Old e-mails not transfering to WLM

Hi all, I have successfully set up WLM and I have successfully created my account and imported my address book etc. My problem is that I cannot see any of my old e-mails that I saved in OE6 under folders that I created. Two issues to take note of. I am running Windows 7 (clean install) on same machine as old Windows XP. They are on seperate drives. Also I have the entire C drive as a backup that is currently mounted as a virtual drive. I can navigate to the area that has the old e-mails folder ie folder.dbx and all the other folders that are in this same directory, the problem is when I try to import this info into WLM nothing gets imported, that is to say: some folders are there, some have info in them, some do not. The key here is that the OLD E-MAILS are not there.

How do I successfully retrieve these old e-mails. I have been researching this for 2 days now and have tried all of the suggestions I can find but none of them seems to actually find and transfer these old e-mails.

Running a Dell Dimension 9100 3gig processor core 2 duo, 4 gig ram, 2tb hard drive, Windows 7 upgrade (clean install)

Any help greatly appeciated

What methods have you tried and failed at?

OE mail is typically in DBX files, but as you are finding out, the export/import method from OE to other mail platforms is problematic and doesn't appear to be improving as time goes on. So, frustration is expected.

I entered "dbx files to Windows Live Mail" in Google and got 41 hits, including some from Microsoft, but I don't know which you have already tried.

I have tried the import from within WLM it works but does not import any of my old e-mails that I have stored under folders that I created in OE6. Mostly I have read other peoples horror stories and have tried a few of the suggestions that were a close match to the issue that I have, but since it is not an exact match, the suggested fix has same results, no old e-mails. The closest I have come is a suggestion to dump WLM and run Thunderbird or some other e-mail program and then follow their suggestions for importing.

Sorry forgot to mention that these are POP3 e-mails and WLM does not deal with that format at all, found that out from the MS site. So that is an added layer of confusion/difficulty.

I went from OE to WLM maybe 18 months ago, and gave up on WLM within weeks. I do recall major issues in getting mail imported, but I did get it done---although I can't recall how. I changed to Thunderbird and have not looked back or regretted it. It can be configured to very much resemble OE.

It's a matter of the mail file formats being incompatible. Maybe you can extract DBX files to some type of neutral format and then import that neutral format more easily into WLM? But it's common for direct export/import via built-in tools to be a major pain.

You can't be the first person to have issues and there may in fact be a tutorial on it somewhere on this site. Other than that, all I can suggest is to pound Google.

Thanks Ignatz, pounding google and others for two days now, still cant seem to find a solution. Except yours, dump WLM switch to 3rd party, change dbx etc. etc., which is starting to make the most sense......

I dug out a DVD I had of my personal Word documents from several years ago and found some info that may be helpful:

There is a program out there called dbxtract.exe. You should be able to find it easily with Google. I DO NOT KNOW IF IT WORKS OK ON WINDOWS 7. You would then have to import the EML files it makes into WLM. EML files may be more appetizing to WLM's import function.

I used it at one time and made a Word doc about it. Here are some excerpts from that Word doc:

DBXtract.exe extracts all mail and news messages from individual dbx files.

Be sure OE is shut down when you run it. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT. Choose c temp or something for a destination folder.

Files are extracted with an eml extension, which when poked opens up outlook express and displays them. Once extracted, the individual messages can then be poked, which opens outlook express. The files can then be forwarded or moved as normal.


The program works by reading the location of the data message stores from the Registry and then loading those into the Path combo box. It then searches the path and loads the dbx filenames that are present in that path into the File com-bo box.

Messages can be extracted with two different file naming procedures. The de-fault (By Subject) names the files by the subject of the message (with all punctu-ation removed). Choosing the By Prefix option, allows one to specify a prefix in the text box and then all files are extracted using that prefix rather than using the message subject. With both procedures, duplicate filenames are appended with a number (e.g. filename(2)). Messages are extracted in the order they appear in the dbx file, which may be totally unrelated to the temporal sequence of the messages.

The program automatically distinguishes between news and mail messages and names the files accordingly with the respective nws and eml file extensions. It also extracts messages completely intact, be they plain text messages with at-tachments or HTML messages.

Hey Ignatz, just wanted to thank you for the info. I have abandoned WLM and switched to Thunderbird. While it was not easy I was able to set it up and import my address book. Still cannot get those old e-mails from Outlook Express, but I am now working on that in Thunderbird! Feel free to slap me upsdie the head for not following your advise when I saw it posted in someone elses thread two days ago.

Thanks again, issue somewhat resolved?

Vidiot1 said:

Hey Ignatz, just wanted to thank you for the info. I have abandoned WLM and switched to Thunderbird. While it was not easy I was able to set it up and import my address book. Still cannot get those old e-mails from Outlook Express, but I am now working on that in Thunderbird! Feel free to slap me upsdie the head for not following your advise when I saw it posted in someone elses thread two days ago.

Thanks again, issue somewhat resolved?

Probably a good move to go with T bird.

It still might be a good idea to look at dbxtract.exe because EML files might be easier to import into T bird??

I can't recall all the sordid details of my move to T bird, but I do recall that the mail import functions were still problematic. I could not import my address book and had to manually recreate it. I was able to import messages, but ended up with a cuckoo folder structure which I later got ironed out.

I remember that it was advantageous to import as few folders as possible.

Thunderbird lives in 2 places:

C Program files (this is the application per se; these are the installation files)

C users yourusername appdata roaming Thunderbird (this is where your email and T bird profile is installed). You can backup your email, accounts, configuration, and profile by simply copying this Thunderbird folder to a safe location.

If you then reinstall Thunderbird at some later date, you can transfer your old email, accounts, and profile to the new installation by copying this backed up Thunderbird folder to C users yourusername appdata roaming on the new PC (overwriting the T bird folder created by the new T bird installation). Much simpler---you don't have to go through that export/import hell that you have been working on. All of your personal mail related stuff is in that one folder under C users, including your address book.

I see this in my future lol
"I can't recall all the sordid details of my move to T bird, but I do recall that the mail import functions were still problematic. I could not import my address book and had to manually recreate it. I was able to import messages, but ended up with a cuckoo folder structure which I later got ironed out."

Actually I'm halfway there, need to crack that .dbx thing and then..........go from there. cuckoo folder structure her I come...........

thanks again your insight has been noted and truely appreciated.