The
DbxConv program was designed to be a small tool that will Extract the messages from an Outlook Express (5.0 - 6.0) mailbox and convert it either to the standard mbox or the Outlook Express eml format. The advantage of saving your mail in mbox format is, that it's a plain text format, which can be read by many mail-clients. Converting to eml format is a convenient way to re-import the messages into Outlook Express.
The handling of eml export is a Little bit smarter than the one offered by Outlook Express itself. Outlook Express will overwrite messages with same sender and subject, while
DbxConv enumerates the messages, so you can be sure none is lost due to conversion.
The easiEST way to convert Outlook Express dbx-files is to copy the mailboxes to a directory with
DbxConv.exe in it. Do not try to convert folders, which have the same extension (like "Folders.dbx"), it will not work. Still it will do no harm.
Then open a DOS-Box and type "
DbxConv *.dbx". This will convert all dbx-files into mbx-files. I'd suggest, that you keep backup copies of the original dbx-files, at least until you have verified, that other mail-clients can read the mbx-files.
Hint for Entourage users:
For Entourage to recognize the mbox-file it is necessary to change the extension to "mbox".
To convert all dbx-files into eml format, type "
DbxConv -eml *.dbx". For each mailbox a folder with the name of the mailbox is created, and all messages will be extracted into the respective folder. To do both, converting and extracting, type "
DbxConv -mbx -eml *.dbx".
