Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

powerbuddy

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 20, 2006
342
0
I have archived tons of email messages from my Yahoo mailbox. I got this as a zip and folder with several .eml files. I was wondering how do I import these? I tried dragging it but that didn't work! Neither there is an option to import eml messages in mail. I can open the eml messages though..funny I cannot import them! :rolleyes:
 
I have archived tons of email messages from my Yahoo mailbox. I got this as a zip and folder with several .eml files. I was wondering how do I import these?d
 
Go luck with this one.

I have backed up a lot of mail messages in .eml format to my Mac hard drive.

I assumed iMail would be able to handle importing these .eml messages but I was wrong. It is hard to believe that such a basic feature still isn't supported on brand new Macs. This has been around for over a decade on other mail programs!

I am trying various scripts to convert the eml files into formats like MBOX but so far nothing has worked 100%. I did a convert to MBOX but iMail only imported 1 message instead of the several hundred in the MBOX file.

Hopefully Apple will get on the ball one of these days and catch up a little with the PC and be able to handle things as basic as e-mail.
 
I was able to import a few EML files into my Mail by doing the following:

- Double-click the EML file straight from Finder, so the Message opens on screen

- Then go to the menu (which is Mail's menu items, as this had caused Mail to open), and choose "Message" -> "Move To" and select your Account/Inbox

- The email was then "imported" into that Mail account

Obviously if you are doing this in bulk it would be a much more tedious process however.
 
I'm facing the same problem here trying to import my Yahoo mail .eml messages into Mail.

What could be done about it?
 
Workaround for importing thousands of .eml into Apple Mail

My Outlook for Mac Database (40.000 emails) crashed some days ago, no rebuild possible, a lot messages bodies were kind of mixed wildly, so I migratzed to Apple Mail. Soon I realized that it can't import .eml regularly. But you can make a folder in Outlook for Mac put all .eml files into it, drag and drop it to the desktop and so you'll get a .mbox, which you can import into Apple Mail. Not elegant but should work! Didn't try it with thousands, so please report here your results.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Bigfoot57
I was able to import a few EML files into my Mail by doing the following:

- Double-click the EML file straight from Finder, so the Message opens on screen

- Then go to the menu (which is Mail's menu items, as this had caused Mail to open), and choose "Message" -> "Move To" and select your Account/Inbox

- The email was then "imported" into that Mail account

Obviously if you are doing this in bulk it would be a much more tedious process however.

This solved half of my problem. Following these instructions I will be able to "import" my .eml messages into Outlook. But when I do they show the import date, as opposed to the original date of the email. Is there a way to either change the date back to the original date or import them with their original date?
 
I was able to import a few EML files into my Mail by doing the following:

- Double-click the EML file straight from Finder, so the Message opens on screen

- Then go to the menu (which is Mail's menu items, as this had caused Mail to open), and choose "Message" -> "Move To" and select your Account/Inbox

- The email was then "imported" into that Mail account

Obviously if you are doing this in bulk it would be a much more tedious process however.

I need to do this with bulk EML files. What can I do?
 
Workaround for importing thousands of .eml into Apple Mail

My Outlook for Mac Database (40.000 emails) crashed some days ago, no rebuild possible, a lot messages bodies were kind of mixed wildly, so I migratzed to Apple Mail. Soon I realized that it can't import .eml regularly. But you can make a folder in Outlook for Mac put all .eml files into it, drag and drop it to the desktop and so you'll get a .mbox, which you can import into Apple Mail. Not elegant but should work! Didn't try it with thousands, so please report here your results.
Thanks for posting this answer - it worked fine for me and I transferred around 10,000 mails eventually, creating folders for my store of old inbox, sent etc messages. The only thing to watch is that the Outlook for Mac folders will only accept dragged and dropped .eml messages, not the folders they are in, so you have to "Select All" and then drag and drop your selected files.
 
I have found that
Emailchemy
https://weirdkid.com/emailchemy/

Can handle just about any format of mail... It's not free but the demo is fully functional so you can decide it you want to purchase it or not. I moved some Windows mail to Mac without a problem. I also had some Vista Mail that I wanted to move to Mail in Windows 10... It worked like a charm!
 
  • Like
Reactions: Tagbert
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.