Recently I started using imap-backup to back up my (Fastmail) email on my Mac (instead of using MailStore on my PC). This CLI is great for storing email in Mbox format, but it lacks a (GUI) viewer.
What is a good (GUI) Mbox viewer for Mac?
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I back up my email to EagleFiler which works much like an email client when you use it to store MBOX files. But $60 US is a bit much for a viewer.
Why not use Thunderbird mail? It uses MBOX files for folders.
I have an EagleFiler license and actually used this on a previous Mac…
Maybe I should give that a second look.
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+1 on EagleFiler, that’s what I use, but also 
-ing this thread if there are other options because dang it’s … not very pretty.
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Now that you mention it, it is kinda plain looking. I hadn’t noticed that once in the 18 years I have been using it. 
I tried EagleFiler, but it does seem to require me to import the Mbox file into an EagleFiler library, instead of just displaying the Mbox file itself. Since I plan to make weekly backups this would be cumbersome (unless I postpone the import to when I really need to inspect that Mbox file, which hopefully won’t happen that often).
Also, after importing the Mbox, the entire “From” column in EagleFiler was empty, despite all mails in the Mbox having a “From:” line.
EagleFiler will indeed do if needed, but I’m still hoping/looking for something “better”.
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Correct, but it doesn’t modify the MBOX file. It just creates an external index so it can be searched and sorted, etc.
EF also allows me to combine multiple MBOX files and remove any duplicates.
I’ve never experienced that with MBOX files exported from Apple Mail or downloaded from Gmail. Right clicking on the column headers allows me to select desired info.
Hope you find your ideal solution.
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FYI. I just made a new EagleFiler library and imported one of my old Mbox files and dragged another Mbox to the new library’s sidebar. Both of them opened just fine with expected contents in the From column. Even the items I had sent had my name in the From field. My Mbox files were exported from the Apple mail app. Wish I could be of help.
This is the first I’ve ever heard of this happening. If you still have the mbox file, please contact support@c-command.com so that we can investigate.
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I’ll try to look into this when I have some more time (this weekend?).
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MBOX files apparently are not all the same. I don’t use an MBOX file until after my email has been imported into EagleFiler.
I go to my Apple Mail (don’t know if this works with FastMail but I see nothing in the User Manual that says it won’t) and select the email items I want to import. For me, it’s always my entire archive folder, e.g. archive2025. (CMD+A to select all items in the selected folder). Then I press the EagleFiler capture key (F1) and the email appears within EagleFiler in a folder of the same name.
I export the Apple Mail archive2025 folder to somewhere on my internal drive as an MBOX file for safe keeping. Then I delete that Apple Mail folder, and if it is still 2025, I make a new Apple Mail folder archive2025a for when I want to merge the next batch of email into EagleFiler, or else start over with a new year.
The merge command works slick so check that out in the User Manual, too.
I have used this import method in the past for capturing mail received in Outlook, but I exclusively use the Fastmail web interface for personal email these days, so I can’t use this technique anymore I think?
I have an mbox file with which I can reproduce this:
grep "Subject: " Archive.mbox | wc -lshows that there are 891 messagesgrep \>From: *.mbox | wc -lshows that all 891 of them have a “From:” line- EagleFiler’s “From” column column is empty for all 879 messages that it imported
I’ll contact you via the support email address.
EagleFiler’s capture key works in these apps. For FastMail, you would need to export using your browser and then import the files into EagleFiler.
This is actually because imap-backup uses the mboxrd format, which is similar to a standard mbox file but with some differences in the From: header. You can either use imap-backup’s utils export-to-thunderbird command to import the file to a local Thunderbird installation, or open the file in a client which understands mboxrd. I haven’t tried the former, but MailMate fulfils the latter; I’ve used it to successfully view my imap-backup backups.
A more thorough description can be found here.
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This totally explains it…
(Did no test it yet, but it matches what I have seen so far)
Thank you for sharing this!
Confirmed: If I change >From: to From: using sed and then import the file, the “From" column is correctly filled in EagleFiler 
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That’s a lot of apps that do work with EagleFiler. I don’t use Fastmail and did not realize it was a web app.
And thanks to @andrewlkho for describing the variation in MBOX formats that apps like EagleFiler have to cope with.
No problem. It was a strange coincidence that I went to investigate this precise issue at the beginning of this week as I was refining my backup solution!