(port) >

I had very old .eml email archives laying about and wanted to convert them into an open standard format so they could live alongside my current email.

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Props to Théoden for putting me on the right track. He pointed me to msgconv (msgconvert.pl)

2009-06-17 – msgconv – (version not recorded) ∞

See Msgconvert

2009-06-17 – abiword – (version not recorded) ∞

Apparently there is abiword-plugin-eml in my repository, but nobody explains how it’s supposed to work and it doesn’t seem to have a findable homepage. I tried the everyday gui “open” but that won’t work. I then tried this:

apt-get install abiword-plugin-eml
\abiword  --to=out.abw  in.msg

No luck.  I just got junk out.

I read a bit more on the msgconv pages.  They didn’t have any real info on the .msg format itself, but they pointed me to ruby-msg.

2009-06-17 – ruby-msg – v1.4.0 ∞

https://code.google.com/archive/p/ruby-msg

A library for reading and converting Outlook msg and pst files (mapi message stores).

Converts .msg to .eml

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At first I thought this was a low level library, because I was pointed to a .msg format-related page. But I checked things out and it turned out to be a proper application!

Installation

gem install ruby-msg

(eat that, Perl/CPAN)

Usage ∞

mapitool -i some_email.msg

It works! It explodes if you don’t give it an existing .msg file. =/

I wasn’t sure what to do with a .msg file, but I had another option.

Usage2 ∞

mapitool *.msg

Convert a bunch of .msg files into Mail.mbox, and contacts.vcf as appropriate. It works!

Claws Mail can import a .mbox file just fine. All the messages came out in perfect working order.

Conclusion ∞

Well I suppose I should be glad I kept these old email archives around.  I was finally able to import them into an open standard format.

I didn’t need to use mboximport which was also recommended by Théoden.

Now I need to find my old notes for converting mailwarrior emails.  =p

abiword-plugin-eml