MBOX to PDF Converter for Email Archives

MBOX to PDF conversion turns a whole mailbox export into one document that anyone can open, search and print without an email program. Upload one .mbox file and you get a PDF that starts with a contents page listing every subject, then each email on a new page. Every message shows its sender, recipients, date and body text.

Convert your MBOX file to PDF

How to convert MBOX to PDF

1. Click Choose Files and pick one file whose name ends in .mbox (up to 25 MB).
2. Check that the right archive is listed.
3. Click Convert To PDF.
4. Download the PDF once the conversion is done.

Want a step-by-step walkthrough with tips on checking the result? Read our guide on converting an MBOX email archive to PDF.

What is an MBOX file?

An MBOX file stores many email messages one after another in a single plain text file. As RFC 4155 describes, each message begins with a separator line that starts with the word From and a space.

The converter splits the file at those separator lines and reads every message with its own character set. We tried a mailbox of three messages saved in UTF-8, ISO-8859-1 and KOI8-R, and the contents page listed "Grüße aus Zürich", "Café crème à Genève" and "Привет из Москвы", each spelled correctly, with the body text decoded the same way.

What the PDF contains for each email

A contents page first

The first page is titled MBOX to PDF, says how many messages were found and lists their subjects in mailbox order. The messages follow in that same order.

Headers, body text and attachment names

Each message starts on a new page labeled Email 1 of 3, Email 2 of 3 and so on, with its subject, From, To, CC and Date in GMT. The body comes next as plain text (HTML emails get reduced to their text), and attachments are listed by name and size without being embedded.

When a line in a message starts with From

A body line such as "From Monday on I am in Zurich." doesn't break the mailbox. The converter only starts a new message at a From line that opens the file or follows a blank line, and only when a header line comes right after it. Mail programs often write such body lines as ">From Monday", and the converter takes that ">" off again.

Chinese, Arabic, Hebrew and links in the PDF

Chinese and Japanese emails don't print. Every character of the subject and body turned into an empty box, and their subject lines on the contents page were blank. The PDF font, DejaVu Sans, has no CJK characters; we tested one message each in Chinese, Japanese, Arabic and Hebrew in October 2026.

Arabic and Hebrew print with the letters in the right order and Arabic letters joined, but the text is left aligned. A two word subject lost the space between its words, and the full stop at the end of each body sentence ended up in the wrong place, so check names and numbers in messages like these against the mailbox.

Links are never clickable; the PDF had no link annotations at all. A web address written in a plain text email prints in full, and an HTML only message prints each link text with the address in square brackets. That held for our multipart HTML message with no plain text version too, where "parcel here" printed with its address.

What a mailbox of 300 messages turns into

In October 2026 we built a 12.2 MB mailbox of 300 short order emails, every tenth with a 300 KB PDF attached, and converted it. The PDF had 306 pages and was 357.5 KB, and the whole request, upload included, took about 1.1 seconds on our local test server.

The contents list alone filled the first 6 pages, with one page per message after it. The attachments made up most of the upload but got only one line each in the PDF, such as "quote-10.pdf (300.0 KB)". That's why the PDF came out so much smaller than the mailbox.

Getting an MBOX file from your mail program

Gmail exports through Google Takeout use the MBOX format, and so do lots of desktop mail programs. The converter only takes files whose name ends in .mbox, so if your program saved the mailbox without that extension, add it to a copy of the file before you upload.

The ending alone doesn't make a file a mailbox. A PDF and a plain shopping list renamed to .mbox were both refused with "This file is not an MBOX mailbox.", while a single .eml message renamed to .mbox went through and gave a 2 page PDF with one email. For a single message, Email to PDF skips the contents page.

Several mailboxes or single messages

To combine several MBOX files into one PDF, use Merge MBOX to PDF; for a mix of .eml messages and mailboxes, Merge Emails to PDF reads each file on its own. If the archive holds private correspondence, put a password on the finished PDF with Protect PDF before you share it.

Limits and privacy

The tool takes one .mbox file of up to 25 MB per run. A 26.1 MB Takeout style test mailbox got stopped on the page before upload with "The file : Takeout-26mb.mbox is too large. Please try to upload a file smaller than 25 MB size." The PDF is built on our server and sent straight back to your browser.

The uploaded mailbox gets deleted automatically within two hours. The PDF holds the full text of every message, though, so store it as carefully as the mailbox itself.

Frequently Asked Questions about MBOX to PDF

Can I convert an MBOX file without Thunderbird or another mail program?

Yes. Upload the .mbox file in your browser and download the PDF. You don't need an email program.

Does the PDF include every email in the mailbox?

Every message the converter finds between the From separator lines is in it, and the contents page tells you how many that is. A line starting with From inside a message's text doesn't add an extra message.

Are attachments embedded in the PDF?

No. The PDF lists each attachment's name and size under its email, but the files themselves only stay in the original MBOX.

How large a mailbox can I convert?

One .mbox file of up to 25 MB per run. A 12.2 MB test mailbox of 300 messages gave a 306 page PDF; split a bigger export into several mailboxes in your mail program first.

Is MBOX to PDF free?

Yes. No sign-up, no charge.