Ashkon Software

Advanced MBOX Viewer: Open Thunderbird, Gmail and Apple Mail MBOX Files

Advanced MBOX Viewer opens MBOX mailboxes — Mozilla Thunderbird folders and profiles, Google Takeout (Gmail) archives, Apple Mail exports and the .mbox files of Eudora, SeaMonkey and Unix mail — without the program that created them. Read, search, print and export your mail, convert it to Outlook PST, merge and split mailboxes, all from one small program with no mail account and no import.

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Advanced MBOX Viewer showing a Thunderbird Local Folders tree, the message list and a message in the reading pane

Features

Opening MBOX mailboxes

  • Single MBOX files: .mbox, .mbx, .mbs and Thunderbird folder files without an extension (Inbox, Sent).
  • Whole folders: a Thunderbird profile, Local Folders with all .sbd subfolders, IMAP account folders, or any folder of exported .mbox files (File > Open Folder).
  • Google Takeout: the Gmail labels of All mail Including Spam and Trash.mbox become folders (Inbox, Sent, your own and nested labels), with the read and starred state of each message.
  • Apple Mail .mbox packages, including nested mailboxes.
  • No mail program needed — no Thunderbird, Apple Mail or Gmail account, no profile and no import.
  • Read-only, shared access: mail files are never modified and can stay open in Thunderbird.
  • Gigabyte mailboxes indexed in seconds; message text is read from the file only when it is shown.
  • Several mailboxes open at once. Open files and folders from the File menu, by drag and drop, from the command line, the recent files list or “Open with” in Explorer.
  • Familiar three-pane layout with unread counts; full Unicode for file names, folder names and message text. Window layout, columns and sort order are remembered.

Accurate message display

  • HTML messages rendered by Microsoft Edge WebView2 with inline pictures.
  • Plain text, format=flowed text and uuencoded attachments inside the message text; messages in any character set.
  • Privacy protection: scripts never run, links open in your browser, and pictures from the Internet load only when you allow it.
  • Print messages with a full header block.

Attachments

  • Open, save and save all attachments; attached messages open in their own window.
  • Bulk attachment extraction from selected messages, the message list or a folder with subfolders, with file type filter, skip inline pictures and date prefix.

Save, export and convert

  • Save a message as EML (the original message), single-file HTML, plain text or PDF.
  • Export to Outlook PST: convert Thunderbird, Gmail and Apple Mail mailboxes into an Outlook data file for Outlook and Microsoft 365, with folders, read state, flags, categories, HTML and attachments — Outlook does not have to be installed.
  • Export selected messages, a folder or a folder with all subfolders to EML, HTML, TXT, PDF or MBOX, recreating the folder structure, with your own file name pattern ({date}_{from}_{subject}).
  • Many messages in one PDF with page numbers or Bates numbers for legal, HR and insurance evidence.
  • Split large MBOX files by size, year or month, or write all folders into one mailbox.
  • Merge MBOX files into one, with duplicate messages removed and optional sorting by date.
  • Extract e-mail addresses from From, To, Cc, Bcc and Reply-To into a CSV file (Outlook and Gmail import) or vCard.
  • Export the message list to CSV for Excel, reports and eDiscovery.

Search and organize

  • Find messages by subject, sender, recipients, message text or attachment names, with match case, whole words, date range, size range and “with attachments” options.
  • Search hits highlighted in the message text, subject, header lines and attachment names.
  • Quick filter box above the message list (Ctrl+Shift+F).
  • Column chooser (To, Cc, Sent, Importance, Flag, Categories, MD5, SHA-256) and grouping by date.

Forensics and recovery

  • MD5 and SHA-256 of every message, in the list, the CSV export and the Properties window.
  • Export log and chain-of-custody report with the hashes of the source, every message and every output file.
  • Skip duplicate messages during export (same Message-ID, or the same content).
  • Recover deleted messages that Thunderbird has not compacted away, and message text in damaged files.
  • Internet headers, MBOX position and status fields (X-Mozilla-Status, Status, Gmail labels) and the MIME structure of any message.

MBOX is the most common mailbox format there is: Thunderbird stores every folder in it, Google Takeout delivers your Gmail in it, and Apple Mail exports to it. Advanced MBOX Viewer turns any of these files into a readable, searchable mailbox on Windows, and moves the mail on to Outlook, PDF or other formats when you need to. Your mail files are opened read-only and are never modified.

Screenshots

Export dialog of Advanced MBOX Viewer with Outlook data file (.pst) selected as the format
Convert MBOX mailboxes to an Outlook PST file
Merge MBOX Files dialog with a list of mailboxes and duplicate removal option
Merge several mailboxes into one, without duplicates
Extract E-mail Addresses dialog with address fields and CSV or vCard output
Collect every e-mail address into CSV or vCard
Extract Attachments dialog of Advanced MBOX Viewer
Save the attachments of a whole mailbox at once

Read the full Advanced MBOX Viewer User Guide: opening Thunderbird, Gmail and Apple Mail mailboxes, searching, exporting to PST, PDF and MBOX, merging and splitting mailboxes, extracting addresses and attachments, and recovering deleted messages.

Ordering

After a completed secure online order, an unlocking key file is emailed to you within two business days. Questions about ordering or registration: order@ashkon.com. Prices for all products are on the Order page.