MSG Convert

A perl script to convert Outlook .msg files in to .eml files to read on Ubuntu Linux using Thunderbird.

Originally by Matijs van Zuijlen [email protected]
Later edits by Craig Russell [email protected]

Usage Instructions

1. Install the required perl packages with the following commands

   sudo perl -MCPAN -e 'install("Email::Outlook::Message")'
   sudo perl -MCPAN -e 'install("Email::LocalDelivery")'
   sudo perl -MCPAN -e 'install("Getopt::Long")'
   sudo perl -MCPAN -e 'install("Pod::Usage")'
   sudo perl -MCPAN -e 'install("File::Basename")'

2. Install Thunderbird (if you don;t already have it) with sudo apt-get install thunderbird

3. Download and save msgconvert.pl to your computer

4. Make it executable with chmod +x /path/to/msgconvert.pl

5. Open .msg files with /apth/to/msgconvert.pl /path/to/emailfile.msg

You can configure Nautilus to open .msg files when you double-click them

1. Right click any .msg file

2. Select Open with Other Application

3. Click the arrow next to Use a Custom Command

4. Click the Browse button and choose the msgconvert.pl file

Now when you double click a .msg file, it will be automatically converted to a .eml file and opened in Thunderbird.

Options

msgconvert.pl [options] <file.msg>...

--mbox

--mbox <file>
Deliver to the given mbox file instead of creating individual .eml files.

--exec

--exec <command>
After creating output files, run the specified command with each output file as a parameter e.g. msgconvert.pl --exec thunderbird input.msg

--verbose

--verbose
Print information about skipped parts of the .msg file.

--help

--help
Print a brief help message.

Note

By default the script will open the converted files with thunderbird, you can over ride this with the --exec option. Preferably the script would by default use no application, but Nautilus doesn't allow you to specify options for 'open with' scripts. If you'd rather have no default application, simply change the parameter on line 19 from my $execute = 'thunderbird'; to my $execute = '';