Move mail from Apple Mail to Outlook

Do you need to move files at all?

If your mail is in an iCloud, Gmail, Microsoft 365 or other IMAP account, it lives on the server. Add the same account to Outlook and the mail appears there; nothing needs exporting.

Exporting matters for mail that exists only on your Mac: mailboxes under On My Mac, a POP account, or old accounts you have since removed.

1. Export the mailboxes from Apple Mail

1. In Apple Mail, select one or more mailboxes in the sidebar. Hold ⌘ to select several.
2. Choose Mailbox › Export Mailbox….
3. Pick a folder, such as a new folder on the Desktop, and click Choose.

Each mailbox becomes a folder ending in .mbox, with a file called mbox inside that holds the messages. Subfolders are exported only if you select them too.

Copy the exported folder to the computer where you will do the conversion: a USB stick, a shared folder or cloud storage you trust.

2. Convert the MBOX to PST

1. Open MBOX to PST in any modern browser, on the Mac or on Windows.
2. Drop the exported folder, or the .mbox folders inside it.
3. Preview for free: you see how many messages will be imported and anything that cannot be.
4. Create the PST, give it a name and save it.

Each mailbox becomes a folder in the new PST. Apple’s own index files in the export (Info.plist, table_of_contents) are listed as skipped; that is expected, they hold no mail. Every message is read back and compared with what was imported. The conversion runs in your browser; your mail is not uploaded.

3. Open the PST in Outlook

Classic Outlook for Windows:

• File › Open & Export › Open Outlook Data File shows the PST as an extra set of folders, or
• File › Open & Export › Import/Export › Import from another program or file › Outlook Data File (.pst) copies the mail into your mailbox.

New Outlook for Windows handles PST files differently: see PST files in new Outlook.

Outlook on a Mac: classic (legacy) Outlook for Mac can import a PST with File › Import. To read the PST without Outlook, use the PST Viewer.

What comes across

Subjects, senders, recipients, dates, plain-text and HTML bodies and attachments. Apple Mail flags, colours and smart mailboxes do not travel in MBOX files. Contacts and calendars are separate: export them from the Contacts and Calendar apps as vCard and iCalendar files and import those into Outlook.

Frequently asked

Apple Mail exported an empty mailbox. Why? Mail may not have downloaded the messages yet. In Apple Mail select the mailbox, choose Mailbox › Synchronize (or wait for the download to finish) and export again.

Can I convert several mailboxes into one PST? Yes. Drop all the exported folders together; each becomes its own folder in the PST.

Is there a size limit? Large imports are held in memory while the PST is written and need about four times their size in free memory. For very large exports, convert a few mailboxes at a time and combine the PSTs with Merge PST.