I’m about to shut down an old work email account and need to archive several years of emails for future reference. I’m looking for recommendations on the best tool to batch convert emails to PDF format.
Requirements:
Must work with both Apple Mail and Outlook (I have messages in both clients)
Ideally preserves attachments and formatting
Can handle batch/bulk exports efficiently
Reliable with large volumes of emails
I’m wondering if there’s a current consensus on what works best.
Budget isn’t a major concern if the tool does the job well. I’d rather pay for something reliable than lose important correspondence.
Thanks in advance for any recommendations or experiences you can share!
Why PDFs? AFAIK while some third party software and online sites claim to be able to convert mail to pdf, or in the case of Outlook a .pst file to PDF, I never in 30 years of managing email even heard of anyone doing this.
Can you log into the Outlook account using your same Apple Mail client?
If so you can export Apple mail folders (Export Mailbox) to MBOX files then import them into something like EagleFiler. Which will function as a normal, but offline, email client.
Or, if you can log in using Thunderbird you could, after everything is downloaded, copy/move the TB folders, which are MBOX files, to EagleFiler or an MBOX to PDF converter, etc.
When I archived my late father’s emails, I used Thunderbird to output them in .mbox format. I think Apple Mail can read them. They are a standard email archive format.
It has been the app of choice for me when it comes to backing up email and more for several years now. It does its thing daily and reliably. The nice thing about Mail Archiver X is that it does not bother with mail apps, but with mail accounts (Gmail, Imap, iCloud and what not).
And yes, it does a good job exporting to PDF; attachments are preserved. As of now, I have about 20 GB in the database (about 34,000 emails).