Merge Multiple MBOX Files

MBOX is a mailbox file formats family used by various email applications such as Thunderbird, Eudora, Apple Mail, Entourage, etc. MBOX file is the typical format for storing emails. It contains all message data including the properties, body and attachments. Sometimes, for different reasons, it is necessary to merge MBOX data files. Some of these reasons are mentioned below:

  • There are several e-mail archives that are usable to combine into one for storing
  • To improve the searching performance of certain emails
  • To further conversion merged MBOX file to another mailbox format, such as PST
  • To merge multiple mailboxes into a single file

In this article, we will learn how to merge multiple MBOX files into a single in C#.

The following topics will be covered in this article:

C# API to merge MBOX files

To to merge MBOX files, we will use Aspose.Email for .NET. It is a popular and feature-rich library to implement email applications using .NET. Also, it allows you to manipulate and convert various email formats. You can install Aspose.Email for .NET via NuGet or download its DLL.

PM> Install-Package Aspose.Email

How to merge multiple MBOX files

The following are the steps to merge multiple MBOX files into single MBOX file using Aspose.Email for .NET.

  • Сreate a target MBOX file for writing
  • Sequentially load source MBOX files
  • Read messages from a source MBOX file and write them to a target MBOX

Let’s now write the code and merge MBOX files using C#.

Merge multiple MBOX files using C#

The following are the steps to merge MBOX files in C#.

The following code sample shows how to merge MBOX files.

/// <summary>Merges MBOX files.</summary>
/// <param name="targetMbox">A target MBOX filename.</param>
/// <param name="sourceMbox">A list of MBOX filenames to merge.</param>
/// <exception cref="System.InvalidOperationException">The target MBOX file already exists.</exception>
public static void MergeMboxes(string targetMbox, params string[] sourceMbox)
{
if (File.Exists(targetMbox))
{
throw new InvalidOperationException("The target mbox file already exists.");
}
// create a target MBOX and open it to writing
using (var mboxWriter = new MboxrdStorageWriter(targetMbox, false))
{
// open and read source MBOX files in a loop
foreach (var sourceFileName in sourceMbox)
{
using (var mboxReader = new MboxStorageReader.CreateReader(sourceFileName, new MboxLoadOptions))
{
// read message from source and write it to target
foreach (var message in mboxReader.EnumerateMessages())
{
mboxWriter.WriteMessage(message);
}
}
}
}
}
view raw MergeMboxes.cs hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Get a Free License

You can get a free temporary license in order to use Aspose.Email for .NET without evaluation limitations.

Conclusion

In this article, you have learned how to merge MBOX files in C#. You can simply install Aspose.Email for .NET and integrate MBOX format support in your applications. In addition, you can explore other features of Aspose.Email using the documentation. Also, you can post your queries to our forum.

See Also