How to Extract Attachments from MBOX Files?

MBOX file format is one of the most used formats to store emails, attachments, contacts, etc.  MBOX’s popularity is primarily due to flexibility and easy accessibility. The format isn’t OS-specific. You can open an MBOX file on any operating system [OS] like Windows, Mac, or Linux. It doesn’t even require you to have a particular email client set up to read the MBOX file data. Various email clients like Apple Mail, Thunderbird, Entourage, and others store their mailbox data in MBOX format.

Extract Attachments from MBOX Files

At times, MBOX emails contain large attachments, which increase the size of your MBOX file significantly, making it difficult to manage.

These large-size attachments can affect the performance of your email service. Moreover, saving large attachments in .mbox format could result in file corruption and make email data inaccessible. Therefore, you must delete or extract the attachments from emails to avoid corruption and inaccessibility of your .mbox data. Since you cannot delete most attachments containing important information, extracting them and saving them to a secure location is the right approach. Some key benefits of saving attachments from MBOX files:

• Attachments downloaded from MBOX files can be used as backups if the original email or attachment is corrupted, lost, or deleted.
• You can access your extracted MBOX attachments offline once they are saved in the local system.
• Allows you to organize files efficiently. You can move the files categorically into separate folders for better access.
• Secures your MBOX file data saved in the attachment. You can also edit the attachments if needed.

Manually Extract MBOX File Attachments using Thunderbird

There are different methods to extract attachments from MBOX file. However, the most appropriate solution is to install a Thunderbird email client and use its Add-ons support and Attachment Extractor. Follow the step-by-step process, including how to add the ‘Attachment Extractor’ add-ons, to extract MBOX file attachment manually.

• Launch the Thunderbird application on your system.
• From the Thunderbird window, click on the ‘three horizontal lines,’ visible on the right-hand side.
• In the given options, click on ‘Add-on and Themes’.

• Type ‘attachment extractor’ in the ‘Find more add-ons’ box.

• In the search result window, click ‘Add to Thunderbird’ in front of ‘Attachment Extractor’.

• Click on ‘Add’ when you are asked for permission.

• Click on ‘OK’, when you receive the ‘Attachment Extractor was added’ message.

• In the ‘Add-ons Manager’ page, you can see the ‘Attachment Extractor’ enabled by default. If not, then enable the add-on.

Note: Attachment Extractor can only extract attachments from selected emails. You can either select a single email or multiple emails.

• Select the emails with attachments you want to extract, then right-click. Now, from the options, select ‘Attachment Extractor’ visible in the option list. You will get two options: Extract attachments or Delete attachments. Click on ‘Extract Attachments.’

• A pop-up window will appear, click ‘Cancel’ if you want to save the original filenames. If you want to rename the file, you can name it accordingly ‘date-subject-fromMail-filename’ and click OK.

• Browse to the folder where you want to ‘save’ the extracted attachments, and then click on ‘Select Folders.’ Your extracted attachment will be saved in the selected folder on your computer.

By following the given steps, users can manually extract attachments from MBOX files. However, the manual method has certain drawbacks. The add-on extension used to extract MBOX attachments may vary from one version to another in Thunderbird. Further, the process can be lengthy and time-consuming.

How to Extract Attachment Professionally from MBOX Files?

Extracting attachments using the Attachment Extractor in Thunderbird isn’t always successful. The accuracy and integrity of the saved attachments may vary. Therefore, you need a better solution to deal with the MBOX file attachment problem. You can back up your MBOX files with attachments in PST file format using a third-party converter tool like Stellar Converter for MBOX.

The tool is designed to convert MBOX files into Outlook importable PST files. It also features different saving options for backing up of your MBOX files into MSG, EML, RTF, PDF, and HTML file formats.

Stellar Converter for MBOX provides a preview of your converted MBOX files, i.e., mailbox items, before saving them to your preferred format. Moreover, PST files are easy to move and migrate from MBOX-based mail client to MS Outlook. The tool maintains the original folder hierarchy and structure and allows you to get precise and accurate results. The tool also has other features for specific requirements, such as Batch conversion, Selective conversion, etc. Moreover, the tool supports more than 15 MBOX email clients and allows users to convert multiple MBOX files simultaneously into PST file.

Conclusion:

Your MBOX email significantly increases the size of MBOX file, which results in the sluggish performance of your email service. MBOX files with large attachments are also prone to corruption.

Therefore, the best solution to your MBOX attachment is to extract/download the attachments. You can also delete the attachments but that isn’t a plausible solution. You can manually extract attachments from MBOX files using the Thunderbird application’s Attachment Extractor. But, the process has limited success. However, you can convert your MBOX data into PST format with Stellar Converter for MBOX and then manage your MBOX file attachments. It allows you to back up your important MBOX file data in PST format, which can be used later when needed. The process is easy and quick and keeps the original folder structure intact.

Was this article helpful?

YES0

NO

About The Author

Shelly Bhardwaj

I am a Product Consultant and is associated with Stellar Data Recovery from last 8 years. I write about the latest technology tips and provide custom solutions related to Exchange Server, Office 365, MS Outlook, and many other Email Clients & different flavors of OS Servers. Read More