---
name: "undbx"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "undbx"
version: "0.21-4"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/undbx"
---

# undbx(1)

a tool to extract e-mails from Outlook Express .dbx files.

## NAME

undbx - a tool to extract e-mails from Outlook Express .dbx files.

## SYNOPSIS

**undbx** \[*options*\]*\<DBX-DIRECTORY*\|*DBX-FILE\>*\[\<OUTPUT-DIRECTORY\>\]\

## DESCRIPTION

**undbx** is a tool to extract, recover and undelete e-mails messages from Outlook Express .dbx files.

Email are extracted in individual .eml files.

When a target directory is specified, **undbx** will extract e-mails from dbx files found in this directory. Instead of providing a target directory, the usr can provide a target dbx file.

When no output directory is specified, **undbx** will extract emails in a subdirectory of the current directory.

In normal mode (not recovery), a message is extracted only if there is no corresponding .eml file in the destination directory.

On the other hand, if a .eml file exists in the destination directory and no corresponding mail is found in the .dbx file, the mail is considered deleted and **undbx** will delete this .eml file. This way, **undbx** can be used as an synchronization backup tool for .dbx files.

The file names of .eml files are composed by the From, To and Subject: header fields. The modification time of each file is set to match the date specified in the Date field of the mail header.

## OPTIONS

- \--help

  **Provides a short help message.**

- \--recover

  **undbx attempt to recover e-mail messages from a corrupted .dbx file.**

In this mode fragments of messages are collected into .eml files. This may take a long time and some messages maybe corrupted.

Also, all messages are extracted, not only the new ones.

- \--version

  **Shows the version string**

## SEE ALSO

[**pffinfo**(1)](/pffinfo/1.md) [**pffexport**(1)](/pffexport/1.md) [**munpack**(1)](/munpack/1.md)

## AUTHOR

This manual page was written by Christophe Monniez \<christophe.monniez@fccu.be\> for the Debian system (but may be used by others).

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU General Public License, Version 3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation

On Debian systems, the complete text of the GNU General Public License can be found in /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL.