Tips to Export Mail from Mozilla Thunderbird to Microsoft Outlook?

Admin | Email Conversion How to's Outlook Software Technology | 5 minutes read | Last updated on February 8th, 2023,

Summary: Today with this blog, I will share a few of the manual process to export mail from Thunderbird MBOX mailbox to Outlook PST. I will also try to describe the drawbacks and a step by step guide on how to export mail from Mozilla Thunderbird to Microsoft Outlook PST file format.

Mozilla Thunderbird application is an open-source email application with a number of features. It is a freeware application that can be used in the number of Operating Systems. With features such as email management, themes, junk email filtering, extension, suitability with multiple files it has been one of the most common email application a few years back.

But with the Microsoft Outlook introduction, the popularity of this free email application has gone down a little bit. With the type of features that Microsoft Outlook has it almost changed Mozilla Thunderbird. And therefore a lot of users are searching a solution for how to export mail from Mozilla Thunderbird to Microsoft Outlook.

Note: Mozilla Thunderbird keeps your emails and all other data in MBOX file extension whereas Microsoft Outlook keeps your files in PST file extension. Thus to move emails from Thunderbird to Outlook, you need to convert Thunderbird MBOX files into Outlook.

Manual Approach to Move Thunderbird MBOX Emails to Outlook File Format

To migrate or convert Thunderbird emails to Outlook PST file, first you have to convert your MBOX files into EML format. And, after exporting MBOX into EML file format, there are two steps that you need to follow perfectly:

Export EML Files in Windows Live Mail app.
Then, Transfer WLM files into MS Outlook.

Now, let’s start the step by step process to fix the problem of how to export mail from Mozilla Thunderbird to Microsoft Outlook PST format.

Step 1. Convert MBOX Mails in EML Format

In the first step, we will migrate your Thunderbird MBOX mails into EML file format:

Open Mozilla Thunderbird application and browse & locate the email files, which you want to convert.
Now, choose the mails that you wish to move. You can choose multiple emails with the help of “Ctrl + A”.
Then, click on the Save As option after right-clicking on the chosen mails.
After that as soon as you press on the Save As an option, the files will be transferred into EML file format.

Step 2. Import EML Files in Windows Live Mail

After the migration of your Thunderbird MBOX files in EML file format, in our second step, we will now import EML files in WLM application. So, you can export the EML files into many other email programs like Windows Mail and Outlook Express. But today, we will move it to WLM.

1. Open Windows Live Mail email client application.
2. In Windows Explorer, browse and choose the folder where you EML files are saved.
3. Choose the EML files that you need to save into PST file format.

Note: If you have a number of mail folders, then you need to drag and drop it one by one.

After choosing the email files, press on the OK.

And this is how the files will be transferred to WLM.

Step 3. Export WLM Files into Outlook PST

After the conversion of the files into WLM. The final step that we need to take in migration of emails from Thunderbird to PST Outlook is to move WLM files in Outlook PST file:

Open Windows Live Mail.
Go to the File menu >> Export Emails >> Email messages.
Now, choose “Microsoft Exchange” in the Windows Live Mail.

Export wizard and Click on “Next”

In the next dialog box, press on OK.
In the Choose Profile dialog box choose Outlook from the list and press on OK.
Now to convert or move Thunderbird MBOX emails to Outlook file format click on the OK.
Then, choose the folder which you want to export and press on OK. The folder and the files will be transferred from WLM to Outlook PST file format.

Drawbacks of Manual Approach:

The procedure of exporting Thunderbird emails to MS Outlook is very lengthy and even a little bit tricky. And, using this method there is no chance that after doing all this, all your files will get migrated or not. This method sometimes even retains the integrity of your data on stake. So you may face data losing or corruption problems.

There is one key problem with this process and that is, via migration of EML to WLM, the user will have to repeat the same procedure multiple time for every mail folder that can be a frustrating part of the described approach.

How to Export Mail from Mozilla Thunderbird to Microsoft Outlook Easily?

If the above-mentioned method doesn’t work then the only technique through which you can migrate Thunderbird MBOX emails to PST for all Microsoft Outlook versions like Outlook 2019, Outlook 2016, Outlook 2013, and all previous versions are through third-party software or an automated tool.

One of the software that I have used is MBOX to PST.

I have been using this tool for a couple of months and really impressed over it. The graphical interface is very simple and interactive. Therefore, even a novice person can also use it to export mail from Thunderbird to Microsoft Outlook. It is compatible with all editions of MS Outlook and Windows (32-bit and 64-bit) OS to save Thunderbird MBOX files to PST file format. The best part is that it doesn’t affect your data integrity, so you can effectively and accurately convert Thunderbird mailbox to Outlook PST file without any issue.

Final Words

So here you can easily resolve the problem of how to export mail from Mozilla Thunderbird to Microsoft Outlook. The manual way is good but a little bit lengthy and not reliable every time. So in case, the manual way doesn’t work…you may go for the automated tool. As the tool is a far option in terms of migration, efficiency and trustworthiness.

Hope now you learn how to export mail from Mozilla Thunderbird to Microsoft Outlook PST file format.

Hope you like this blog.