How to convert Apple Mail to Standard MBOX – Tutorial
It may come as a surprise that Apple Mail doesn’t use the standard MBOX files. Apple Mail started using .EMLX files to store contents in a way to make index search more efficient.
However, in doing so, they strayed away from the de facto standard of MBOX files. If you see a file or folder named .MBOX inside Apple Mail, it means it is just a folder with .mbox extension and not your standard MBOX file.
Standard MBOX file is has many benefits (as evident from the word ‘standard’ itself), and the fact that Apple Mail no more stores contents in MBOX files can be a problem. But do not worry. “Mail Extractor Max,” an excellent Mac utility from USL Software will let you convert Apple Mail to standard MBOX files very quickly and thoroughly.
The tutorial below will you take through each step in a clear, friendly manner, so even if you are not experienced with email migration, you can easily convert Apple Mail to standard MBOX files.
How to convert Apple Mail to Standard MBOX using Mail Extractor Max:
- First, download the tool here and use it in a free trial mode.
- Double-click the setup file/installer and follow the instructions to install it within minutes.
- Click ‘Load’ to load your Apple Mail database.
- Click ‘Auto-load‘ from the two options available to let the tool automatically pick up your data from the Apple Mail primary identity database. The other option is for manually locate “Apple Mail Mailbox Export”, “Mail” folder copied or EMLX files to convert them to MBOX file format.
- You can un-tick the folders you don’t want to convert. Furthermore, you can also ignore all empty folders by ticking the appropriate box just above the ‘view’ section.
- Choose your output as “MBOX” from the list of available output formats. The tool can also convert Apple Mail or MBOX files to Outlook 2011 for Mac, Thunderbird, Postbox, Entourage, EML, or RGE files (doesn’t apply to this tutorial).
- Click ‘Convert’ to start data conversion.
- Choose the location where you want to save the converted MBOX files and click ‘Save’. You can see the data being converted in real time in the progress bar,
- Once done, you can read the brief log report or the full log report saved in a text file. There is also a link in the final confirmation window to the location where the tool saved your MBOX files.
- Click “OK” to finish and close the confirmation window.
This is the simplest approach for converting Apple Mail to standard MBOX files. The MBOX files can be used anywhere where the program/client supports MBOX format, such as Thunderbird and many others.
Download the free trial version today and see for yourself how “Mail Extractor Max” can be the best tool you can ever get for this job. The free trial mode works for ten items per folder.
The tutorial – (How to convert Apple Mail to Standard MBOX) helps you to migrate your emails using Mail Extractor Max.