mbox (mailbox) file format

.mbox · .mbx · archive (email) · introduced 1975 by Unix mail community

What is a mbox (mailbox) file?

mbox is the classic Unix mailbox: every email concatenated together with a line beginning "From " separating each message. It dates back to 1975 and is still the underlying storage of Thunderbird, Pine, mutt, and many email export tools. Gmail Takeout exports your mail as one giant mbox file.

Most readers reach this page after double-clicking a .mbox file and finding their operating system unsure what to do with it. The good news: mbox (mailbox) is a well-understood format with mature tooling on every major platform. It is supported in one click by mainstream archivers on Windows, macOS, and Linux.

How to extract a mbox (mailbox) file

Opening a .mbox file is straightforward on every modern operating system. The exact steps depend on which platform you are on:

On Windows

Locate the .mbox file in File Explorer.
Right-click the file. If you have 7-Zip installed, choose 7-Zip → Extract Here. On Windows 11 the built-in extractor handles ZIP, 7z, RAR and several other formats directly through Extract All…
If prompted, pick a destination folder and click Extract.
The extracted files appear in a folder next to the original archive.

On macOS

Find the .mbox file in Finder.
Install The Unarchiver from the Mac App Store, or Keka for both creating and extracting.
Right-click the file → Open With → The Unarchiver (or just double-click after Unarchiver is set as the default).
The extracted folder appears next to the archive.

On Linux

Use your file manager: right-click the archive → Extract Here (file-roller on GNOME, Ark on KDE).

On the command line, run one of:

7z x archive.mbox    # works for almost any format

The files appear in the current directory.

How to create a mbox (mailbox) file

To pack files into a .mbox archive, you typically need an archiver that supports writing this format. Not every tool can create every format — for example, only WinRAR can create real RAR files. The sidebar lists the software known to read and write mbox (mailbox).

On the command line, the canonical create command is:

# Use 7-Zip, PeaZip, or the format's reference tool to create .mbox files.

If you regularly create archives at scale, a dedicated archive automation suite can wrap this command in scheduled jobs, integrity checks, and offsite replication.

Strengths

Trivial to parse
Universally readable
Streamable

Weaknesses and limitations

No per-message indexing
Locking is fragile
Easily corrupted by careless edits

Typical use cases

Local email archives
Gmail Takeout exports
Email migration

Technical details

mbox (mailbox) uses the None algorithm and is identified on disk by the magic byte sequence 46 72 6F 6D 20. The standard MIME type is application/mbox. The format is an open specification and is free for any use.

Frequently asked questions

Is mbox (mailbox) safe to open?

Archive files are containers — they are only as safe as what they contain. A .mbox from a trusted source is fine; one received from a stranger can hold malicious executables, scripts, or files engineered to exploit bugs in your archiver. Always keep your archiver updated, and never run unknown executables that come out of an archive. A safe workflow is to extract into a sandbox and scan the contents before opening anything.

What is the maximum file size?

Modern implementations support archives in the multi-terabyte range. The practical limit is your filesystem (FAT32 caps at 4 GB; ext4, NTFS, APFS, and exFAT all comfortably handle multi-TB files).

Can I password-protect a mbox (mailbox)?

Some archivers can wrap mbox (mailbox) files in an encrypted container, but the format itself does not always include built-in encryption. Check your archiver's documentation.

How does mbox (mailbox) compare to other formats?

See our format comparison pages such as ZIP vs 7z, ZIP vs RAR, and tar.gz vs tar.xz for side-by-side feature tables.