Reading Microsoft Outlook Express .dbx files

[Robert Amesz]

Steve Holden wrote:

>In my trek through the various mail packages the Windoze user may be
>confronted with I am currently battling with Outlook Express.  It's
>actually rather better than I feared.
>
>Its native folder format appears to be a ".dbx" file, about which I
>have no information.  Does any reader have experience with either
>reading these files, or automating OEx to provide them to a Python
>program in RFC822-style formats?
>
>Or, indeed, any other way of extracting mail items from the files
>created by OEx.


As it so happens, i've come across a program recently which can convert 
.dbx (OE5) to .mbx format.

Program:
   ftp://ftp.micropop.com/pub/oe2mbx/oe2mbx.exe

Sources:
   http://www.micropop.com/code/liboe-0.92.tar.gz

Read routines for .DBX files:
   http://www.micropop.com/code/oe2mbx-1.21.tar.gz

Mind you, this is GPLed stuff. There's also *some* information to be 
found on www.wotsit.org, but it's pretty sketchy. Oe2mbx.exe seems to 
work well, though I haven't really tested it extensively. So your 
mileage may vary.


HTH, Robert Amesz