We went in to find out the approach that works for importing Mbox to Outlook 2016. It’s a challenging task that could end up in many ways, mostly in data corruption and messy files. Even experts find it complicated with their custom made sophisticated tools.
Thus, we challenged both the manual and other method to move emails between these two clients without hiccups. The winner is revealed below.
Data Syncing between server and client method
There is a way to move data without having to import Mbox to Outlook 2016 at all. It only pertains to data inside Mac Mail. If you only have Mbox file, you need to import it to Mac Mail for this technique to work. If you don’t even have Mac Mail (just Mbox file), this is not for you.
- Create a new email account in Gmail.
- Add it to your Mac Mail, and sync everything to the account.
- Add the same account to Outlook 2016, and sync everything from account to client.
This applies to both Mac and Windows Outlook 2016 (or even other versions). This is the most raw and basic form of moving emails from Mac Mail to Outlook 2016 using the IMAP servers without Mbox files. However, if you think you don’t understand it, that means you are not qualified to attempt it.
It took us a lot of time to sync data (3 GB). If you have more than that, it’s going to take even more. Keep in mind that you have to transfer data two times – first, from client (Mac Mail) to server (upload), and then from server to client (Outlook 2016)(download).
In addition, the fidelity of converted was lost to a huge extent. There were many issues, such as loss of headers, damaged graphical objects, no attachments, empty folders, weird characters, and so on.
[video_youtube video_url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxY5VdBi2Cs” width=”480″ height=”360″]
Import Mbox to Outlook 2016 by converting files
Second approach is converting the data files of both email clients.
You may ask why not import Mbox files into Outlook 2016 directly, instead of going through the hassle of converting the data files.
A simple attempt for importing Mbox files to Outlook would give you the answer – Outlook doesn’t support Mac data file Mbox. You’d think the two of the biggest companies in the world would go along fine on this matter, but no. Their codes haven’t been written this way that Mac Mail file can be imported to Microsoft Outlook, or even vice-versa.
This is where third party solutions come up. They give you a chance to move your data by converting Mbox file to Pst file. And one that has worked for me over last few times is “Mail Extractor Pro”. It takes data from Mbox files and puts it into Pst files.
You may ask why Pst files, why not Olm?
This is because there is a benefit of converting Mbox to Pst. If you convert Mbox to Mac Olm format, you can easily import it into your Outlook 2016 for Mac, but you can’t import it in Windows Outlook. On the other hand, Pst file is both supported in Mac and Windows Outlook.
Manual or “Mail Extractor Pro”?
So, which one is the best for you?
Manual migration using IMAP account servers is free and doesn’t require any third party tool. The benefit of using that technique pretty much ends there.
On the other hand, using a third party tool “Mail Extractor Pro” has countless advantages over manual technique.
- It’s relatively much easier to use.
- No internet connection required during conversion.
- It offers two ways to load data – auto-load Mac Mail database directly from default location, or manually load Mbox file from any location
- It delivers sharp converted files with no loss of data fidelity
- Supports conversion of non-English and all UTF-8 characters
- Preservers folder hierarchy
- Developed by USL Software, a well-known name in email migration sphere
“Mail Extractor Pro” can be downloaded as free from the Download Page, but it will only convert 10 items per folder. You have to register for full license after that.