17 votes

Need help with importing emails into macOS Mail from ProtonMail

Posted by rip_rike (edited )
Tags: ask.advice, email, macos.mail, protonmail

Hey there Tildes, hopefully someone could help me with this. I'm having problems importing all my emails I exported from ProtonMail into macOS Mail app/iCloud.

Recently decided to move my custom domain email addresses to iCloud so I could just use the built-in Mail app on my Mac and iPhone. I backed up all of my emails with ProtonMail's own export tool. It exported every email (or maybe email thread?) as a .eml file and .json file (metadata I believe). After exporting, I switch the domain names over to iCloud. It was pretty easy. I guess I assumed all of my emails would somehow come with me? Seems silly thinking about it now. But I have a backup of all my emails!

All seemed fine until I tried to import them into macOS Mail. Mail wants a mailbox format (.mbox I believe), but I only have .eml files. It let me select all of the .eml files and import them anyway but it's taking about 10 seconds or more per email and I have like ~17,000 emails. ChatGPT says thats 47 hours 13 minutes 20 seconds. It's also freezing the mail app during this insane import process. It would be great if I didn't have to wait that long and that's assuming something doesn't go wrong/the app crashes.

No, I don't need all of those emails (I actually deleted about 10,000 over the past month) but now I'm kind of screwed. I guess for security reasons, when you delete the domain from ProtonMail, it deletes all the emails (as far as I can tell, at least). I'm mentioning this because I was thinking I could have tried to find a way to export it in .mbox format or even delete more emails but it's too late for that.

The way the emails were exported, the filenames are jumbles of letters and numbers so I cant even use Finder to search for specific emails when I need them. I can open each individual email in Mail, so it's not like the files are encrypted, I don't think.

One thing I thought of -- I once used Mail with ProtonBridge that would allow you to use ProtonMail with the Mail app, but still use Proton servers and it synced all my emails with my computer. I disabled that account some time ago (didn't delete it or remove it completely from the list of accounts, just unchecked it). Do you think that directory of emails is still on my computer somewhere? And would it be useable in my situation?

I do realize this is completely of my own doing and should have been more thoughtful but I'm here now and would love any help y'all could give. Thanks everyone!

Edit_1: Oh no... I found the directory for Mail in Application Support and it looks like the Mail importer is making a mailbox for every single email. I tried importing these emails earlier today and it looks like it might have imported everything? Here's a screenshot. 🪦

I wonder if I could try and import them into another app and then export in a better format? Thunderbird? Ugh, I really do need a lot of these emails…

Edit_2: So the export tool mentioned above has a restore feature so currently trying that. It will just import these emails back into ProtonMail and I’ll have to figure out the export part again. Hopefully this works!

6 comments

  1. [4]
    Akir
    Link
    I won't likely be very helpful here because email servers can be quite different and I'd imagine Proton is especially so, but typically the easiest way to transfer emails is to simply have your...

    I won't likely be very helpful here because email servers can be quite different and I'd imagine Proton is especially so, but typically the easiest way to transfer emails is to simply have your email client connected to both services with IMAP and use the client to move them from server to server, to my memory.

    4 votes
    1. [3]
      teaearlgraycold
      Link Parent
      With Proton you need to install their bridge software. https://proton.me/mail/bridge

      With Proton you need to install their bridge software.

      https://proton.me/mail/bridge

      4 votes
      1. [2]
        trim
        Link Parent
        It’s the main reason I stopped using proton mail. Bridge is (or at least was at the time) awful. It took flipping ages to exfiltrate all my mail to a local IMAP store before forwarding it all on...

        It’s the main reason I stopped using proton mail. Bridge is (or at least was at the time) awful. It took flipping ages to exfiltrate all my mail to a local IMAP store before forwarding it all on to a different host.

        1 vote
        1. ButteredToast
          Link Parent
          Yeah, I can’t see using Proton for anything serious where I might want to keep mail long-term. Being tied to a single client sucks too. IMAP (or maybe JMAP, since that seems to be gaining a bit of...

          Yeah, I can’t see using Proton for anything serious where I might want to keep mail long-term. Being tied to a single client sucks too. IMAP (or maybe JMAP, since that seems to be gaining a bit of traction) is a must.

          1 vote
  2. [2]
    ButteredToast
    Link
    Have you tried eml → mbox conversion tools? A quick search reveals several of these on github, and there’s probably more elsewhere. Here’s some of the github results. Please note that I have not...

    Have you tried eml → mbox conversion tools? A quick search reveals several of these on github, and there’s probably more elsewhere.

    Here’s some of the github results. Please note that I have not vetted them, so it may be wise to take a quick glance at them and make sure they do what they claim and to keep a copy of your exported mail safe somewhere before trying them.

    https://github.com/MarioBarisa/EML2MBOX
    https://github.com/steliospavlidis/EML-to-Mbox
    https://github.com/nick88msn/eml2mbox

    1 vote
    1. rip_rike
      Link Parent
      awesome — thank you so much for finding those for me! i will give them a look

      awesome — thank you so much for finding those for me! i will give them a look

      1 vote