How to convert/open Outlook Express .dbx files from CD onto a Mac?

August 3, 2009 12:00 PM

I have a CD with mail archived from Outlook Express in .dbx files (misc.dbx, work.dbx, personal.dbx, inbox.dbx, etc.). It contains old reviews and resumes that I need details from. I now have a Mac (with Mail.app only) and I can't figure out how to open or convert them. I don't even need to import them into Mail--having them export to simple individual text files would be fine. I just want to be able to read the content.

I don't remember how I got them into the .dbx format, but they are from an old work machine before I left my job. My research has turned up a few Mac support threads from 5-6 years ago with some conversion programs that don't seem to exist anymore or which assume you are starting the whole archiving process on a PC. This question from a year ago also assumes a PC on which to start the whole process. Apple's instructions assume you are moving messages via IMAP or from AOL.

What I'd love is a native Mac program which will let me open them with a simple double click to view the content as a text file. Too much to ask? I would be willing to buy/install another mail program (Thunderbird, Eudora? I'm out of the loop here) for a workaround. I do have gmail if that would help. But again, I just have my Mac and the CD. I suppose I would be willing go to a public PC and download a recommended program, but then I'm dealing with cleanup of personal data on the public machine.

So does anyone know how to unpack these files with a Mac and only a Mac? Explicit directions a plus--I'm not computilliterate, but nor do I do this sort of thing for fun.

Relevant details: Mail 3.6, Mac (Intel) OS X 10.5.7, unknown version of Outlook Express, but circa 2004

posted by cocoagirl to Computers & Internet (10 answers total)

If you have an Intel Mac, why don't you track down a cheap copy of Windows XP via ebay/craigslist/your friend in IT with a binder of burned CDs, and just install bootcamp? I'd be pretty confident that newer versions of Outlook Express (or even Windows Live Mail) should be able to read it just fine.
posted by Oktober at 12:32 PM on August 3, 2009

Open a Terminal and type:
cat path-to-file | strings > ~/Emails.txt

Which will create a file called "Emails.txt" in your home folder. You can quickly insert the parth to the file by dragging the icon from the Finder into the Terminal window.
posted by Mwongozi at 12:37 PM on August 3, 2009

From what I gleaned from this site, it seem like .dbx files are binary files (similar to older Office files), and trying to treat them as text will just give you piles of gibberish.
posted by Oktober at 12:41 PM on August 3, 2009

If that's true, my suggestion won't work. Sorry.
posted by Mwongozi at 12:42 PM on August 3, 2009

You can convert them to the format thunderbird uses, details here. I believe the mail app in OSX uses the same format.
posted by damn dirty ape at 12:57 PM on August 3, 2009

Simplest way: a trusted friend with a Windows machine who would open your CD files with Outlook Express, email the documents to you, and expunge them.
posted by TruncatedTiller at 2:02 PM on August 3, 2009

Another way - use a free/trial VMWare Fusion and download a free Windows XP VHD:

http://www.microsoft.com/Downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=21eabb90-958f-4b64-b5f1-73d0a413c8ef&displaylang=en

Then, copy your files into it - convert using Outlook Express and delete afterward...
posted by jkaczor at 9:47 AM on August 4, 2009

TruncatedTiller - my (admittedly shallow) understanding of how to do this is that you have to rename your current Outlook Express folder structure to match the folder structure of the archived files you want to import, and then import them into the live version of Express. Since mine include "inbox," "outbox," drafts," "sent," etc., wouldn't my friend basically have to let my archive subsume her active mail? Then she would have to forward a year's worth of email to me, and then delete it all, then rename her file structure back to the way she had it originally?

jkaczor - Hm, looking into it. This might work. I'm going to try it and will post back if it works, but it may be a couple of weeks.
posted by cocoagirl at 6:23 PM on August 4, 2009

Cocoagirl: Yes, that is probably what you'd have to do. IIRC though, the file set is in one (or maybe two) folder subtrees. Apparently I misunderstood how much data you wanted to recover. Mailing a bunch of documents wouldn't be too troublesome; a year's worth of mail could be a real pain. Sorry if my suggested approach dead-ends here.
On review, jkaczor's approach gets my vote for getting you around the problem of having to archive friend's mail, assuming the VHD includes OE. You'd still have the data transfer problem, but it would degenerate to a local file copy rather than emailing, if you plan to run the VHD on the target machine or another machine connected to the same LAN.
posted by TruncatedTiller at 9:06 AM on August 5, 2009

VMWare Fusion installed like a dream but so far it won't recognize the "XP SP3 with IE6" VHD file when creating a virtual machine. I may try a different VHD, but they all seem to be the same file type.
posted by cocoagirl at 12:07 PM on August 6, 2009