I've used libpst to be this in the past. On Debian it's packaged as pst-utils. The readpst util will convert your PST to a variety of formats including MBOX.
this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2025
22 points (100.0% liked)
Ask Lemmy
31316 readers
946 users here now
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Hmm, okay, that sounds good. This is a Python? So I just need to install Python and then download libpst?
For context, I have a CS degree (1985) and was a software engineer for many years, but I went up a management ladder like 20 years ago, and about the only programming I've done since has been office VBA. I'm retired now. I've never used Python or git personally, though I managed people who did. So a couple pointers to get me on the right track would be appreciated.
It might already be packaged for whichever OS you're running, and it comes with a utility to do the conversion. On Debian or Ubuntu it should be as simple as installing the pst-utils package and running something like readpst <path to .pst file> and it'll leave an mbox file for you. It's been a fair few years since I used it, so reading the documentation would probably be wise, but I remember it being pretty straightforward.
I don't have a Redhat machine handy right now, but it looks like the package is called libpst there. On a Mac you'd need to follow the build instructions in the git repository, but it's not python, the main library and utils are written in C. The tarball they refer to it just a tar of the source, that you can download form the releases page. I can't help you if your running windows, I don't have a machine running it, and haven't used it in many years.
Okay, thank you. I am, in fact, running Windows. I appreciate the info.
I'm interested in knowing this too as I'd like to migrate everything I do to a non-invasive platform.
Thunderbird looks like a viable client. I installed it tonight and poked around a bit - seems fairly feature rich. If you have outlook, there are a number of options. One of the easiest is to just point Thunderbird at the same address as your Outlook points to, and move your PST contents into Outlook proper. But I don't have outlook, and don't want to buy it just for this.
Sign up for the free trial and cancel it as soon as you have migrated your pst file.
The free trials all limit use to like 25 emails and I have orders or magnitude more than that.
Edit: oh, you probably mean the free trial of Outlook? Is there such a thing? If so, that might be viable. As I recall, the MS tool only works with a locally installed version of Outlook, not 365. I'll have to look into that.
Yeah? I'll do this if I'm forced to use Outlook for work again.
Do you have a friend or relative who uses Outlook who'd let you sit in front of their computer for half an hour to do this?
It's possible, and that's a good idea. The only one I know of for sure is my son, but he lives 900 miles away, so I'd have to do it remotely, and the PST file is like a GB in size, so I was trying to avoid that. It's possible one of my friends does though.