Convert Outlook PST files to Thunderbird - at no cost 2

[k5tm]

I recently decided to remove myself from the world of Outlook users, and convert to Thunderbird.

The biggest problem to overcome was the conversion of PST files to a format that could be ingested by Thunderbird, which uses mbox. And, of course, I really did not want to pay for a utility that would be a single use. Finding the right recipe took a while, but I finally did it, and it is not really too difficult.

There is an open source software utility call [tt]LibPST[/tt], which contains a command line utility named [tt]ReadPST[/tt]. This utility is available on various Linux distributions. However the Ubuntu distribution that I first tried to use was not updated to understand the 64-bit pointers embedded in modern PST files.

I was able to find a version of [tt]LibPST[/tt] ported to Windows in another freely available software product named Xena, published by the National Archives of Australia. While Xena is interesting, I was after the command line utility, which installed in the following subdirectory:

[tt]C:\Program Files (x86)\National Archives of Australia\Xena\winx86[/tt]​

I created a directory to use temporarily for the conversion, named [tt]c:\MailCvt[/tt], and in that another subdirectory [tt]c:\MailCvt\Outlook[/tt]. I placed a copy of my OUTLOOK.PST file in the MailCvt directory, changed my working directory to the Xena subdirectory shown above and executed the following command:

[tt]readpst -o c:\MailCvt\Outlook -M -u -w -e -b c:\MailCvt\outlook.pst[/tt]​

A few seconds - okay, a few minutes, it was a big PST file - and I had all the emails contained in the [tt]c:\mailCvt\Outlook[/tt] subdirectory.

I then added the ImportExportTools add on to my Thunderbird installation (Tools>Add-ons command). You have to search for it or find it here. A restart of Thunderbird is required.

I created a subfolder of Local Folders, named OldInbox. I then right-clicked on the new subfolder and choose:

[tt]ExportImportTools>Import all messages from a directory>also from its subdirectories[/tt]​

And I have messages in my Thunderbird Local Folder!

Special thanks to this helpful conversion article from 2013, which described the process on Ubuntu.

Tom Morrison
Hill Country Software

 

[k5tm]

My original post describes moving Outlook Email to Thunderbird. I failed to add that moving all the VCard files (one per Outlook contact) can be tedious without using an extension. I used the extension described and linked on this Mozilla Support Forum article.

Tom Morrison
Hill Country Software