Export From Outlook 2011 Mac & Import .eml Files Into Apple Mail
Update August 18, 2011:
It seems in Outlook 2011 SP1 (14.1), Microsoft re-added the .mbox export feature, which previously was deprecated from Entourage.
It is now possible to simply drag an Outlook 2011 folder from the list to your desktop, and have an importable Apple Mail .mbox.
The rest of the article is left for archiving purposes. Thanks!
_________________________________________________________________________
Microsoft Outlook 2011 for Mac was supposed to be the most compatible release for Mac – but not necessarily the most open. Microsoft removed folder-dragging mbox exports in Outlook 2011, leaving only an export to a proprietary Outlook 2011 .olm file. This essentially locks the e-mail data into Outlook….almost.
Exporting Outlook 2011 Mail
In Outlook 2011, perform an Edit –> Select All in the folder or Inbox you wish to Export. With patience, click & hold the mouse until you see the number count come up on the cursor. Then move the cursor over a Finder folder window and release the mouse. Patiently wait while Outlook locks up & churns from exporting the e-mails. There will be no progress bar. This will fill the folder with .eml files of all the e-mails.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Batch Convert & Import Microsoft .eml files into Apple Mail
1. Use registered eml-2-emlx to batch convert the files into an .emlx-based .mbox which Mail supports. Stephan should get back to you within a day if you pay with PayPal.
Download eml-2-emlx: http://aconcahua.com/eml2emlx/ 1.1.4 mirror: http://j.mp/ajnYg4
2. Quit Apple Mail & manually drop the converted emlx-based .mbox file(s) from eml-2-emlx into the user’s mailbox location (~/Library/Mail/Mailboxes). Apple Mail’s import function will NOT import the resulting .mbox files from eml-2-emlx.

3. Open Apple Mail & perform a Rebuild of the folder from within Apple Mail.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Individually Importing .eml Files Into Apple Mail
Apple Mail has full support for it’s previous mail format standard, .emlx. Apple Mail does not have database support for .eml files – but supports reading & opening (looking at) them. Apple Mail has an internal converter for .eml to .emlx files if you wish to save a .eml file into a Apple Mail folder. When viewing an .eml file in Apple Mail, you can perform Message –> Move To –> * Folder and it will do so.

Navigating to the Mail folder location in the Finder (~/Library/Mail/Mailboxes/* Folder.mbox/Messages) will show your newly converted .emlx files. However, doing this in bulk would be highly tedious – and Automator doesn’t support move to actions in Mail:

It would also be technically possible to create a folder in Apple Mail, and then drop .emlx files into the Finder location of that folder to manually import existing .emlx files into Apple Mail. Afterwards in Apple Mail, selecing the mailbox and doing Mailbox –> Rebuild would then update the Mail folder with your newly inserted .emlx files.
* Note
This project was originally come across from trying to recover a corrupted 20 GB Entourage 2008 Mail Database. It was found that Outlook 2011 could successfully import the corrupted Entourage 2008 Database. From Outlook 2011, an export was necessary to convert the user to Apple Mail.
This entry was posted by admin on July 10, 2010 at 10:24 PM, and is filed under Uncategorized. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0.You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.
-
I got tired of the slow clunkiness of Outlook for Mac (O4M). I was looking for a way to migrate archived O4M folders into Lion Mail. That’s what brought me to this website – in hopes of finding an answer.
After trial and error and several detours – the answer is very simple…and FREE!
Instead of dragging individual emails, drag the FOLDER to a finder folder and an MBOX will be created. This MBOX can then be imported into Lion Mail.
-
Under OS X (Lion) Mac Mail supports import of mbox files.
So here is how you do it,
Step 1. Open Finder and create a new folder
Step 2. Open Outlook for mac 2011 so that you can see BOTH windows at the same time.
Step 3. Drag the folder from Outlook to Finder and drop
Step 4. In the finder window you will find a file called something.mbox
Step 5. Open Mac Mail and Click on FILE then IMPORT MAIL BOXES – Select the Files in Mbox Format option – then open the folder where you stored your mails in step 3 and then it will import all those mails to Mac Mail.
You will find your imported mails under the word IMPORT, then you can move them within Mac Mail to the folders you want.I tried this and it works. But you have to be running Lion
-
OK team – I’vve found the answer on how to export Outlook for Mac 2011 emails and get them into the latest version of AppleMail. A point to note: I just upgraded to Lion.
1. Create a new folder in Finder to put all your email folders into.
2. Open Outlook and click and drag each folder into the above Finder folder. Note: You will need to expand the trees so you drag each folder rather than just master folders.
3. Open Mail.
4. Select the Inbox. Go File/Import Mailboxes and select the last option “Files in m.box format.” Click Continue.
5. Locate the above Finder folder into which you’ve dragged your Outlook folders. When you click the folder to import, it will do so.
6. Check in Mail and you will see the folder and it’s email contents will have been imported and placed down the bottom of the left hand side in a folder called “import.”
7. Once you’ve done the above for each Outlook folder you will then need to drag and drop inside Mail to rearrange the imported folders into the right order and heirachy.
Preserves all your emails, their dates etc in the correct order. Yahoo! Goodbye Microsoft.
-
#21 written by Tom 4 years ago
-
#22 written by Ike 4 years ago
I experienced the same frustration. Trying to drag the Outlook folders into a Finder folder did not work. Are there settings that one can change to enable this happen?
Ike:
I experienced the same frustration. Trying to drag the Outlook folders into a Finder folder did not work. Are there settings that one can change to enable this happen? -
#27 written by Deemail 4 years ago
I am also getting the same problem.
In Outlook 2011 my folder shows that there is 16000 msgs but when I import the mbox in to Apple Mail, it only comes up with 6000 msgs.
Jason:
Why is it that some of the folders in OL only transfer some of the individual e-mails? When I compare what wound up in Mac mail to what was in OL, only some of the e-mails transferred. Any thoughts? -
#28 written by admin 4 years ago
This means your Outlook database is corrupt and needs to be repaired by opening Outlook while holding down the “option” key on the keyboard.
If the same results are experienced after a database repair, then your database is permanently damaged. You could try comparing the Apple Mail import to Outlook, and easily find one of your missing Apple Mail messages. Outlook may experience a crash when opening one of the missing Apple Mail messages – this would confirm the database is corrupted. If you can view the missing message, it only means better news, and “at least its somewhere”.
Careful though – each database repair creates a whole new copy – taking up lots of space – make sure to visit your “~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Outlook 2011 Identities” folder to delete discarded old Outlook databases.
Thanks!
-
#30 written by Deemail 4 years ago
-
#32 written by Joe 4 years ago
#10 by Rob worked after several tries. The detail I missed was when you open the new folder in Finder, it is empty. I tried to drag files into the empty box, they transferred with a strange, but readable text. After doing that with a few files I decided to test them and when I opened Mac Mail and followed those steps to Import mbox files, all the mbox files transferred as promised whether in the Finder folder I created or just in Finder.
I have rearranged the folders in Mac Mail and it’s goodbye Outlook forever. -
#33 written by moni 4 years ago
I tried the software at http://www.movemymailtomac.com with my Outlook 2007 and it worked perfectly and I got all my Windows mail into my APple Mail. It even converted some old Windows Live Mail conversations I had long forgotten about 🙂 It costs $5 but it is definitely worth it!
-
#35 written by Michael Dunn 4 years ago
-
#37 written by Banks 4 years ago
-
#40 written by Prabhu 3 years ago
Ho Rob dragging the outlook Folder is not working can you please guide me how you draged the folder into finder.
Expecting your reply on this soon
Rob:
OK team – I’vve found the answer on how to export Outlook for Mac 2011 emails and get them into the latest version of AppleMail. A point to note: I just upgraded to Lion.
1. Create a new folder in Finder to put all your email folders into.
2. Open Outlook and click and drag each folder into the above Finder folder. Note: You will need to expand the trees so you drag each folder rather than just master folders.
3. Open Mail.
4. Select the Inbox. Go File/Import Mailboxes and select the last option “Files in m.box format.” Click Continue.
5. Locate the above Finder folder into which you’ve dragged your Outlook folders. When you click the folder to import, it will do so.
6. Check in Mail and you will see the folder and it’s email contents will have been imported and placed down the bottom of the left hand side in a folder called “import.”
7. Once you’ve done the above for each Outlook folder you will then need to drag and drop inside Mail to rearrange the imported folders into the right order and heirachy.
Preserves all your emails, their dates etc in the correct order. Yahoo! Goodbye Microsoft. -
#44 written by Roentgen 3 years ago
Rob
Many thanks for this solution, which has been driving me mad for ages!!
In Mac OSX 10.8.3 it works more or less fine for several thousand emails that I transferred from Outlook:mac 2011 to Apple Mail. All attachments were preserved as was the hierarchical structure. In one small folder all mail was in machine code. 160 ‘sent’ emails from 2009/2010 would not transferred.
I am now using Apple Mail and have said goodbye to Outlook – now uninstalled.Thanks for Chris for directing me to Marcus’s site
-
This is very helpful post to convert the Outlook Mac data to Apple Mail. However, i does not address how to move data from Mac Outlook to Windows Outlook. I found a solution for the same here- http://www.macoutlookrepair.com/products/olm-to-pst.html
-
#46 written by Joe Baldwin 3 years ago
Hello everyone,
I am just another victim of mail migration issue.
I wanted to move my mails from outlook 2011 to apple mail, tried many methods and followed each step many times but none worked accurately.Finally I found my solution http://www.olmconverterpro.com/. A nice tool that helped me get all my stuff migrated to apple mail.
I was just going through many sites for the same problem when I landed here too, and thought to share my solution of it helps others.
With no offense to other tools I have my experience to share with this tool.
I hope this would help other people like me.
Thank youJoe
-
-
- Comment Feed for this Post
Didn't find any related posts :(



















Hi, there is a far easier solution, I won’t take credit, here’s the link, but it’s as easy as drag and drop from outlook folder to Finder and then import in Mail.
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1141210