Exporting Mail in mbox format?

There was a change to the mbox filing structure used with Tiger Mail.

At the Finder level, each mailbox is stored as an xxxxxx.mbox folder and all messages contained in the mailbox are located within the Messages folder for the mailbox - within the xxxxxx.mbox folder. Each message contained in the mailbox is stored as a separate file in .emix format within the Message folder and this is primarily for Spotlight search capabilities. This also significantly reduces the "overstuffed" mailbox issues that occured with the mbox filing structure used with previous Mail.app versions. The recommended size limit for Jaguar/Panther mailboxes is 1 GB and for Tiger Mail, 2 GB.

You can download a collection of AppleScripts called Mail Scripts at the following link.

http://homepage.mac.com/aamann/Mail_Scripts.html

The script to use is Archive Messages (Mail) which moves messages from the selected mailbox(es) to an archive mailbox or export them to standard mbox, plain or rich text files for backup purposes or import into other applications. You can select to move all messages or only messages sent within or certain period as well filter messages based on their read and flagged status.

I'm not sure about another way but try a Google search to see what turns up.

Sorry if I sound a bit frustrated, but even
Microsoft will let you do this!!!

Windows Outlook or Outlook Express provides for exporting messages in mbox format?

Or are you referring to a Windows compatible email client not provided by Microsoft since there is a difference?

I use Windows Outlook at work and the only option I can find for exporting message/mailboxes includes a Personal Folder File (.pst) which is a proprietary Microslop format.

All email clients that utilize the mbox format don't use the identical format since there are many variations. Unlike the Internet protocols used for the exchange of email, the format used for the storage of email has been entirely left to the developer of an email client. Like other prominent e-mail clients, mbox has never been formally defined through the RFC standardization mechanism, using its own format and requiring conversion software to transfer e-mail between other e-mail clients.

The new mailbox format used with Tiger Mail is not easily converted to one of the existing/older mbox formats at the present time but I'm certain someone is working on ways to make it work if not already available.

The .emix format used to store each message contained in a mailbox as a separate file is a proprietary Apple format which was designed primary for Spotlight search capabilities. The database structure used by Entourage and the mbox filing structure used by other OS X compatible email clients are not compatible with Spotlight but I read Microsoft was working on making the Entourage database Spotlight compatible and not sure if this will happen with other OS X compatible email clients that use the mbox filing structure.

Mike,

nice to see that some people actually read the disclaimer:-)

I have not heard of anybody actually losing mail messages by using my scripts and the error messages you potentially might be getting are harmless to your system - they simply will prevent the script from terminating properly (and, the latest version seems not to exhibit this any more). If you use the "Export" function of the "Archive Messages" script, all your original mail messages will be left intact so (they will be accessed for reading only) so you might have to do something else to actually lose your mail...

Andreas

Hi Mike,

I've never seen Mail.app export simple mbox files. Way back to its NeXTSTEP predecessor, Mail.app always exported .mbox folders, which were treated as bundles in systems before mac OS 10.4 and therefore looked like files. Those .mbox bundles used to contain a file called "mbox" which indeed was a plain mbox file of the mailbox contents and that could be imported into other mail applications.

If you indeed have managed to trick Mail.app (1.3) into exporting the whole mailbox hierarchy as plain mbox files, I'd love to know about it...

And just a couple of seconds later I found this article, which explains how to save messages as mbox file:
(the send button is the bringer of wisdom 🙂

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mail/2.0/en/ml949.html

PowerBook Ti G4/1GHz 15

Andreas: Just to double-check, does the Export (to MBOX format) feature of your Archive Mail script include message attachments in the MBOX files?

Yes, since this is the standard mbox format (attachments encoded within the messages themselves).

Andreas

I've just had some bad experiences with older versions of Eudora which filter out attachments and put them in a separate "attachments" folder

I know all about that - if you still have those Eudora mailboxes around and want to import them into Mail or Thunderbird with the attachments re-attached to the messages, you probably should take a look at Eudora Mailbox Cleaner available from my homepage...

Andreas

have the same problem "Mail Scripts:Archive Messages" (2.7.10) shows fewer than 300 mailboxes and does not let me scroll.