How To

Moving email from a PC to the Mac

Background

For the purposes of this guide, I’m going to assume that you were using Outlook or Outlook Express on the PC, and you want to import your messages into the Mail app that ships with Mac OS X. I speak from personal experience with this guide. I had to do this when I switched from a PC to a Mac in September of ’05. I’ve finally solved the last piece of the puzzle, and I wanted to share this information with you so it won’t take you as long as it took me.

I had an email archive that spanned close to 10 years – a fairly complete one at that. I’d been keeping it in Outlook Express, then Outlook, over the years. When I switched to the Mac, I didn’t want to lose it. My wife had an archive that spanned a few years as well, and she kept it in Outlook. We didn’t want to lose those messages, either. As you know, there’s no easy way to import email directly from the PC into the Mac. There’s no nice and easy transfer wizard, for multiple reasons: different operating systems, different file systems, different ways of storing the mail, different applications, etc. Even if there had been a wizard, given my huge mail archive, I’d have probably crashed it.

What didn’t work

Still, I tried to be reasonable. I thought equivalent Microsoft products on the two platforms might be able to import from each other. So I took my PST from my PC, transferred to my Mac, and opened Entourage (the Outlook equivalent on the Mac). The import failed. The two can’t talk to each other. You can’t import between them either way. I thought that was pretty silly. Of all the things Microsoft does wrong, this has to be one of the more obvious ones.

Next I tried the less possible, which was to import from the PST file directly into Mail. That didn’t work, either. I surfed the internet for solutions, and stumbled across a possibility of installing Eudora on the PC, importing from Outlook into it, then copying the library onto the Mac, and using some special utility to do the PC to Mac translation. Well, Eudora failed on the import from Outlook. Again, I had a big PST, I wasn’t surprised. Plus, even when I tried transferring the messages it had managed to copy to the Mac, the utility didn’t do its job. At any rate, I hadn’t put my hopes in Eudora. It might have been all the rage in the early nineties, but it’s pretty useless now. Somebody else suggested using old versions of Netscape Mail. I tried that as well, only to fail again.

I called Apple Support, who were completely clueless about this. Finally, on my second try, the technician suggested I use an IMAP account to transfer the email between the two computers. I saw two problems with that, both related to the size of my archive: one, where am I going to find an IMAP account with more than 4GB of storage, and two, I’m not going to sit there and upload over 4GB of data through my DSL connection. It was going to take days, if not more. Obviously, not a very practical solution.

➡ Updated 1/3/08: Gmail now offers more than 6 GB (and growing) of email storage, and includes both POP and IMAP access.

What worked

Just so I won’t drag this out needlessly, Thunderbird turned out to be the best solution for the transfer. I installed it on the PC, imported from Outlook into it, then transferred the mailbox files to the Mac, where I had to delete the mailbox index files (.msf) files, and only leave the un-indexed data files there. That’s because the Mac version of Thunderbird needs to build its own indexes. So, I located the directory where the email got stored for Thunderbird on my Mac, moved the mailboxes there, and deleted the index files. I then opened up Thunderbird, and after it re-built the indexes, there were my messages! After all the trouble, I was pretty happy!

Next, I wanted to get my email into Mail. This is the step that took the longest for me, and I just solved it yesterday. Granted, I hadn’t been looking very hard since last September… Now, some of you might be asking yourselves why in the world I’d want to switch from Thunderbird to Mail, and I’ve got two reasons: one, and the most important, Spotlight indexes Mail messages, so I can search for what I need from one location, and two, iPhoto sends out photos through Mail, and we email photos a lot; we wanted to have our email messages in one place. Yes, I know, we should share our photos on the web instead, etc…

So, how did I solve it? Certainly not by calling Apple Support, who are were clueless on this issue as well. And I also didn’t solve it by importing from Thunderbird into Mail, which is impossible (not any more), as you might find out if you try it. Version 2.0.7 of Mail crashes miserably, and has done so, reliably, since September of ’05, on my every attempt to import from Thunderbird. I choose Import, then I select the Other or the Netscape/Mozilla option (since Thunderbird isn’t listed as one of the options), then I browse for the location of the message databases, and when I select Import, it crashes like a drunk limousine driver.

Instead, I solved this by doing a search on the Apple Support forums, where intrepid users have posted some great solutions. Among them, I found the Eudora Mailbox Cleaner. It’s a wonderful little utility that will let you drag your Thunderbird message databases onto its icon, and will automatically convert them to Mail message databases. It will also copy them to the proper Mail message library. All you need to do is sit back and wait for it to finish, then rebuild your Mail folders, and all your messages will appear – just follow the directions you’ll find on their website. The best part is that it didn’t crash while it processed my entire archive (over 4GB of messages)! Now that’s a reliable application!

➡ Updated 1/3/08: It turns out, as one of the commenters has pointed out, that Leopard’s version of Mail includes an import function from Thunderbird. Problem solved. Thanks Logan! Now I wonder if a new version of the Eudora Mailbox Cleaner will be released, or whether this new import feature in Mail will negate the need for it.

When I got done, I was ecstatic. All my mail is indexed with Spotlight, and I can instantly find messages and files that are years old without having to do separate searches for each!

Let’s review

  1. Install Thunderbird on PC, import from Outlook/Outlook Express into it.
  2. Install Thunderbird on Mac, note storage location for mail files.
  3. Copy message databases onto Mac, in the specific directory where mail is stored, delete index files, then start up Thunderbird and let it rebuild the indexes.
  4. Use the Eudora Mailbox Cleaner to export to Mail. (only for OS X Tiger)
  5. Rebuild mailboxes in Mail, then relax, because you’re done! (only for OS X Tiger)
  6. If you have Leopard, skip steps 4 and 5, and use Mail’s import function to get your messages out of Thunderbird. (only for OS X Leopard)

💡 Thunderbird and the Eudora Mailbox Cleaner are free software. If you find them helpful, please don’t forget to donate to them, even if it’s just a few dollars. It’s the right thing to do if you want to support the efforts of their developers. Here is a donation link for Mozilla (the maker of Thunderbird), and here is a donation link for the Eudora Mailbox Cleaner.

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36 thoughts on “Moving email from a PC to the Mac”

  1. Iska, what you could try is to export your mail from Outlook, then import those files into Thunderbird. Try exporting into a separate PST file, or exporting into the mbox format that Thunderbird understands a little better. Then take it from there. Sorry I can’t help further, I haven’t used Outlook since last year, but I know there are various export options within the application.

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  2. iska rabeendran's avatar iska rabeendran says:

    thanks for your reply. There are no special settings in Thunderbird, it’s just 4 clicks to export (tools/import/mail/outlook), it doesn’t give you any choice. That’s why I’m moving away from PCs, too many times what works for somebody doesn’t work for others, I hate them. well hopefully it will be less the case with Macs.

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  3. iska rabeendran's avatar iska rabeendran says:

    Step 1 didn’t even work. On my PC, I imported my Outlook 2007 email from the latest version of Thunderbird (2.0.0.23), but it didn’t copy most of the attached messages in emails…
    thanks

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    • Iska, that’s something you need to work out on your own. This method worked for me and many others. If it doesn’t work for you, it’s likely a user error. If I were you, I’d consult the Thunderbird help files regarding import operations from Outlook.

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  4. Michael's avatar Michael says:

    Thanks, Raoul. I just did this in Leopard 10.5.7. The move from PC to Mac was perfect. Then when I used Mail.app’s import feature I found that a number of messages seemed to be missing even after I rebuilt the folders. I trashed the imported folders and imported from TBird to Mail using that handy Eudora mailbox Cleaner — sweet! I’d advise you tell people to just use the tool — it’s a very minor step and was more effective for me.

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  5. Glad to hear things worked out for you, Scott! Thank you for outlining a more straightforward process for the transfer as well. I hope it proves useful to others!

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  6. Hey, Raul,

    Thanks for the post — it steered me in the right direction. Julius was right in saying that the mailbox files created by Thunderbird for Windows are actually .mbox files, but without the suffix.

    So, here’s the process as I performed it:
    1) Download and install Thunderbird on the PC
    2) Launch Thunderbird, and follow the automatic onscreen prompts to import mail from Outlook Express (I expect the same thing will happen if you used Outlook).
    3) Use Windows Explorer to find the folder named “Local Folders.” This is where Thunderbird saves the mail data.
    4) Copy your mailbox files (the ones without the “.msf” suffix) onto a CD and then onto your Mac (or directly onto your Mac, if you’ve managed to network the two machines).
    5) Add the suffix “.mbox” to the names of the files.
    6) Import your mailboxes into Apple Mail, using File/Import Mailboxes… and choosing “Import data from mbox files.”
    7) Et, voila! Your old Outlook Express messages are successfully transferred to Mail.

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  7. Jeffery and Sheri, I’m not familiar with Earthlink’s proprietary email system, so I’m not sure what to say. It might be worth looking into whether the messages still exist on Earthlink’s servers, or whether they were downloaded for good onto your computer. If they still exist on the servers, you can configure Mail to connect to their servers and download the messages into its own mailbox. Otherwise, try out the Eudora Mailbox Cleaner, and see what happens. Good luck!

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  8. sheri's avatar sheri says:

    Hey Raoul…

    Appreciate your posting!

    Question… (the address we have should say it all!) We’re screwed on “earthlink’s” proprietary mail software…

    Want to move mail/adresses from PC to MAC… But after 30 hours of help from Ghandi… NO GO!

    Emails and address book are stored on PC hard drive in “Earthlink” files not on “outlook”…

    Whe we tried to move them into outlook… but lost much of the pertinent data… and evething moved over to the MAC via “02M” software- came in with only today’s date!

    So, wondering if you think that the “Eudora Mailbox Cleaner” …. would help us in this situation?!??!

    Appreciate your input-

    Thanks

    jeffery, sheri

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  9. Grace, I’m not sure what’s going on there, sorry. All I can say is that this method worked for me. Keep trying though. Remember you have to have Thunderbird installed on the Mac as well, and you need to move the mailboxes into the same location where the Mac stores the Thunderbird mailboxes in order for this to work. Once the transfer is successful and the index files are deleted, you’ll need to rebuild the indexes in Thunderbird. Only then will you be able to import the emails into Mail.

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  10. Thanks much for this discussion, but unfortunately I’ve failed so far. I used Macs growing up, but was forced into PC-land many years ago for work. Thankfully, I am now coming back to the promised land. 🙂

    I’ve successfully imported PC Outlook into PC Thunderbird. But when I move the files over to the Mac, they look like a different type of file (Unix instead of Plain Text). I can’t seem to get them to show up, whether or not I delete the .msf files and no matter where I put them. Any ideas?

    Thanks!

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  11. Brad, you’re on the right track. Perhaps you can check the Thunderbird documentation or maybe post in their forums to find out how to import a standalone PST into Thunderbird. There’s a sort of a long-way-around, which involves Outlook Express, and it’s detailed here. You could try that as well. Hope it works out!

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  12. Brad's avatar Brad says:

    I’m trying your approach, but Thunderbird on the PC (XP on Parallels) is not finding anything to convert. Do I need to move the PST to a specific location?

    I suspect that I may be seeing this because Outlook has never been installed on this machine, so the MAPI interfaces are missing. I also had a similar error using Outlook Express.

    Is there a way to get MAPI installed without having an Outlook installer, or is there another workaround?

    Thanks! Your information sharing is appreciated!

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  13. Keith, Holger, what’s all this newfangled IMAP stuff? Never heard of it. For me the choice is simple. My last name is Pop, and therefore I use the POP protocol. 😀

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  14. @Raoul: The mails are on my server and my machine, so I can search them locally and can make sure they are backupped locally as well as remotely. IMAP doesn’t mean the mails are only remotely saved. 🙂

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  15. @Raoul: If you use Mail.app to access your Gmail mailbox via IMAP, a copy of your mailbox is stored locally, and can be searched off-line using Spotlight.

    I’ve been doing this for some time, and it works great.

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  16. Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I like the POP protocol. (It might also have something to do with my last name…) I like downloading my emails to my hard drive and knowing that they’re backed up locally in addition to the server. I use Gmail for all my personal email, and all of my messages are on the server as well, but when I have them locally, I know they’re mine. And I can search my mailbox instantly with Spotlight, which is really nice.

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  17. You just reminded me why I’m using IMAP since a few years now. 🙂 It’s so much easier with the flat text files sitting on my own server which are accessible from practically everywhere in the world (using webmail) and every modern device, a phone, my notebook or whatever device that supports IMAP…

    Just one more reason to drop proprietary stuff like Outlook’s PST format. (I know, Outlook in combination with Exchange makes sense in a business environment. Though, it’s no PST then and the data can be accessed via IMAP.)

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  20. This will no longer work with the newest iteration of Mail.app because it saves each email as a separate text file. This allows for better indexing, less chances of corruption of an entire mbox file (thereby losing all emails inside), and plays well with Time Machine which indexes only files that have been changed.

    However, I simply needed to transfer emails from Outlook to Thunderbird on Windows, then from Thunderbird Windows to Thunderbird Mac. For that task, this tut worked well. Thanks!

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  21. Adrian, I’m not sure what you mean, sorry. I haven’t been trying for “so long”, as you suggest. I tried this method at some time in the past, succeeded, then documented it for readers like you and moved on.

    At the time when I did this, this was the only way things worked. It’s possible that the newer version of Eudora Mailbox Cleaner allows for a wider range of mailbox files.

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  22. Adrian's avatar Adrian says:

    hi, thanks man. you really helped me into the right way. There was just one thing I’ve done differently, i’m just curious why you didn’t (since you’ve been trying so long)…
    Why would you import the messages on your mac into TB, while you can also drop the database files directly onto the Eudora Mailbox Cleaner.
    Please let me know

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  24. Hey Isaac — as I explained in my post, you’ll need to import the OE emails into TB. Use TB’s own Import tool to do that. Point it to the OE store and follow the TB documentation on this. After you have all of your emails TB’s own format, move them over to the Mac and take it from there as outlined in my post.

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  25. Isaac's avatar Isaac says:

    I understand that Outlook Express uses .dbx files. So I should copy the dbx files of the various folders (Inbox, Sent, 2005, 2006, etc) into the TB folder where mails are stored. But does dbx folders still work here? I tried, but without success. Please provide some advice…

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  27. Marc T.'s avatar Marc T. says:

    Many thanks! Your solution for the transfer works great. I am using Apple Mail ver 2.1.5 and it still can’t import from thunderbird directly. Apple suggests a solution using a home LAN or a network cable, but the transfer method you describe is easy and reliable. All I needed was a small usb hard drive to facilitate the transfer from pc to mac. I used both netscape mail 7.2 and outlook express for different mail accounts on my pc, and both transferred properly. Thanks again!

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  29. I haven’t tried to move email settings, so I’m not sure. I simply set up the accounts again in Mail, which I use instead of Thunderbird. As for the email addresses, if I recall correctly, you either import them into Thunderbird directly, or you export them to an LDIF file, which is easily read by both Thunderbird and Mail on the Mac. Hope this helps!

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  30. Thank you for you input. It worked brilliantly and I have just finished.
    I moved all my messages (from years old) and to date into thunderbird with very little hassle.
    Not sure how to move the email settings I have in outlook for other email addresses I have though.
    If you can help with this it is very much appreciated.

    Regards

    David Woolls

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  32. Prad, you will need to move the messages from the Import folder into your Inbox, yes. Furthermore, I would separate them into yearly mailboxes, something like 2006, 2005, etc. I believe there’s a 2 GB limit on the folders in Mail, and that includes the Inbox. You may need to check with Apple to see what the actual limit is nowadays, but a few months ago, when I did this, that’s what it was.

    And yes, you will need to manually configure your accounts, sorry. I don’t know of an account settings import tool from Thunderbird to Mail.

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  33. Prad's avatar Prad says:

    I followed the steps outlined in your post as well as those written on the eudora mailbox cleaner webpage. I got all my messages into the “Import” folder in Mail.app, but i wanted them in my inbox. Also, is there any tool that lets mail copy the email settings and accounts information from thunderbird to mail.app in os x? Right now, inspite of getting all my mails in the “Import” folder, i still have to manually configure all my existing email accounts right? Please feel free to email me with your comments.

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