How to Extract Outlook Emails to MBOX Format with MessageExport

If you are migrating away from Microsoft Outlook, you may want to bring all or some of your Outlook messages to your new email client.   MBOX (RFC-4155) is an open email file format and is compatible with most Outlook alternative clients.  

Outlook emails are stored as PST/OST files. The MBOX email storage format is not natively supported by Outlook, which makes migrating your emails to Thunderbird or other email clients nearly impossible.

MessageExport is an Outlook add-in by Encryptomatic LLC that vastly expands Outlook's ability to save emails in different formats. Among the many new formats that MessageExport adds to Outlook is MBOX.  

Using MessageExport

MessageExport add-in works with Outlook 365/2019/2016/2013/2010.  A free trial is available that will allow you to use the add-in free for 15 days.  Following the free trial, MessageExport will continue working, allowing individual email exports.

You can use MessageExport to select multiple emails, or even an Outlook folder, and then export those emails to a single MBOX file.

To use MessageExport, first choose MBOX from the drop down list.

Next, select the emails you want to export to MBOX.

Now click the "Export" button.

 

Select Emails to Export, Choose MBOX, and Click Export Button

The result is that your chosen Outlook emails have been saved to a single MBOX file which you can now import to another email client.

Other Formats Added to Outlook

In addition to MBOX, MessageExport brings other new formats to Microsoft Outlook, including:

PDF, PDF/A, Single PDF, MSG, EML, HTML, MHT, TXT, JPG, GIF, TIF, CSV, and bulk exporting to printers, exporting email file attachments, zip, and more.

If you have any questions about using MessageExport to save Outlook email to MBOX, please post them in the comments or email us at supportline@encryptomatic.com

For more information on MessageExport including pricing, visit the official MessageExport home page.

How to Bulk Convert Outlook Emails to .MBOX format.

MBOX is a useful open document format for containing email messages. It is commonly used in email clients such as Mozilla Thunderbird.  Microsoft Outlook shunned MBOX for a proprietary database file known as .PST, or personal storage tables, and does not support exporting email to MBOX.

This oversight has been addressed by developers at Encryptomatic LLC with the introduction of MessageExport, a Microsoft Outlook add-in that integrates powerful export extensions to the Outlook toolbar.  MessageExport is compatible with Windows versions of Outlook, from Outlook 2016 through 2007.

Convert Outlook Email to MBOX with MessageExport add-in.

Bulk Converting Outlook Email to MBOX

Step 1.  Download and install the MessageExport add-in and restart Outlook.
MessageExport is available as a 15 day free trial.   After installing, it will integrate with the Outlook menu system.  In Outlook 2016 you will find it in a tab called "MessageExport."

Step 2.  Choose the "Export to MBOX" profile.
From the MessageExport dropdown list select "export to mbox."  In addition to MBOX, there are other formats you can convert email to, including PDF, CSV, DOCx, and many others. The export profile displayed in the list is the active conversion format.

Step 3.  Select Emails from the Outlook Mail list
Highlight one or more emails in the Outlook mail list.  To select all emails, type "Control-A."
You can also highlight a folder if you want to export all email in that folder to MBOX.  Any email message that is highlighted will be converted to MBOX when we start the operation.

Step 4.  Click MessageExport's "Export" button to start the operation.
Please note that the trial version of MessageExport is limited to converting 50 emails in a single export operation.  This restriction is removed after registration and you will be able to convery any number of emails to an MBOX file.

Select the Windows folder where MessageExport will save your MBOX file.

When the operation is complete, you will find a MBOX file containing your emails in the location you specified.

We hope this article has been useful in showing you how to take your email from Outlook to MBOX. If you have any follow up questions, please post them below. We'll be glad to help.