A simple guide on how to get emails from Thunderbird 2 to Microsoft Outlook.
I needed to transfer my Thunderbird 2 emails to MS Outlook a few days ago and here is what i needed to do to migrate back Outlook. This Thunderbird 2 email transfer guide works for Outlook Express, Outlook 2000, Outlook 2003, and Outlook 2007.
On to the steps to export emails from Thunderbird to Outlook.
First, go to your Thunderbird 2 application folder and copy out your database files. They are in unix format can be found at
for Windows XP users - (C:\ … )
for Windows Vista users - C:\Users\***your windows username***\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\
Copy all the folders in this location to another place so that you can work on the copies and not the originals just in case something gets damaged or corrupted. For the purpose of this demo, we’ll copy them to the desktop.
The tell-tale sign is that they are named after the email folders in your Mozilla Thunderbird 2 application.
Now, go FIle > show file extensions, and then rename the extension of all your emails to .mbox
Next, download IMAPSize - from http://www.broobles.com/imapsize/
Install the program after you’re done downloading it and open it up.
Open IMAPSize, and click on Tools > mbox2eml and use the tool to convert your .mbox to regular format. You can choose your desktop as the save location.
Now go into the newly created folders on your desktop and drag the individual emails into Outlook Express if you’re using Windows XP and Windows Mail if you’re using Windows Vista. From here…. EXPORT your emails to Outlook.
Voila, you’re finally done!
