Migrate Outlook into Thunderbird?

[Bo Berglund]

On Thu, 13 Jul 2023 00:07:41 -0400, Jeffrey Walton <noloader at gmail.com> wrote:

>On Wed, Jul 12, 2023 at 8:01?PM Jeffrey Walton <noloader at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, Jul 12, 2023 at 1:40?PM Sarunas Burdulis
>> <sarunas at math.dartmouth.edu> wrote:
>> >
>> > Sorry if I missed this already mentioned here, but there is a standard
>> > Ubuntu package ‘pst-utils’:
>> >
>> > $ apt show pst-utils
>> > ...
>> > Description: tools for reading Microsoft Outlook PST files
>> > This package contains tools based on libpst to read data from Microsoft
>> > Outlook PST files.
>> >     * readpst - export data from PST files to a variety of formats,
>> > including mbox, MH and KMail. Other packages like mb2md are available
>> > for subsequent conversions to Maildir and other formats.
>> >     * lspst - list data in PST files.
>> > ...
>> >
>> > I don't have any .pst files to test.
>>
>> Arg, that was smart. I did not think to check the package manager.
>>
>> I'm currently doing some contract work for a Windows shop. Maybe I can
>> give it a whirl...
>
>readpst from pst-utils seems to be parsing my backup file in pst
>format. It is still parsing the backup file.
>
>The file was created with Outlook from Microsoft Office Professional
>Plus 2016, and the backup file is 1.86 GB in size.

My pst files are a lot bigger...

But this looks like what I was hoping for! :-)
Coming from the official apt repository is very good!


So I installed it on a LinuxMint device and checked the help:

$ readpst -h
ReadPST / LibPST v0.6.74
Little Endian implementation being used.
Usage: readpst [OPTIONS] {PST FILENAME}
OPTIONS:
        -V - Version. Display program version
        -C charset - character set for items with an unspecified character set
        -D - Include deleted items in output
        -L <level> - Set debug level; 1=debug,2=info,3=warn.
        -M - Write emails in the MH (rfc822) format
        -S - Separate. Write emails in the separate format
        -a <attachment-extension-list> - Discard any attachment without an
extension on the list
        -b - Don't save RTF-Body attachments
        -c[v|l] - Set the Contact output mode. -cv = VCard, -cl = EMail list
        -d <filename> - Debug to file.
        -e - As with -M, but include extensions on output files
        -h - Help. This screen
        -j <integer> - Number of parallel jobs to run
        -k - KMail. Output in kmail format
        -m - As with -e, but write .msg files also
        -o <dirname> - Output directory to write files to. CWD is changed
*after* opening pst file
        -q - Quiet. Only print error messages
        -r - Recursive. Output in a recursive format
        -t[eajc] - Set the output type list. e = email, a = attachment, j =
journal, c = contact
        -u - Thunderbird mode. Write two extra .size and .type files
        -w - Overwrite any output mbox files
        -8 - Output bodies in UTF-8, rather than original encoding, if UTF-8
version is available

Only one of -M -S -e -k -m -r should be specified


The man page states:

readpst - convert PST (MS Outlook Personal Folders) files to mbox and other
formats

But it seems like one cannot specify the MBOX format, which is supposed to
create one single file per directory in the pst...

I tested by transferring an older PST with archived messages in separate yearly
folders. The PST is sized 683,148,288 bytes so is good as a test:

$ time readpst -M -e -o agiwebleads Webleads.pst
Opening PST file and indexes...
Processing Folder "Deleted Items"
Processing Folder "Accessreports"
Processing Folder "DownloadRequests"
Processing Folder "2011"
Processing Folder "Downloads"
Processing Folder "2012"
Processing Folder "2010"
Processing Folder "Spanish Requests"
Processing Folder "2011"
Processing Folder "2004"
Processing Folder "2009"
Processing Folder "AndroidUG"
Processing Folder "2010"
Processing Folder "2011"
Processing Folder "2008"
Processing Folder "NewRequests"
Processing Folder "2009"
Processing Folder "2010"
Processing Folder "2007"
Processing Folder "2008"
Processing Folder "2009"
Processing Folder "2006"
Processing Folder "2007"

Then follows a long list of "Processing folder" messages similar to:

Processing Folder "2013"
        "2011" - 189 items done, 0 items skipped.
        "2013" - 283 items done, 0 items skipped.
real    0m18,611s
user    0m36,700s
sys     0m11,381s

So the time taken waS 19 seconds, not really bad.

But the output seems not to be in MBOX format, which according to what I have
read is a single file (at least per directory).
Here all emails wind up as individual files inside subdirs named as the folders
in the PST...

I tried asking ChatGPT but it seems not to get it right either...

Moving on....


-- 
Bo Berglund
Developer in Sweden