Outlook, in typical Microsoft head-in-the-sand fashion, does not import mail from thunderbird. This is particularly pathetic because Thunderbird uses the Unix mbox format with only minor modifications which are limited to additional headers that Thunderbird uses to keep track of message status. Yes, it is a sad day when you are importing mail from an Open standards-based file (Mozilla-based mail programs have always used mbox format with an additional status header) to a proprietary Microsoft format. I had to do it, and if you are reading this, you probably have to do it too.
You will need:
- mbx2eml or Imapsize to convert your mbox files into a whole load of little .eml files
- Outlook Express, whether you want to use it or not.
Outlook not only cannot import mbox files, but it also cannot import .eml files for some reason. Outlook express, on the other hand, will import eml files from a simple drag and drop. Thus, if you convert your mail to eml files, and drag it into outlook express, you can import it into outlook - which is supported.
One thing you should do before any of this stuff is to compact your mail folders in thunderbird. This will stop you from importing deleted messages. If you get messages you know you've deleted in your new mail folders, this is probably what happened.
I used mbx2eml, so my examples will tell you how to use it. Unpack the archive, and either drop the mbx2eml.exe into %SYSTEMROOT%\system (or on windows 98, you could put it in %SYSTEMROOT%\command) or add the directory containing mbx2eml to your path once you get to the next step: run cmd.exe (or on win98, command.com.) This will bring up a command window. You could also just select command prompt from the start menu someplace, but Windows Key+R will bring up the "Run" dialog box, which I find to be quicker. Your mileage may vary.
To add the directory to your path, open the folder containing mbx2eml.exe, copy the path from the address bar, and in your command window, type the following:
path %PATH%;c:\path\to\mbx2eml
Where c:\path\to\mbx2eml is replaced with the path you want.
Now you can go to your Thunderbird profile directory and begin the process. On NT (NT4, Win2k, WinXP, Win 2003 Server) this is inside C:\Documents and Settings\your username\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\something.default\Mail where, obviously, your username is your windows username that you use to log in. Now, the something.default is an eight character autogenerated psuedorandom string (don't worry if you don't understand what that means) so I can't possibly tell you what it is. Change to this directory with the cd command.
Next, you will need an output directory. I used "C:\out". To use the same thing, type mkdir c:\out. This will get filled up with folders representing your Thunderbird mbox files, which will in turn be filled up with .eml files containing individual messages. Yes, this is silly, but life is hard.
Finally, use the dir command and cd around until you find some files with the same names as your mail folders; these are your mail folders. The files with no extensions are the ones that actually have the mail in them. Run the following command:
mbx2eml *. c:\out
Don't forget the . after the *! This dot will stop it from reading files with extensions. Only the files with no extensions contain email.
Repeat this process for all the subfolders - Any time there is a Foldername.sbd, check inside of that directory to see if there are other folders, and run the same command inside each one. If you have subfolders with the same name as existing folders, you will want to create new output directories. You could make c:\out2, c:\out3 etc.
Anyway, once you have all this done, navigate (in the explorer) to the folder/directory you used for output. There will be folders here, with eml files in them. Just go into the folder, select all the eml files, and drag them into outlook express; you can drag them to the name of a folder in the left-hand "folders" pane, or you could drop them into the area where the list of messages in a selected folder show up. Either way, outlook express will import them, without giving you any status update (so don't be surprised if your disk is churning but it doesn't look like anything is happening.) This can actually be a lengthy process if you have a lot of mail, especially if there's a lot of attachments involved.
If you really want to use Outlook Express for some bizarre reason, please go get your head examined. I understand if you don't have office (well, I kind of understand, since you can get old versions of it at flea markets for a buck and Office 97 is the gem of the whole product line) but the simple truth is that Outlook Express is garbage on every level. At this point, if you want to use Outlook, then your best bet is to just run Outlook, then pick Import/Export from the File menu. If it asks you if you want to import an account it's just detected, you can probably say yes; If not, you want to pick the last option (to import mail and addresses) and then select outlook express, and choose to import only mail. Getting contacts from Thunderbird to Outlook is a much easier job and I won't go into it here, but please, please, if you have the option consider just importing the data back into a newer version of Thunderbird. While it has improved significantly over time, Outlook Express was once the leading cause of PC infections and it should never have existed in the first place.