Can Outlook Import from Thunderbird Mailbox – Know Here

Can Outlook Import from Thunderbird?

Yes, but it’s complicated.

Why?

Because there are no direct methods! Outlook does not provide any import method that can process Thunderbird emails. In fact, it does not even support the Thunderbird mailbox format, let alone importing them.

In this tutorial, you will have a general understanding of how to perform this conversion. A few methods have been explained, including manual and automatic methods. Plus, you'll get the right way to address the limitations of these methods.

Outlook and Thunderbird Overview

Mozilla Thunderbird is an open-source client with features like email, news and chat groups, topics and extensions, news source management, spam filtering, and more. Use the .mbox file extension to store data files.

The Outlook e-mail client is a Microsoft product. Due to its outstanding and effective features, it is more popular than many other email clients. Use the .pst file extension and save all inbox contents, such as emails, events, journals, contacts, calendars, tasks, etc.

There are many reasons why Outlook is more popular than Thunderbird. Mozilla Thunderbird is not compatible with Exchange servers and does not allow the scheduling of emails. It also doesn't allow email filtering and only contains emails and attachments that are less secure than Outlook. For all these reasons, many users are migrating to MS Outlook.

Can Outlook Import From Thunderbird? Yes, But How?

To import to Microsoft Outlook, you need to export Thunderbird MBOX file to Outlook PST file format. It is not an easy task you have to do it in two steps. The first step is to export it from the source email platform and then import it into the target email application. It can be done using some manual or automatic methods which have been explained in the blog.

The first 2 methods are manual methods while the last one is a professional solution.

# 1 via IMAP

IMAP, the Internet mail access protocol. This is a standard protocol that allows you to create a synchronization between your email client and another online email account. This way, you will be able to access your email account from multiple email clients. Use the following steps to do this.

1. Use the IMAP server to set up your Gmail account in Thunderbird.
2. In Gmail, create a new folder and then move all Thunderbird emails to that folder.
3. Now, in Outlook, use the POP or IMAP server to create the same Gmail account.
4. Download all emails later.

Note: With this method, you can only export a few emails. Transferring a large amount of data is time-consuming and it’s hard to retain the folder structure.

# 2 Drag and drop method

In this manual method, you need to go through two steps to fully migrate data by drag and drop.

1. Export Thunderbird emails to EML
2. Choose the emails you want to export from Thunderbird
3. Create a new folder on the desktop.
4. Now, drag and drop the selected email into the newly created folder on the desktop.
5. Again drag and drop the files from desktop to a new folder in Outlook.
6. Finally, select the EML file in the updated folder, then move it to the Outlook PST folder.

Limitations of manual methods

The manual method always has some limitations. Large data cannot be migrated manually. In addition, manual processing will take a long time, and if not done correctly, valuable data may be lost. For users with no previous technical experience, they may have difficulty performing MBOX to PST conversion.

Can Outlook Import from Thunderbird Using Professional Tool?

Yes, and it’s a gratifying experience.

If you find it difficult in manual processing, you can use MBOX to PST converter to transfer MBOX files to PST format. This is a complex utility, uses advanced algorithm design, can easily convert MBOX to PST. It focuses on data integrity and keeps your data intact. The interface is so simple and intuitive that even naive users will find no difficulty in using it. You can save the output file in a variety of file formats, such as PST, HTML, MSG, EML, PDF. This MBOX Converter supports more than 20 email clients, such as Thunderbird, Apple Mail, Mulberry, Pocomail, Spicebird, Sea Monkey, etc.

Final words

In the technical script, we discussed everything about Thunderbird and Outlook, methods to decide – Can Outlook import from Thunderbird. It contains both the manual and automated solutions to this query. You can follow them as per your choice.