convert outlook express to mac mail

minorbabe · #1 December 31st, 2006, 11:21 AM

i just switched to mac... love it. my biggest problem though is that i can't import my outlook express mail even though there's an import feature on mac mail that has an option to import outlook express files. I guess it doesn't work because my OE extension files are .dbx... i know that they have to be converted to .mbox.

Here's the one big set-back... my PC completely died. ...it won't turn on again. I was able to retrieve my PC hard-drive and put it into an enclosure -- making it an external hard drive. Although mac can read many files on this hard drive, it cannot read/import the OE .dbx files.

I really want to retrieve my several thousand emails and contacts. The mac people at the genius bar were of no help (of course, I end up getting the rude guy while the two people around me got very friendly people that may have been able to help me... or at least give me hope on retrieving these emails!).

Can anyone help me? The free software (dbx converter... or it's called something like that) doesn't work for me since there is no actual PC to work from.

thanks!!

symphonix · #2 January 1st, 2007, 04:45 PM

Well, since the PC is dead, your next best bet is to retrieve the mail that remains on your mail server itself - with any luck, if you are using an IMAP mail server, all your messages will still be there anyway.

Have you tried simply putting in your server details in Mail.app, and connecting to the server to see what happens? I did this for a couple of friends when they switched over, Mail synced and picked up all of their messages, and there was no need to go to any more effort than that.

Aside from that, do you have any backups of your mail from your PC at all?

minorbabe · #3 January 1st, 2007, 06:10 PM

i will try putting in my server details into mail.app... but i tried doing something similar in the past and the new emails would come in but not the old ones... i think they were deleted from the server once they hit my inbox on outlook express.

i do have back-ups of my emails (well, most of them) through a software called genie-soft. the problem is is that it only works for PCs, so i can't upload them into mac mail (despite the fact that mac mail has an import feature for outlook express).

i suppose i will try again using my sister's pc and upload the emails from genie-soft back-ups into another identity on her outlook express... but the last time i tried this, the main inbox emails didn't come through.

thanks for your reply... i will keep you posted on how things go.

Ferdinand · #4 January 2nd, 2007, 12:42 AM

I think when they list "Outlook Express" as a import feature I think they mean Outlook Express for Mac, not Windows. That might be the reason why it won't work with the normal import feature in Mail.