Nowadays, there are a number of email applications which provide users to work according to their priorities and choices. MS Outlook and Mac Mail are both the most popular email applications, developed for the Windows Operating System and Mac OS, respectively. There arise many situations when users want to convert between email clients, and for that, they need a professional email conversion tool. In this blog, we will describe both methods, i.e. Manual and professional solutions that can be applied to transfer emails from Windows Outlook to Mac Mail. PST to MBOX Converter software is the most reliable third-party tool for users, using which they can instantly open their Outlook mail in Mac Mail.

Users Query

“I have recently transferred my account staff from Windows OS to the Mac Operating System. Now looking reliable and perfect solution to transfer emails from Windows Outlook to Mac Mail. I searched the internet but did not find any reliable solution. Anyone here who can recommend a simple method to export an Outlook mailbox to Mac Mail? Thanks in advance!”

“Switching from Outlook to Apple Mail manually is not easy for me. Are there any easy and simple methods available for exporting Outlook emails to Mac Mail? I am not a technical person, so I recommend a simple solution.”

Introduction to MS Outlook and Mac Mail

MS Outlook- Outlook is the most popular email application, which is developed by Microsoft. Commonly, it is known as a Personal Information Manager and is used by many users, such as professional users and non-professional users. It stores all the email mailbox data items in the PST file format. Microsoft Outlook manages all the emails, contacts, calendars, tasks, journals, address book, etc. Outlook 2019 is the latest version of MS Outlook.

Mac Mail- Mac Mail (also known as Apple Mail) is the email client included with Mac OS X. The MAC Operating system running OS X 10.0 or later editions has Apple Mail as an email application by default. It has a lot of advanced features that can be advantageous to the operators. It is compatible with SMTP, POP3, and IMAP email accounts and works with most email suppliers like Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, AOL Mail, and iCloud.

How to Export Outlook Mail to Mac Mail Manually?

To migrate Outlook mailboxes to Mac Mail, there is a manual solution available, which is as follows:-

Microsoft Outlook and Mac Mail do not support the same file format. That the reasons you cannot convert Outlook mails directly into Apple Mail (Mac Mail), so you will need to put some extra efforts for migration. Before you start to transfer emails from Windows Outlook to Mac Mail, ensure that you have downloaded Mozilla Thunderbird.

Method#1.  Transfer emails and attachments from Outlook to Thunderbird

Follow these steps:

1. Install and Launch Mozilla Thunderbird email client.

2. Now, click Tools> Import.

3. On the Import window, choose the “Mail” option and click the “Next” button.

4. In the “Please select the type of file that you would like to import ”, choose Outlook. When the import is successful, the system displays the following message:

5. Mail was successfully imported from Outlook.

• In Mozilla Thunderbird, click on Local Folders>> Outlook Import. 

• The Outlook Import folder contains all your data in the same folder hierarchy as you view in the Microsoft Outlook window.

• Now, Right-click on the Outlook Import folder and press Properties.

• Press the General Information section, and make note of the file path in the Location

• Go to the location of the Outlook Import folder and copy the Outlook Import.sbd folder to the Desktop destination location path that you can easily remember.

Here and now that you have converted your Microsoft Outlook files to a format that is supported by Apple Mail, the next step is to transfer all these files from your Windows system to your Mac system. 

You can copy the folder Outlook Import.sbd into a storage device (USB) and transfer it to a Mac system easily, or share the files between Mac and Windows using this method. To do this, you have to make sure that you have downloaded Windows Migration Assistant from Apple's support website. This tool helps you share music, pictures, and other data files from a Windows system toa  Mac system.

Method#2. Move Emails from Windows System to Mac 

Follow these steps:

1. Connect your Windows system and Mac machines to the same network.

2. On the Windows system, close all other applications and run Windows Assistant Manager.

3. On the Migration Assistant window, press Start.

4. On the Mac, close all open applications, and go to Utilities -> Migration Assistant.

5. On the Migration Assistant window on your Mac, choose From a Windows PC and click Continue. Type your administrator credentials and click Continue.

6. Choose your Windows machine from the list of presented machines displayed on the Mac. The machine will display a pass-code for your Windows system on the Transfer Information to this Mac

7. After verifying the pass-code on both the machines, press Continue.

8. After your Mac scans the list of folders that can be converted from your Windows system, choose the Outlook Import.sbd folder that you had stored on the Desktop.

9. After the migration is over, close the Windows Migration Assistant on your Windows machine and log in to your Mac.

10. After you authorize your iTunes account, you will be able to see the folder you transferred from your Windows system.

Now, we finally, once you have moved all your emails from your Windows machine to the Mac operating system, you can export emails from Outlook to Mac Mail

Method#3. Transfer Outlook Import Folder to Mac Mail

1. Install and Launch Apple Mail email application

2. Now, click the File Menu>Import Mailboxes

3. Under the Import Window, choose Mozilla Thunderbird

4. After that, click the “Continue” button

5. Now, navigate to the location of the Outlook Import folder and choose Outlook Import.sbd. When the import process is successful, the machine will show the following message: 

6. You can find the imported mailboxes in the folder named “Import” in the mailboxes list.

7. After all this, Click “Done.”

If all the above steps have been finished, expand the Import folder in Apple Mail, and you should be able to see your Outlook data.

Drawbacks of the Manual Method:

• The users must know each email client application for the proper implementation.

• The complete process is time-consuming and confusing, and it is tough to perform.

• This manual method doesn’t guarantee 100% safe conversion of the data.

As we are observing that this manual solution is a very lengthy and time-consuming process, and it may happen that some of your data items may be lost, and your important time has gone into manual migration processing.

Choose a Better Approach

The manual process is absolutely free and not too difficult to follow, but it is quite a lengthy and time-consuming process. One small mistake and you would have to start again. Thus, a better approach to skip so many steps and make the process extremely simple is to use a reliable third-party tool, PST to MBOX Converter. This third-party tool enables safe migration of Outlook PST files to MBOX format, which is used by popular email clients like Apple Mail, Mozilla Thunderbird, Netscape, etc. The PST Converter can accurately convert multiple PST files to Apple Mail with attachments.