Imagine having to move from your Mac Mail to the popular yet unfamiliar Outlook email client. Imagine trying your hardest to finally find a method that can export your emails from Mac Mail to Outlook right on your Mac system. And yet wasting hours for the same inaccurate results every time! Annoying, isn’t it? But does that mean no technique exists that can convert Mac Mail to Outlook on the Mac system? Well, such methods do exist. All you need is the right set of applications and procedure to implement them correctly.
Through this article, we will be discussing various methods that, with the right implementation, can export emails from Apple Mail to Outlook easily. If by any chance, you are looking for a way to open Mac Mail database in Windows Outlook, you can switch to our previous article on How to open MBOX files in Outlook to know all about it. Rest assured, if you are searching for Mac-based solutions, here is where you search will end.
Understanding the Technicality of Mac Mail & Outlook
Although both Mac Mail & Outlook are primarily desktop email clients, they both differ completely in terms of UI and framework. Even the file formats that store the email data are different. While Apple Mail uses MBOX format to save emails and attachments, Outlook works with OLM and PST files to store emails, contacts, calendars, tasks, and notes. The OLM file is particularly associated with only Mac Outlook, while the PST format is supported by both Mac & Windows variants of Outlook.
After learning how the data storage files differ from each other, it should be clear why it is so difficult to move your data from Apple Mail to Outlook.
Methods to Export Emails from Mac Mail to Outlook
Anyone having the basic knowledge of both Mac Mail and Outlook will clearly state that no method exists that can directly import Apple Mail emails to Outlook. But still, multiple solutions exist that, with external help, can do this task for you. Given below are three such methods that you can opt for as per your requirements.
- Using IMAP to synchronize Apple Mail
- Convert Apple Mail to Outlook using Eudora
- Using MBOX to PST Converter for Mac
How to Synchronize Mac Mail via IMAP
You should be aware of how you can add your account in Apple Mail via IMAP so that the copy of emails are kept on both the server and system. Any webmail account like Gmail, iCloud, Yahoo can be used for such purpose. Assuming, you already have one such account configured, simply configure the same account in Outlook and transfer all your data from Mac Mail to Outlook.
For example, if your email account in Mac mail is abc@gmail.com, simply set the same account in Outlook using the IMAP protocol.
Note: This method works on both Mac & Windows platform.
Export Emails from Apple Mail to Outlook using External Application
- Run Apple Mail, go to the File tab and click on “Export Mailbox” option
- Continue with the process and save your emails at the desired location
- Now, you need to rename this mbox file by replacing the .mbox extension with .mbx. Once done, we will be moving these files into the Eudora directory. The directory should look like: Windows: C:Documents and SettingsAppDataQualcommEudora. Mac: Macintosh H: User: Documents: Eudora Folder
- Open these files in Eudora to make sure that the mailbox gets created within its interface.
- Now if you are using Outlook 2010 or lower version, you can directly open it, go to its “Import/Export” option and use Eudora (Pro and Light) 2.x, 3.x, 4.x option to import the files directly in Outlook.
- However, since Outlook 2013 and above versions do not provide such options, use the native “Import” feature of Outlook Express to import the Eudora files.
- Then, open Outlook 2013 or higher version, go to “File”, click on “Open & Export”, next click on “Import and Export”.
- Choose to import from Outlook Express 4.x, 5.x, 6.x and continue the process until its completion.
Note: This method is viable for Windows platform.
Using MBOX to PST Converter for Mac
The above-given solutions have their fair share of benefits but they lack when it comes to safety and accuracy of converted data. Loss of important data or email integrity after wasting hours is not an ideal scenario for any user. And thus, reliable software is required for such conversion such as
SysTools Mac MBOX Converter
This tool allows users to convert Mac MBOX to PST file format without losing attributes. It has the capability to export emails from multiple MBOX files in one go. It is a software that you can rely upon. All you need to do is export all your Apple Mail mailboxes into Mac MBOX Converter files and feed them into the software interface. It will provide you with multiple features such as date filters, create single PST, naming conventions, etc. The software is designed to operate upon Mac platform, however, the converted PST files are importable in all Outlook platforms (both Mac and Windows).
Final Words
Loss of Important data is something that any user would want to avoid during an email migration. With the aim to reduce this risk when exporting emails from Mac Mail to Outlook, we provided 3 different methods in this article. You can choose any of the given solutions as per requirement. After all, it’s your decision on how easily you want to convert Apple Mail to Outlook.
