Export mail into Outlook (Express)

Outlook Express, and Outlook cannot recognize Thunderbird's mailbox files in order to import them. If you try to import the mailbox files, you may get an error message such as "Import Error—The mail folder could not be opened. If another application is using this file, please close it and try again."

Below are some ways you can export your Thunderbird e-mail into Outlook and Outlook Express based on actual users' experiences. Before trying any of these methods, it is recommeded that you first try to get rid of all special characters in the names of mailbox folders (for example, "@", commas, and so forth). Otherwise, you might run into trouble later and might not get error messages even if something wrong does occur during the import process.

If and only if you have a small number of messages in your Inbox, you may also just select each message individually and click "File -> Save As -> File" so that the e-mail is now saved with an .eml extension, which you can then import into Outlook/Outlook Express or most other e-mail clients. If all else fails, you can still open the file with any text editor such as KWrite, gedit, or Notepad.