Problems with The Bat-Outlook Mail Transfer and How to Solve Them Using Outlook Import Wizard

This article describes the process of The Bat to Outlook migration, as well as how to resolve problems related to the incorrect display of message content and meta data after the conversion of The Bat email messages to PST format.

The Bat export of mail messages

It is fairly simple to make The Bat export e-mail messages.

1. Create on your hard drive temporary directories for each folder in your e-mail account or type of correspondence (Inbox, Sent, Personal, Work, etc.).
2. Launch The Bat and go to the folder from which you want to have The Bat export your messages, and choose all (the keyboard combination Ctrl+A).
3. In the menu entitled “The Bat,” go to Tools → Export Messages → Message files (.EML) or Message files (.MSG), and save The Bat email messages in the corresponding directory which you created in step 1. Each The Bat email will be saved as a separate file in accordance with the chosen format: .eml or .msg.
4. Repeat steps 2-3 for all directories from which you wish to transfer messages.

Ultimately, you should have one or several directories filled with The Bat email messages that have been extracted, with names resembling xxxxxxxx.eml or xxxxxxxx.msg (each “x” stands for a number from 0 to 9). The Bat-Outlook import of this set of transferred messages is now easy.

The Bat-Outlook transfer of extracted messages

Using Outlook Import Wizard to transfer extracted emails into MS Outlook.

If you have saved the messages in .eml format, the conversion from .eml to .pst for Outlook import can be done using Outlook Import Wizard. To do so, launch the program, choose the .pst file to be generated and the root directory where the e-mail messages are saved. Thanks to its mechanism for recognizing catalog structures, the program completes the Outlook import using the directories where the e-mails were saved.

It might appear at first glance that things should be a lot simpler when dealing with .msg files. The problem, however, is that the .msg files produced by The Bat export have nothing in common with the original Outlook .msg format, and are basically text or .eml files with a changed file extension, which makes The Bat-Outlook transfer of messages much more difficult. Precisely for this reason, importing these .msg (pseudo-.msg) files saved by The Bat requires users to take advantage of Outlook Import Wizard to transfer them into MS Outlook’s Personal Folders file format. Before beginning the Outlook import process, be sure to check the box in the program settings for the “Import MSG files as RFC 822 text eml format” option. This setting allows the accurate conversion and transfer of these pseudo-.msg files into Outlook.

There is another and more convenient method to extract The Bat emails and save them to multiple files of eml format. Just find the place (the directory) where The Bat stores message databases. The Bat emails database files have .DAT extension and the mailbox file format. Download and run the free Mailbox Extractor against your data files (.dat) and it will create the folders array and fill folders with extracted emails. With help of Outlook Import Wizard you will be able to transfer extracted The Bat emails into Microsoft Outlook.