Apple Mail to Outlook: moving your mail off Mac Mail

First question: is your mail on a server or only on your Mac?

Look at the Mail sidebar. Each account you have added (iCloud, Gmail, Exchange, Microsoft 365, or any IMAP account) keeps its mail on the provider’s server. Mail only shows you a copy.

For those accounts, you don’t need to export anything. Add the same account to Outlook and it downloads the mail, folders included, straight from the server. In Outlook, use the add-account option (in classic Outlook for Windows, File → Add Account; in Outlook for Mac, the account settings) and sign in. For iCloud you may need an app-specific password, created on your Apple Account page.

Exporting is only needed for mail that isn’t on any server:

• On My Mac mailboxes: folders you created locally, often used as an archive.
• Mail from accounts you have closed, such as an old work account or a provider you left, which Mail may still show because it kept a local copy.
• POP accounts, where messages were downloaded and possibly deleted from the server.

Make sure everything is downloaded first

If you plan to export mail from a server account too, for example as a backup before closing it, check that Mail has actually downloaded it. Mail can leave attachments, or older messages, on the server, and only what is stored on the Mac gets exported.

1. Open Mail → Settings (Preferences on older macOS) and go to Accounts.
2. Select the account and set the attachment download option (Download Attachments) to All. The exact wording varies between macOS versions.
3. Select a mailbox and choose Mailbox → Synchronize where that option is available, then give Mail time to finish. The activity indicator next to the account disappears when it is done.

Export mailboxes from Apple Mail

Mail’s built-in export saves each mailbox in the standard mbox format:

1. In the Mail sidebar, select the mailbox you want. Hold ⌘ to select several at once.
2. Choose Mailbox → Export Mailbox… from the menu bar (or right-click the mailbox).
3. Pick a destination, for example a new folder called Mail export on your Desktop, and click Choose.

Each mailbox becomes a folder such as Archive 2019.mbox. Inside is a file named mbox with your messages, and sometimes a small index file or two. Finder may show the .mbox folder as a single item; that is normal, and you don’t need to open it.

If you export the same mailbox twice, Mail adds a number to the name (for example Inbox 2.mbox) rather than overwriting. Our Apple Mail export guide has step-by-step instructions.

Destination A: Outlook on the same Mac

Outlook for Mac doesn’t open Apple Mail’s mbox exports directly in its current versions. Its import feature is built around Outlook’s own formats: .olm files (Outlook for Mac archives) and .pst files (Outlook for Windows data files). Some older Outlook for Mac versions offered importing from Apple Mail, but you shouldn’t count on that today.

That leaves two practical routes:

Route 1: move the mail through a server account

If you have an IMAP account that both apps can use (iCloud, Outlook.com, Microsoft 365), create a folder in that account in Apple Mail and drag your On My Mac mailboxes into it. Mail uploads the messages; Outlook then downloads them. It is free, but slow for large mailboxes, and the mail counts against the account’s storage.

Route 2: convert to PST and import it

Convert the exported .mbox folders to a PST, then use Outlook’s Import command (under File or Tools, depending on the version) and choose the PST option. The imported folders appear under On My Computer, with the same structure as your mailboxes.

Destination B: Outlook on a Windows PC

Moving from a Mac to a PC? Outlook for Windows can’t read mbox files at all, so the mail needs to become a PST, the Outlook data file. You can convert it on the Mac before you leave, then carry one file over.

1. Convert the mailboxes to PST

Our comparison of four ways to convert MBOX to PST covers the free and paid options fairly. With MoveMyInbox, it works like this:

1. Start a new conversion and drag the .mbox folders, or the whole Mail export folder, onto the upload area. Leave them as they are: the index files inside are skipped automatically.
2. Keep the folder mode One folder per mbox file. Each mailbox becomes an Outlook folder named after its .mbox folder.
3. See the one-time price for the total size (details on our pricing page), pay with Stripe, and download the PST when it’s ready, typically within minutes.

Attachments, inline images, read and flagged status and accented characters come along. Uploads are deleted as soon as the PST is ready, and the PST itself after 7 days; see security.

2. Copy the PST to the PC

Use an external drive, a USB stick formatted for both systems (exFAT), or a cloud folder. Once on the PC, move the PST to a local folder such as Documents\Outlook Files before opening it; Outlook doesn’t like PSTs inside synced or network folders.

3. Import it into Outlook

In classic Outlook, choose File → Open & Export → Import/Export → Import from another program or file → Outlook Data File (.pst), or simply open the PST as a separate data file. The new Outlook for Windows has limited PST support that is still rolling out; if the option is missing, switch to classic Outlook for the import. The PST import guide walks through every version.

Contacts and calendars

Apple Mail doesn’t store your contacts or calendars; the Contacts and Calendar apps do. MoveMyInbox converts mail only, so move these separately:

• Contacts: in the Contacts app, select the contacts (or Edit → Select All) and choose File → Export → Export vCard. Outlook can import vCard (.vcf) files, although classic Outlook for Windows handles a multi-contact vCard poorly; converting to CSV, or syncing through your account, often works better.
• Calendars: in Calendar, select a calendar and choose File → Export → Export to save an .ics file, which Outlook can import.

If your contacts and calendars are in iCloud, Google or Exchange, the simplest option is often to add that account to Outlook, or to keep them synced where they are.

Final checks before you switch

Before you remove anything from the Mac, spend a few minutes checking:

1. Compare folder names and message counts in Outlook with the mailboxes in Apple Mail.
2. Open a few old messages with attachments and make sure the files open.
3. Search for a name or a word with accents that you know is in your mail.
4. Keep the exported .mbox folders, and a Time Machine backup, until you are sure nothing is missing.

For a bigger picture of the two formats, read MBOX vs PST. If you have a very large archive, PST size limits explained is worth a look first.

Frequently asked questions