# Extracting mail from outlook express dbx files

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/extracting-mail-from-outlook-express-dbx-files/140532>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [June 15, 2008, 9:54pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/extracting-mail-from-outlook-express-dbx-files/140532 "2008-06-15T21:54:24Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![miner](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/c67d28/32.png) [@miner](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/miner)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2008, 9:54pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/extracting-mail-from-outlook-express-dbx-files/140532/1 "2008-06-15T21:54:24Z")

</div>

does anyone know of a library that can extract mail from outlook express  
dbx  
files?

would prefer output to be rfc2822-compatible (i.e. headers and body in  
ascii). failing that, any rational, accessible format would do.

there are several proprietary packages available that can read dbx but  
i’m  
looking for open source. would obviously prefer ruby but other languages  
are  
better than nothing.

apparently outlook express (as opposed to outlook) does not expose a  
com/ole  
interface and thus is not controllable via the win32ole class.

i searched on raa and rubyforge and didn’t find anything.

miner