Question Outlook requires a .pst file type to import emails, but no such format in /var/qmail/??

[TV871]

Pretty much the title.

I have a client for which I hosted his site + email in server with plesk. Now client doesn't like to pay money, so I decided to backup his files and send it to his via drive. He found a wix-like provider which allows him to make one email. Now, he asked me to export the emails from the backup folder into his new email via outlook.

The problem is, outlook imports a .pst file but there is no file in /var/qmail. So, how do I import his old email into outlook?

 

[Monty]

.pst is a proprietary file format from Microsoft for mail archives. Qmail or Postfix on the other use the "maildir" format to store the mails (see Maildir - Wikipedia). So in short, it's one file per mail, stored as plain text files.

You won't be able to import that into Outlook on a file level.

But the easiest way: Your client can add an IMAP account in his Outlook and connect that to your server. Then he can access the mails on your server via IMAP and copy/move them to any folder in his Outlook (local archive, exchange mailbox or even a remote IMAP mailbox).

 

[TV871]

But I wil be shutting down his server. His current provider is a drag-drop web builder and he does not have ftp/ssh access. Is there any other way it could be exported? I can tell him to install mozilla thunderbird but not sure if they use .pst file even though it is open source

 

[Monty]

He doesn't need ftp/ssh access. All he needs is a mail client (eg. Outlook or Thunderbird) and access to your server via IMAP.
So he should migrate his mails before you shut down the server. There's no reasonable other way to do it.

 

[TV871]

Oh, so I should keep the server running I guess. Btw, I transferred his domain to his new provider. The server I have now only has the IP, is that enough access the mail from his pc with IMAP?

edit: thanks btw

 

[Monty]

Yup that's enough. All he needs to know is server IP or hostname, username + password for each mailbox that he wants to access.