, Spicebird, Apple Mail, Pocomail, Netscape, Incredimail, ClawsMail, OperaMail, MozillaMail, Evolution, Eudora, Sylpheed, Mulberry, SeaMonkey, etc.

With the clear and simplified interface, Microsoft’s built-in email application program MS Outlook offers vast enterprise-level options and efficiently syncs Contacts, Calendars, and Notes seamlessly between Windows devices. PST most commonly known as Personal Storage Table is a personal information manager for Microsoft Outlook data storing emails, email attachments, to-do items and appointments, contacts, and more.

Why Did the Need For Thunderbird to Outlook Transfer Arise?

Whenever you are using Apple Mail or any different one, that accesses email messages in MBOX format personally or professionally for a prolonged time, then you have an accumulation of plenty of emails in your mailbox. This can lead to limitations in accessing crucial emails when you work in an entirely different email client environment.

• Sometimes you are stuck in a situation when you change your organization and have to work on different email client environments like MS Outlook.
• You are on the verge of losing your crucial emails stored in MBOX file format when you have to work on MS Outlook that understands PST data file format.
• Other than this, migration from MBOX to PST enables the users to leverage nice features, an elegant simplified interface, and the flexible functioning of MS Outlook for business-related email communication.

In order to make this situation favorable, you need to accomplish Thunderbird to Outlook transfer to access your mailbox items. Now we will look into a manual process for converting MBOX files to PST format of MS Outlook. It is highly recommended that you keep a backup of your original MBOX files prior to performing this technique.

Manual process for Thunderbird to Outlook Transfer

Here, you need to import all the mailbox data to an MBOX file.

• Launch Apple Mail on your system.
• Go to the File menu, and click on the Import Mailboxes… option.
• Select the program or file from which you want to import the data.
• Click on “Files in MBOX format” and then click the Continue button.
• Now you can browse the location where the MBOX file is saved.
• You have to select the MBOX file which you want to import. Click Choose.
• Now select the item(s) you want to import.
• Click Continue to continue the process.
• Once the process is done, click on the Done tab.
• Now you can see the imported mailbox is located in the Import section of Apple Mail.

Now the whole process goes like this, as you cannot export the MBOX files directly to MS Outlook. So you need to use Eudora for the creation of the mailbox. After that, you need to use MS Outlook Express to import the messages. In the final process, you need to import the mailbox to MS Outlook from Outlook Express.

Firstly you have to install Eudora (Windows version) if it is not installed on your system.

Eudora Steps :

• Append the MBOX file extension that was imported earlier. In case it is named “InboxMBOX”, rename it “InboxMBOX.mbx”.
• Now move this file, i.e. “InboxMBOX.mbx”, to the directory(C: Documents and Settings<user>Application Data\Qualcomm\Eudora) in which Eudora stores its files.
• Open Eudora on your system. In order to finalize the creation of the mailbox, you need to double-click on the InboxMBOX.mbx file. After that, you can close Eudora.

Outlook Express Steps :

• Now Launch Outlook Express. Go to the File menu and click on Import > Messages….
• Then select Eudora from the list and click on Next.
• Browse the location in which you have moved the InboxMBOX.mbx file, and then click on OK.
• Click on Next Tab> Next again and then Finish.
• You can find the imported mailbox in the Local Folders section of Outlook Express.

 MS Outlook Steps  :

• Now open MS Outlook on your system, click on File tab > Open.
• Click on the Import section to go to Import and Export Wizard.
• Select Import Internet Mail and Addresses from the list and click on Next.
• Select Outlook Express 4. x, 5. x, 6. x or Windows Mail option. The Import Mail option given there should be checked. Click on Next.
• Now find the imported mailbox in Outlook. It would be in Outlook Today – [Personal Folders].

Common Downside of Manual process

• This manual process works well when we are not bounded by any time limitations as the manual process is always a time-consuming process that can cost you precious time.
• Thinking about the manual way to convert MBOX to PST, when you are stuck with a situation to converting many email accounts, does not sound too good.
• Also, this manual procedure fits fine for different people, it goes well with IT professionals but becomes troublesome for complete novice ones with limited computer technical knowledge.
• Now another thing is that freeway is not suited when we have corrupted MBOX files to be converted into PST format.
• Through the manual process, we can often lose data, as it does not maintain the integrity of the original file structure.

Is any MBOX converter commercial ware the right solution?

Yes, in this situation we can resort to some third-party MBOX to PST converter tool for migrating MBOX files into PST format. You can use Sysinfo MBOX to PST converter software which is windows based utility. This software is created by developers that are enriched with some useful features that can accomplish Thunderbird to Outlook transfer just in no time. With add-ons like converting normal as well as corrupted apple mail to PST, it can also save MBOX file data in multiple file formats like EML, PST, MSG, RTF, and HTML formats.

Conclusion

In this article, we have covered a short introduction to MBOX and PST file formats. Additionally, we discussed the reason for Thunderbird to Outlook transfer. After that, we performed the MBOX to PST conversion by manual and professional software. Because of the limitations of the manual method. we recommend a professional way to import thunderbird to outlook. You can also read another blog to Recover SQL Database Password.