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Different Approaches to Export PST file to EML 

Aldrich October 9, 2019

Nowadays, Email clients help to manage business or personal data in effective ways. MS Outlook is one of the most popular email clients by which user can easily access their email account on their desktop screen even without internet connectivity. It helps to manage personal information of users like emails, contacts, tasks, notes, calendars, etc. However, sometimes Outlook PST files become inaccessible in various situations. Those conditions lead most users to switch their accounts from Outlook to other email clients. Therefore they need to export PST files to EML and other supported formats like MSG, PDF, VCARD, MBOX, etc. These situations may be, like

    • Virus Attack.
    • Over-sizing issue.
    • Any software or hardware fault, etc.

PST Files & EML Files

PST- An Outlook data file (.pst) stores messages and other mailbox items in windows PC. It stands for Personal Storage Table, which is the mail database files for a single POP3 account. Emails are downloaded from the server and saved as (.pst) files in the local system.

EML- EML is short for Electronic Mail or Email. It is generally used to store a single email message and compatible with different email clients like Thunderbird, Outlook, Windows Live Mail, Apple Mail, etc.

Now, we explain different solutions on how to convert PST file to EML, so the data can easily be accessible by other supporting email clients. The solutions are as follows

SOLUTION 1:

Use Thunderbird to Export PST File to EML (Manual Process)

Steps for the process to export outlook PST to EML are as follows:

      1. First, download and open the Mozilla Thunderbird email application.
      2. Then, configure your Gmail account with Thunderbird.
      3. Next, go to “Tools” and select “Import” from the drop-down list.
      4. An “Import” dialogue box will appear on the screen, select “Import Everything”. One can also choose from emails, contacts, settings, etc.
      5. Hit on the “Next” button, and from the “Import Wizard” choose “Outlook”.
      6. Now, the import process will start and all emails, contacts, and settings will move from Outlook to Thunderbird.
      7. Once the export process is complete, click on the “Finish” button.
      8. From the left panel, select folder says “Outlook Import”, then select all mails by holding down key Ctrl+A. Right-click on the items and select the “Save As” option.
      9. Then, Browse to folder location where the EML files will be saved.

Limitations

      • Lengthy process.
      • Time-consuming.
      • Technical expertise required.

SOLUTION 2:

Export Outlook Email to EML by Using Outlook Express-

To export PST file to EML, firstly PST files must be configured in MS Outlook, then proceed to follow steps:

      1. Open Outlook Express, click on “File” and select “Import” from the drop-down menu.
      2. Select the “Message” option from sub-menu.
      3. A pop-up window “Outlook Express Import” opens, select “Microsoft Outlook” from the list named “Select an Email Program to Import From” and click on “Next”.
      4. Select folders that you would like to import into Outlook Express, and click on “Next”. The process will start.
      5. After completing the process, click on the button “Next”.
      6. Now, you can easily access your Outlook data into Outlook Express and can easily convert these emails into EML file format by using the drag and drop method.

Limitations

Outlook Express works only for Windows XP. And another thing is, MS Outlook and Outlook Express must be configured on the same machine to perform this task.

SOLUTION 3:

Automated Tool to Convert PST to EML without Outlook

SysTools PST File Converter is one of the best tools to export PST files to EML files into other file formats. It is capable to convert PST files to a wide range of file types, like PST, MSG, EML, TXT, RTF, MHT, DOC, DOCX & HTML. It also has the option to convert both Unicode and ANSI PST files. This tool also can protect and recover corrupted files.

This tool does not need to configure outlook account into the system, PST files data which you would like to convert is enough. It is a straight forward and user-friendly tool that works even without internet connectivity.

Steps to Export Outlook Email to EML File Formats without Using Outlook

  • Firstly, install and open SysTools PST Converter in your system.
  • Click on the button “Add File” to add the PST file.

Export PST file to EML 

  • Now, browse the PST file location from the machine.
  • Then select one PST file from the file folder, and click on “Open”.
  • The Software will show the location of the added PST file. You have an option for “Advance Scan” if the file is highly corrupted. Then hit button “Add File”.

Export PST file to EML 

  • After scanning the file, a screen will show details like- overall size in KB, name of file, file creation date, etc.
  • Software generates a preview of mails in different ways like- Normal Mail View, Hex View, Message Header View, etc.

Export PST file to EML 

  • To convert Outlook PST, select emails, right-click on it and select option “Export”. Then click on the radio button “EML”.
  • Now, you can specify the filters as required, like- Date Filter, Maintain Folder Hierarchy, Name Convention.
  • Browse the exported EML files destination location.
  • Selected destination files location will show on screen, then click on “OK”.

Export PST file to EML 

  • Then, click on “Export”, and when the process will complete exporting PST to EML file format, a message will show on the window “Export process completed successfully”.
  • A “Success Report” will appear on screen. You can click on the number showing “Success Count” to view the saved files path.

Export PST file to EML 

  • To view the files at the destination location, you can also click on the path of “Saved File Path” and saved files at destination location will show.
  • To open any mail with Thunderbird, click on the individual mail.
  • The export reports can also be saved at any desired location by clicking the option “save as”.
  • After saving the report, a message will appear on the screen, showing the location of the report.

Conclusion

The process to convert PST to EML can be done in many ways. We have gone through different manual solutions and third-party solutions. Data can be converted through manual solutions but having so many limitations and restrictions makes it a process difficult. Outlook Express only works for Windows XP. By using Thunderbird, a lengthy process and need technical expertise to follow the procedure. To overcome these problems a third-party solution is introduced to Export PST file to EML, which gives a hassle-free solution to convert data file format.