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Importing Outlook Express messages

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tl;dr: How do I import Outlook Express messages?

Background: I used Outlook Express until Microsoft killed it, and have used Outlook 2013 since. Now Microsoft has forced me to abandon that due to Oauth2 not being supported, so I am looking for a replacement.

Thunderbird seems to be a recommended solution, but despite poking around in the community forums and help files, I am not finding straightforward answers to my questions on the current platform. (Side note: I have been using Firefox since it was Phoenix and then Firebird, and then Firefox, but never really used Thunderbird.)

I have a lot of really old .dbx files from Outlook Express. I heard that it is possible to import these into Thunderbird, but can't find any way to do so. These are low priority as they are archives and I just want to view them now and then, so not a deal breaker, but is that possible? It seems like it might require installing quite an old version of Thunderbird to make this happen? I thought I had found an article about it quite some time ago, but I just read through all of the search results for "Outlook Express" and couldn't find anything about bringing the messages in.

tl;dr: How do I import Outlook Express messages? Background: I used Outlook Express until Microsoft killed it, and have used Outlook 2013 since. Now Microsoft has forced me to abandon that due to Oauth2 not being supported, so I am looking for a replacement. Thunderbird seems to be a recommended solution, but despite poking around in the community forums and help files, I am not finding straightforward answers to my questions on the current platform. (Side note: I have been using Firefox since it was Phoenix and then Firebird, and then Firefox, but never really used Thunderbird.) I have a lot of really old .dbx files from Outlook Express. I heard that it is possible to import these into Thunderbird, but can't find any way to do so. These are low priority as they are archives and I just want to view them now and then, so not a deal breaker, but is that possible? It seems like it might require installing quite an old version of Thunderbird to make this happen? I thought I had found an article about it quite some time ago, but I just read through all of the search results for "Outlook Express" and couldn't find anything about bringing the messages in.

All Replies (4)

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dbx works. enter this 'thunderbird dbx import' into a search engine and many solutions appear. dbx files are basically mbox files.

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It's sad that the third party search engines get better results than the on-site search. But that definitely helped! Lots of conflicting answers on what version of Thunderbird to use though. I guess it will be a lot of trial and error.

Would the process be to go from oldest to newest? That is, to start with bringing in my old .dbx files and then update to a newer version, then attempt to import my Outlook 2013 files, then update to the latest version, and then set up my current accounts for import?

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just try importing it as mbox and see how it goes. use the addon, importexporttools, highlight local folders, rightclick and select the importexport option to import mbox and see how it goes.

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Thanks, I will try that!

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