emlx to mbox Converter 1.0.3

emlx to mbox Converter is as straight forward a tool for exporting Mac OS X Mail messages to the universal mbox format as it can be a godsend if, after a disk crash for example, you have to recover your mail and Mail refuses to import its own emlx files. Unfortunately, emlx to mbox Converter is not easily automated, cannot incrementally append to mbox files and could be a bit more comfortable, too.

Isn't it wonderful how fast finding messages is in Mac OS X Mail, no matter whether your mailbox contains 5 or 50,000 emails. But even slow access is better than no access at all.

If your hard disk breaks or another disaster strikes and you try to recover your messages to another disk or computer, it will be with not insignificant an amount of horror that you realize Mac OS X Mail cannot import from the emlx files it uses to store mail (in the ~/Library/Mail folder, by the way).

Lucky you! You have used emlx to mbox Converter to export all your important messages to mbox files — an ancient file format used to store emails in the most plain way; you can open mbox files in a text editor with some use, and just about every email program will be able to import from them.

The conversion itself is surprisingly speedy a process and easily done. Getting emlx to mbox Converter to find the files you want converted could be more comfortable (you have to drag them from their folders in Finder, and emlx to mbox Converter does not show any folder, subject or sender info, just the file name), but what really saddened me a bit is that emlx to mbox Converter cannot append a few new emails to an existing mbox backup file.

For backup purposes, some automation would be nice, too. Still, with some time and effort to invest, you can safeguard your Mac OS X Mail 2 emails to a great extent with emlx to mbox Converter.