# Accessing Outlook Express .dbx mail files from ruby

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/accessing-outlook-express-dbx-mail-files-from-ruby/79912>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [December 20, 2006, 5:33pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/accessing-outlook-express-dbx-mail-files-from-ruby/79912 "2006-12-20T17:33:24Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![kelleysislander](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/f6c823/32.png) [@kelleysislander](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kelleysislander)\
**Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 5:33pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/accessing-outlook-express-dbx-mail-files-from-ruby/79912/1 "2006-12-20T17:33:24Z")

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Hi,

All I’m really trying to do is export emails from Outlook Express  
to a plain text file.

I wondered if there might be some Windows API that I could call  
from ruby to accomplish this?

Thanks for any tips,

Regards,

Bill

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![kelleysislander](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/f6c823/32.png) [@kelleysislander](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kelleysislander)\
**Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 6:37pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/accessing-outlook-express-dbx-mail-files-from-ruby/79912/2 "2006-12-20T18:37:55Z")

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Bill K. wrote:

> All I’m really trying to do is export emails from Outlook Express  
> to a plain text file.
> 
> I wondered if there might be some Windows API that I could call  
> from ruby to accomplish this?

First, IIRC you can easily export emails to plain text files using  
Outlook Express itself. You can drag a emails from OE to a windows  
explorer window to export as .eml files.

If you want to do something else and want to automate it, here are some  
resources that could help:

Info on the file format and related C++ source code:  
[http://oedbx.aroh.de/](http://oedbx.aroh.de/)

PHP implementation of a reader class:  
[http://www.weberdev.com/get\_example-3479.html](http://www.weberdev.com/get_example-3479.html)

Cheers,  
Dave