Windows MBox Viewer

User Manual [Link]

Table of Contents
1 Modification History........................................................................................................................4
2 What is new and what changed in version [Link].........................................................................5
2.1 What is new................................................................................................................................... 5
2.2 What changed................................................................................................................................ 5
3 LICENSE..........................................................................................................................................5
4 About this document.........................................................................................................................5
5 Feedback...........................................................................................................................................6
6 Overview..........................................................................................................................................6
7 Known Issues....................................................................................................................................7
7.1 Running MBox Viewer..................................................................................................................7
7.2 Folder Path Restrictions................................................................................................................ 7
7.3 Printing to PDF..............................................................................................................................7
7.4 Printing Multiple Selected Mails...................................................................................................7
7.5 Mail Date and Time....................................................................................................................... 8
7.6 Searching....................................................................................................................................... 8
8 Installation........................................................................................................................................ 8
9 Configuration Data Store..................................................................................................................9
10 Running MBox viewer...................................................................................................................9
10.1 Argument List Summary............................................................................................................. 9
10.2 Setting Options from GUI.........................................................................................................10
10.3 Basic Use Case.......................................................................................................................... 11
10.4 Multiple Folders Support...........................................................................................................14
10.5 Support for Hierarchy of Folders..............................................................................................15
10.5.1 Select Root Folder for Merging Configuration Dialog..........................................................15
10.6 Data Folder Configuration.........................................................................................................16
10.7 Text Font Size Configuration.................................................................................................... 16
10.7.1 Limitations..............................................................................................................................17
10.8 Hiding and Restoring Mbox Files in Mail Archive Tree Window............................................17
10.9 Hiding of Mail Archive Tree Window.......................................................................................19
10.10 Set MBox Viewer as default application to open mail archive files.......................................20
10.11 Message Window Position.......................................................................................................20
10.12 Preservation of Windows Placement.......................................................................................20
10.13 Background Color Style Customization.................................................................................. 20
10.14 Support for Gmail Labels........................................................................................................23
10.14.1 Limitations............................................................................................................................24
10.15 Expand Message Header Field List......................................................................................... 25
10.16 Viewing raw message header.................................................................................................. 25
10.17 HTML/PDF Mail Header Customization................................................................................ 25
10.18 Single Mail Context Menu...................................................................................................... 26
10.18.1 File Names............................................................................................................................27
10.19 Multiple Selected Mails Context Menu...................................................................................27
10.19.1 File Names............................................................................................................................28
10.20 Conversation Mail Group Context Menu................................................................................28
10.20.1 File Names............................................................................................................................29
10.21 Mail Archive Context menu.................................................................................................... 29
10.21.1 Print to CSV File Dialog...................................................................................................... 30
10.22 Mail Attachments.....................................................................................................................30
10.22.1 Attachment context menu..................................................................................................... 31

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10.22.2 Attachments Configuration...................................................................................................31
10.22.3 Exporting All Attachments of All Mails............................................................................... 32
10.23 Inline Image Cache..................................................................................................................32
10.24 Export of all Mails to a Separate Eml files..............................................................................32
10.25 Picture Viewer.........................................................................................................................34
10.26 Mail Navigation.......................................................................................................................35
10.27 Mail Sorting.............................................................................................................................35
[Link] Subject Sorting Rules........................................................................................................35
10.28 Dynamic Column Resize......................................................................................................... 36
10.29 Mail Searching.........................................................................................................................36
10.29.1 Basic Find............................................................................................................................. 36
[Link] Find all mails that match Option....................................................................................... 37
[Link] Find mails that don’t match option....................................................................................37
[Link] Handling of special ‘*’ search string.................................................................................38
[Link] Filter Dates........................................................................................................................ 38
10.29.2 Advanced Find......................................................................................................................39
[Link] Find all mails that don’t match option...............................................................................40
[Link] Handling of special ‘*’ search string.................................................................................40
[Link] Filter Dates........................................................................................................................ 40
10.29.3 Search Reliability................................................................................................................. 40
10.29.4 Search for Words..................................................................................................................41
10.29.5 Search Progress Bar..............................................................................................................41
10.29.6 Search Performance..............................................................................................................41
10.30 Refreshing Archive Tree Window........................................................................................... 42
10.31 Language (Character Sets) Support.........................................................................................42
10.31.1 Message Window..................................................................................................................42
[Link] Header of Message Window..............................................................................................43
10.31.2 Summary Window................................................................................................................ 44
10.32 Mail List Auditing................................................................................................................... 44
10.32.1 Mail List Archiving.............................................................................................................. 45
10.32.2 Merging Multiple Mail Archives..........................................................................................46
[Link] Merging files using command line options.......................................................................46
[Link] Merging files from GUI.....................................................................................................46
10.33 Mail Printing Overview........................................................................................................... 47
10.33.1 Print Configuration Dialog................................................................................................... 47
[Link] Custom Name Template.................................................................................................... 48
10.33.2 Mail Printing to CSV Spreadsheet file................................................................................. 49
10.33.3 Mail Printing to TEXT file...................................................................................................49
10.33.4 Mail Printing to HTML file.................................................................................................. 49
10.33.5 Mail Printing to PDF printer.................................................................................................49
10.33.6 Mail Printing to PDF file...................................................................................................... 50
[Link] Use of free wkhtmltopdf application................................................................................. 50
[Link] Print Options......................................................................................................................50
[Link] Printing directly from Firefox, Chrome and Edge browsers.............................................51
[Link] Impact on Font Size when Printing of Multiple Mails to a Single PDF............................51
[Link] Performance.......................................................................................................................52
10.33.7 Mail Printing to PDF files by Power Users..........................................................................52
10.34 Viewing Large PDF files.........................................................................................................53
10.35 Mail Sharing with other People............................................................................................... 53
10.36 Support for Outlook .msg Mail Files.......................................................................................55

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 10.36.1 Viewing single .msg file.......................................................................................................55
10.36.2 Viewing Outlook msg internal structure...............................................................................55
10.36.3 Merging multiple Outlook .msg mail files...........................................................................55
10.37 Support for [Link] and .ms-tnef attachments..................................................................55
10.38 Export and Print Directory Structure.......................................................................................56
11 Support for Read Only Media.......................................................................................................57
12 Forward Mails directly from MBox Viewer.................................................................................57
12.1 Overview...................................................................................................................................57
12.2 User Accounts and Passwords................................................................................................... 57
12.2.1 Yahoo Mail Service................................................................................................................ 58
12.2.2 Gmail Mail Service.................................................................................................................58
[Link] Gmail user didn’t enable 2-step verification to sign up into Gmail....................................58
[Link] Gmail user did enable 2-step verification to sign up into Gmail.........................................58
12.2.3 Outlook Live Mail Service.....................................................................................................59
[Link] Create Outlook Account, User Name and Password...........................................................60
[Link].1 You don’t have Microsoft Account (know as MSA) and you don’t have Outlook Live
account................................................................................................................................................60
[Link].2 You already have both Microsoft Account and Outlook Live Account............................60
[Link] Generate App Password for Outlook................................................................................... 60
12.3 Mail Sending and Size Limits................................................................................................... 60
12.3.1 Gmail Mail Service.................................................................................................................61
12.3.2 Yahoo Mail Service................................................................................................................ 61
12.3.3 Outlook Mail Service............................................................................................................. 61
12.4 SMTP Server Configuration...................................................................................................... 61
12.4.1 SMTP Servers Default Settings.............................................................................................. 62
12.5 Forwarding Mails...................................................................................................................... 63
12.5.1 Forwarding a single email......................................................................................................63
12.5.2 Forwarding a list of selected emails.......................................................................................64
12.5.3 Error Reporting.......................................................................................................................64
13 Support for Multiple Languages...................................................................................................64
13.1 Language Configuration............................................................................................................ 64
13.2 Limitations.................................................................................................................................65
14 Windows Code Page Identifiers................................................................................................... 65
14.1 Handling Unknown Code Page Names.....................................................................................69

1 Modification History
Revision Date Comments
1.0 February 28, 2018 Initial Release
< [Link] See [Link] [Link] included with the release
package.
>= [Link] September 26, See the section “What is new and what changed in version
2019 1.0.3.x”.
> [Link] March 3, 2025 English version of User Guide will match the MBox Viewer
release number. Non English version may not be updated if
there was no important changes to the functionality.

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 2 What is new and what changed in version [Link]
2.1 What is new
1. none.

2.2 What changed

1. Enhanced processing of [Link] and .ms-tnef attachments.

3 LICENSE
The mbox viewer source code created by authors of the mbox viewer project is licensed under
GNU AFFERO GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE version 3 which permits free use of the code by
individuals and organizations. Small portion of the source code is from Code Project site
and licensed under the Code Project Open License (CPOL) 1.02 which permits, as we
understand, free use of the that code except in a few unusual cases such as for example the
immoral usage. MailKit open source free library linked to connect to SMTP servers is
licensed under MIT.

The mbox viewer executable doesn't link any non-free usage library and therefore it can be
freely used, as we understand, by individuals and organizations.

The mbox viewer software is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY
WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE.

Please check the below links for the detailed information on GPL, CPOL and MIT license
terms.

[Link]

[Link]

[Link]

[Link]

[Link]

[Link]

[Link]

[Link]

Links to additional publications that can be useful.

[Link]
[Link]

4 About this document

Starting with [Link] version of MBox Viewer, icons representing folders and mail archives have

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changed. Mail archive used to be represented by the folder icon and now is represented as the stack
of mail envelops. Mail folder was represented by the computer icon and now it is represented by the
folder icon. However, not all screen snapshots were updated yet to reflect the change.

5 Feedback
To help to improve MBox Viewer, please post reviews what works and what doesn’t, create bug
reports and request for enhancements. Provide as many details as possible, such as country,
screenshots, etc.

6 Overview
MBox Viewer (or mboxview) is Windows GUI based program to view mbox files such as
Thunderbird Archives, Google mail archives or simple Eml files or Outlook MSG files.
The mbox viewer is a simple but quite powerful email viewer that supports the following features:
1. large file support > 4Gb
2. fast parsing of mbox archives
3. quick access to all attachments
4. preview picture attachments
5. zoom in/out a picture
6. export of single mail in Eml
7. export of all mails in Eml format
8. export attachments of all mails
9. print all or multiple selected mails to CSV or Text or HTML or PDF files or send to PDF printer
10. print single mail to Text or HTML or PDF file or send to PDF printer
11. group all related mails as conversations
12. print mail conversation/related mails group to CSV or Text or HTML or PDF file or send to
PDF printer
13. open single or multiple selected mails or group of related mails in a browser
14. find user defined text in mail’s message and highlight all occurrences
15. search the date, subject, sender, cc, bcc, message text, appendix text and appendix names
16. search for mails that didn’t match the search criteria
17. sort by date, from, to, subject, size and conversation groups
18. support for mail’s header fields and body encoded with different character sets
19. support for mail list editing capability to enable users to compose mail list by merging results of
multiple searches and/or by merging one or more user selected mails
20. ability to set Message Window position to Bottom, Right or Left
21. ability to merge/concatenate multiple archive files and remove duplicate mails
22. ability to customize background colors of display panes and mail message
23. ability to customize HTML/PDF mail header output

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24. view raw mail headers
25. forward mails directly from MBox Viewer
26. support for Gmail Labels
27. support for exported hierarchy of mail files from Thunderbird or similar mail clients
28. support for Mail Sharing (or Mail Export) feature to enable users to share one or more of the
selected mails in HTML and PDF format with other people.
29. support for Windows Registry based and file based configurations
30. support for multiple languages
31. ability to control font size by users
32. support for Outlook msg files
33. support for [Link] and .ms-tnef attachments

7 Known Issues
7.1 Running MBox Viewer
Only a single instance of MBox Viewer should be running at any given time. The second instance
of MBox Viewer is allowed when opening mail file directly by the MBox Viewer or when starting
in the mail preview mode.

7.2 Folder Path Restrictions

MBox Viewer relies on Windows file system to implement its data base. MBox Viewer creates files
in response to user requests such as Print to .. [txt|pdf|htm|csv]. To avoid problems, user should
install MBox Viewer and MBOX mail files under folders with short path due to limitation to the
max length of Windows file names (255). The file names created by MBox Viewer are composed of
the following parts:
“Path of the installation folder” + “Path of the folder housing mail files” + “mail subject.[txt|htm|
pdf|csv]”
MBox Viewer can reduce length of the “mail subject.[txt|htm|pdf|csv]” part when required but other
parts are under user control.

7.3 Printing to PDF

MBox Viewer relies on Microsoft Edge and/or Google Chrome browsers to print directly to PDF.
Customization of printing is limited when printing directly to PDF.
Opening mails in a browser and printing from the browser offers additional options such as ability
to remove color in the output or scale the pages.

7.4 Printing Multiple Selected Mails

Mbox Viewer simply concatenates multiple mails in HTML format into a single HTML file and

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opens the created file within a browser. The format of the created file is basically as follows:
<div><html><mail 1 header in HTML format></html></div>
<div><html><mail 1 body in HTML format></html></div>
<div><html><mail 2 header in HTML format></html></div>
<div><html><mail 2 body in HTML format></html></div>
<div><html><mail 3 header in HTML format></html></div>
<div><html><mail 3 body in HTML format></html></div>
…………………
The <div> tags are used in an attempt to create independent sections within HTML document.
The approach doesn’t always work reliably for variety of reasons. One known issue is that some
mails with content in HTML format rely on default values such as the font size and may inherit the
font size from other mails. MBox Viewer was enhanced to minimize such issues.
In rare cases, when printing multiple selected mails to PDF, use “Merge” option to resolve the
potential issues.

7.5 Mail Date and Time

Mails older than the epoch time, i.e. older than year 1970 are supported but the date and time of
such mails will be mapped to Jan 1 1970. Windows supports may different date and time functions
but only Unix style date and time functions support Daylight Saving Time. However, these
functions do not support date older than year 1970.

7.6 Searching
Search for words is quite reliable for words composed characters from ASCII and ISO-8859-1 (Also
known as ISO Latin 1) character sets. Option to search for words should not be set when searching
emails not composed from ASCII and ISO-8859-1 character sets.

8 Installation
The executable and the source code can be downloaded from Sourceforge or Github.
[Link]
[Link]
Download the executable package, the latest [Link], to the working
directory and unzip. This will create the [Link]-v1.0.3.58 directory containing the stand-
alone [Link] executable, User Guide, the scripts sub-directory and ReleasePlusStackTrace
sub-directory. No administrator privileges are needed to install and run the mbox viewer.
Review the [Link] file in case of the Mbox Viewer crash.

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 9 Configuration Data Store
#
# MBox Viewer supports Windows Registry based configuration and the file based configuration.
# By default, Windows Registry is used to store configuration data.
# During startup, the MBox Viewer will check whether the [Link] file exists and
writeable in:
#
# 1) the Config subfolder under the MBox Viewer software installation folder or
# 2) in the UMBoxViewer\Config subfolder under the user specific folder created by Windows
system
# example : C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\UMBoxViewer\Config
#
# The config file format is similar to the format of ".reg" registry file
# [UMBoxViewer\LastSelection]
# "parameter"="value"
#
# White spaces are not allowed in the front of each line and around "=" character.
# All parameter values are encoded as strings and converted by MBox Viewer to numbers or other
data types when needed.
#
# [Link] file must be encoded as UTF16LE BOM file
#
# [Link] file is included in the software package under the Config folder.
# In order to enable MBox Viewer to use the file based configuration,
# user needs to rename this file to [Link] file or copy the sample file
# to C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\UMBoxViewer\Config folder and rename.
#

10 Running MBox viewer

The mboxview program can be executed by double clicking the executable from the explorer
window or from the command line by typing the command name and argument list to it.

10.1 Argument List Summary

The mboxview accept the following command line options.
-FOLDER=folderPath – the full path to the folder containing one or more mbox or eml files.
Persists in the registry across multiple runs.
-MAIL_FILE=fileName – full file path or just file name of mbox/eml file to load. If the full path is
not specified, the full path is created from the folderPath and the fileName. Doesn’t persist in the
registry across multiple runs.

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-EML_PREVIEW_MODE command line option to hide Mbox Tree and Mail List panes when
-MAIL_FILE is configured. ESCAPE key will terminate the mbox viewer.
-EXPORT_EML=y|n – enables or disables automatic export of eml files generated from mbox
archive. Improves traversing performance of mail if set to ‘n”. Persists in the registry across
multiple runs.
-PROGRESS_BAR_DELAY=seconds – search progress bar is activated when the search duration
lasts longer than the value set for PROGRESS_BAR_DELAY. If set to -1, the progress bar is
disables. Default value is set to 1 seconds. Persists in the registry across multiple runs.
-MBOX_MERGE_LIST_FILE=listFile Name and -MBOX_MERGE_TO_FILE=mergedFile
Name command line options to merge content of mbox files listed in the listFile Name. The merged
mbox file is automatically open in mbox viewer.

If desired, instead of typing directly desired command line options, a simple .cmd or .bat file can be
created for convenience and run from the explorer.

10.2 Setting Options from GUI

The EXPORT_EML and PROGRESS_BAR_DELAY values can be changed on the fly at any
time from GUI.
Click on the “File” to open the drop menu and then select the “Options” option. The below dialog
will be presented. Set the desired values followed by OK button.
Note that if exporting of EML files is disabled, you can still export the eml file for the selected mail
by selecting “View EML” under the “View” drop menu.
Two options, “Show Charsets” and “Set Character Sets for Header Fields”, can help to properly
display header fields in the Message Window. See [Link] for additional details.
The “Picture Viewer” check box enables/disables the dialog option to preview the picture
attachments, see 10.25 for additional details.
The “Enhanced Select Mail Folder Dialog” is different version of the “Select Folder” option and
allows user to see if the mail archives are in the folder. User needs to select any mail file to select
containing folder.
The “Time” option allows to display time as Local or GMT.
The “Subject Sort Type” option creates subject threads when sorting by subject. Emails within
each subject thread are sorted by time. By default subject threads are sorted alphanumerically.
Subject threads can be sorted by time by selecting "File->Options->time ordered threads" option.
The “Validate files as mbox files” option enables user to control what files will be considered for
validation as mbox files. Validation is done based on the content of files.

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10.3 Basic Use Case
Double click of the mboxview to start the viewer. The picture below shows the screen created by
the mboxview after few steps performed by a user. Mail Archive Tree, Summary and Message
windows are initially blank after start-up. Steps to load a mail archive and display the content are
described next.

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1. Click on the “File” to open the drop menu and then select the “Select folder...” option.
Browse to the folder containing one or more mbox and/or eml mail archive files and select
it. All valid mail archive files will appear in the Mail Archive Tree window.
Note that different “Select Folder” dialog can be configured via File → Options menu
dialog.

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2. Left click on one of the archive files to load all mails within that archive. Progress bar will
appear and automatically close after the selected archive is fully processed. Mail header
information of each email will appear in the Summary window. Note that parsing of very
large archive file may take some time since the mail archives are text files and every
character has to be examine one by one.

However, subsequent loading of mails is done from the index file created by the mboxview
during the initial parsing of the archive file and is much faster. The created index file
contains content meta data of each mail in the archive file. i.e. the mail header information
and the position of each mail within the mail file for quick access to the mail message/body.
The index files have the .mboxview suffix.

3. Left Click on one of the mails in the Summary window to show the Message/Body of that
email in the Message window. The mail retrieval state, total number of mails in the archive
and the position of the selected mail within the archive is shown on the status bar. Opening a
heperlinks within an external browser is recommended since running Java or scripts or
ActiveX controls is disabled in the internal browser to improve security.

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10.4 Multiple Folders Support
Each time you click on the “File” to open the drop menu and select new mail archive folder via the
“Select folder...” option, the selected folder will be added to list of folders under the Mail Archive
Tree.

Use +/- icon on the toolbar to expand/collapse the list of archive file under all folders.

To remove folder from the list:

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 1. Left click on the folder to select the folder and then

2. Right click on the folder and select Delete Folder menu option

List of the selected folders will persist across multiple runs.

10.5 Support for Hierarchy of Folders

MBox Viewer can automatically open mail files residing under the root folder and all sub-folders.
Using this capability, user can more easily view emails exported by Thunderbird or similar email
clients.
User can select one of two options to leverage this feature.
1. Select “File→Select folder as root folder ...” option. MBox Viewer will traverse root folder
and all sub-folders and recreate folder hierarchy under the Mail Tree.
2. Select “File→Select root folder for merging ...” option. MBox Viewer will traverse root
folder and all sub-folders, merge all discovered mbox files and recreate folder structure as
Gmail style labels. Duplicate email will be removed.

Option 2, that is merging, allows searching across all discovered mail archives while option 1
allows searching within each mail file only.

Screen snapshot illustrates both cases when applied to the same Thunderbird folder.

10.5.1 Select Root Folder for Merging Configuration Dialog

The following dialog is presented to users upon selection of the “Select root folder for merging..”
option. In addition to support for folder hierarchy and Gmail style labels, other useful options for
merging mbox or eml files are supported.

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10.6 Data Folder Configuration
MBox Viewer will generate files and save them in the user selected data folder when executing
some of the options such as “Print To...”, Export All Mails as Eml ..”, etc.
User can select data folder by selecting “File-->Data Folder Config” dialog.

10.7 Text Font Size Configuration

By default the system font size is 8 points for all GUI elements. User can configure new font size
via “File→Font Config” dialog.

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10.7.1 Limitations
1. Font size of all title’s windows (dialogs, main frame, etc) is not affected
2. Font size of the main menu bar is fixed to 12 points.
3. Font size of the status bar is not affected
4. Message text is not affected. User can use CTRL+mouse sctroll wheel to change the font
size

10.8 Hiding and Restoring Mbox Files in Mail Archive Tree

Window
User can hide some mbox files temporarily if he is not actively working with these files and restore
hidden files later when needed. To hide an mbox file, right click on a file and select “Remove File”
option.

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To restore hidden windows, left click on the folder to select the folder and then right click on a
folder and select “Restore Removed Folders” option.

Check files to restore in “Select Files to Restore” dialog.

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 10.9 Hiding of Mail Archive Tree Window
User can hide Mail Archive Tree Window to make larger Mail Summary and Mail Message
Windows. Select button |←or →| to hide/unhide the Tree Window. Tree Window can be hidden only
when one of the mbox mail files is selected.

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10.10 Set MBox Viewer as default application to open mail
archive files
MBox Viewer can be configured as default application to open a mail file by double-left-click on
the file. There are multiple ways to set MBox Viewer as default application. By default, when you
double-left-click on a mail file, Windows will ask user to select program to open the mail file
assuming no application was set as default yet. Make sure the “Always use this app to open.” option
is set. To redo the current assignment, right-click on the file and select “Open with” option.

10.11 Message Window Position

Message Window position can be set to Bottom, Right or Left via View→Message Window option.
After setting new position, mbox viewer needs to be restarted for the change to take effect.
When position is set to Right or Left, the mail address format will change to show mail name only
or mail address if the name is missing.
By default Message Window position is set to Bottom.

10.12 Preservation of Windows Placement

Mbox Viewer will save the windows placement upon exit and restore upon next run.

10.13 Background Color Style Customization

By default the background color of all display panes is set to the white color. Select the
“File→Color Style Config” menu option to customize colors of display panes. Left click on the
Custom button to start customization. The screen similar to the below will be created.

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Color Style Configuration dialog allows users to replace the white background of the 8 panes listed
on the dialog box with the predefined colors or custom colors defined by users.
The dialog offers eight predefined color styles users can evaluate before attempting to configure the
custom color style. It is helpful to open one of the mails with attachments to help to evaluate
predefined and custom color styles.
Select "Custom" radio button to start configuration of the custom color style.
Configure the same or different color for each pane (MailArchiveTree, etc).
Select one of the panes and left click on the "Pick Color" button to start the "Color Selection
Dialog".

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The "Pick Color" button will initially be populated with the color associated with the selected pane.
The top raw of the Custom Colors area will initially be populated with the colors associated with
each pane.
You can change the color in four different areas. The top left section displays a list of 48 predefined
colors.
If the desired color is not in that section, you can click on the crosshair and drag the mouse in the
multi-colored palette.
You can also drag the right bar that displays a range based on the color of the palette.
For more precision, you can type the Red, Green and Blue values in the custom color editor area.
Each uses an integral value that ranges from 1 to 255.
Once you are happy with the custom color, left click on the OK button in
the "Color Selection Dialog". The "Color Selection Dialog" will be closed and control will return to
the "Color Style Configuration" dialog.
The "Pick Color" button will be painted with the created custom color. Left click on the "Apply"
button to apply the new color to the selected pane. Left click on the "Apply" button again to cancel
the change.
Left click on the Save button to save the change in order for the change to persist after the mbox
viewer shutdown. Or, customize colors of all panes first and then left click on the Save button to
save all changes.
Left click on the Cancel button to discard all changes made since the last Save or startup.

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Left click on the Close button or standard Windows Close button to hide the "Color Selection
Dialog". Changes made so far are not discarded.
To reopen, select File -> Color Style Config menu option.
NOTE that the saved color style will be applied to all mails. You can temporarily disable custom
color style for the active mail by right click on the mail header in the mail message window and
selecting Enable/Disable Custom Color Style menu option.

10.14 Support for Gmail Labels

User can perform a separate step to recreate Gmail Labels on Gmail mbox mail archives. Gmail
Label information is included in every email downloaded from Gmail. To recreate labels, user needs
to right click on an active Gmail mail archive in Tree Pane and select “Gmail Labels → Create”
option. This will create folders as in example below. Left click on the folder icon to view all mails
within the label.

Select the folder icon to view all mails again. Button “All Mails and ‘Found Mails” are scoped to

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the label when a label is selected. Content of “User Selected Mails” is shared across all labels of the
active folder and the folder.

10.14.1 Limitations
If you decide to hide/remove the folder from the Tree Pane Via “Remove File” option and later
restore via “Restore Removed Files” option, Gmail labels will not be automatically restored until
you recreate the labels.

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10.15 Expand Message Header Field List
When message window position is configured at the bottom, the message header list doesn’t show
CC and BCC message header fields. This can be changed via “View –> Message Header Pane
Layout –>Expanded” option.

10.16 Viewing raw message header

The raw message headers can be viewed in the message window by setting “View → View Raw
Message Headers” option. This is the global change and it needs to be disabled to view messages
content again. The raw message header can be viewed by doing the right click on the message
header pane and setting “View Raw Header” option. The setting doesn’t persists when new mail is
selected.

10.17 HTML/PDF Mail Header Customization

The HTML/PDF Header Configuration dialog allows users to select mail header fields for output
and to configure fonts for the field name and field text. User can also configure to output the list of
all attachments. The customization dialog is selected via “File” --> “Print Config” --> “HTML/PDF
Header Configuration” button.
There are two options to configure fonts: Default and Custom.
The Default option allows to configure:
1. the font size which be applied to both the field name and text.
2. the bold font style which will be applied to the field names only.
The Custom option allows to configure:
1. the same or different font for the header field names and text.
2. the font dialog allows to configure the font name, style and size.
3. the generic family font in addition to the primary font configured via the font dialog.
The following links contain helpful information on HTML fonts.
HTML Fonts
Fonts and Formatting

25
User can also configure how to open document/attachment link in Web browser.

10.18 Single Mail Context Menu

Right Click on a selected mail in the Summary Window to open the context menu as shown below.
The “Print to” context menu allows to print the selected mail to Text, HTML or PDF file or to send
to the user selected PDF printer.
The “Open in Browser” menu option will open the selected mail in the external default Web
Browser.
The “Find Text” option allows to find user specified text and highlight all occurrences in the
Message window.
The “Find Advanced” options will start the advanced search dialog and pre-populate From, To and
Subject fields from the mail.

26
10.18.1 File Names
User can configure file name pattern/template to apply when printing single mail by selecting File
-> Print Config dialog. Pattern is composed from Date, Time, From, To, Subject and Unique Id
fields. Only alpha numeric characters are selected from the Subject, other characters will be
replaced with the underscore.
Files will be saved in the FolderHousingMailArchives/PrintCache/MailArchiveName folder, where
MailArchiveName denotes the archive file name without the .mbox extension.
User must enter the target file name manually when printing to PDF printer, i.e. when selecting
Print to → Printer mail option or when printing mail to pdf file from the browser.
Print Config dialog allows users to configure the maximum length of created file name. The
maximum file path length supported by Windows is 260 characters for non Unicode applications.
Therefore the file name will be limited to (260 – length of
FolderHousingMailArchives/PrintCache/MailArchiveName/MailFileName) path. User can set
wanted file name length limit and the mbox viewer will adjust the configured length if needed.

10.19 Multiple Selected Mails Context Menu

Multiple mails can be selected using Windows standard method, i.e. Left click followed by
Shift+LeftClick or CTRL+LeftClick or CTRL+A.
Right Click on a multiple selected email in the Summary Window to open the context menu as
shown below.
The “Print Selected Mails to” context menu option allows to print the selected mails to single Text
or HTML or CSV or PDF files or send to the user selected PDF printer. See also 10.33.7 “Mail

27
Printing to PDF files by Power Users” section.
The “Open Selected Mails in Browser” menu option will open the selected mails in the external
default Web Browser.

10.19.1 File Names

User can’t configure file name pattern/template to apply when printing multiple mails to a single
file. The file name is automatically composed from the archive file name with appropriate
extension, i.e. .txt or .htm or .csv or .pdf.
Files will be saved in the FolderHousingMailArchives/PrintCache/MailArchiveName folder, where
MailArchiveName denotes the archive file name without the mbox extension.
User must enter the target file name manually when printing to PDF printer, i.e. when selecting
Print Selected mails to → Printer mail option or when printing mail to PDF file from the browser.

10.20 Conversation Mail Group Context Menu

All Mails must be sorted by the conversation first before context options can be processed. See
10.27 section.
Right Click on any mail within the selected conversation group in the Summary Window to open
the context menu as shown in 10.18 section.
The “Print Related Mails to” context menu option allows to print the selected group of mails
(conversation) to Text, HTML, CSV or PDF file or to send to the user selected PDF printer.
The “Open Related Mails in Browser” menu option will open the selected mail group in the external
default Web Browser.

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10.20.1 File Names
See 10.19.1 section.

10.21 Mail Archive Context menu

Right click on the active mail archive under the Mail Archive Tree Window to open the context
menu as shown below.

The context menu allows to print all email to single CSV, Text , HTML and PDF files. The name of
the created file will be created based on the archive file name with the .csv or .txt or .html or .pdf
suffix in the FolderHousingMailArchives/PrintCache/MailArchiveName folder, where
MailArchiveName denotes the archive file name without the mbox extension. NOTE that mails will
be printed according to the sort order in the summary window.
Size of HTML file can be very large and opening in most of the browsers can be problematic.
Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome browser seem to perform best as far as handling large HTML
files.
When printing to TEXT file, HTML to Text conversion was added in [Link] to handle mails with
HTML text block and no Plain text. Conversion can be quite slow and print time could increase
significantly compared to [Link] in case the large number of conversions is required. Progress bar
was added to indicate progress, possibly slow progress.
Printing to single PDF file is the most time consuming. See also 10.33.7 “Mail Printing to PDF
files by Power Users” sections for larger scale printing to single PDF file.
All mails of the active archive can be sorted by date, from, to subject, size and conversations in the

29
Summary Window. This feature is the same as the left click on the selected column in the Summary
Window.
The “Properties” option shows the archive file location, size and email count
The “Refresh Index File” option will perform fresh parse of the archive file if needed.

10.21.1 Print to CSV File Dialog

When printing selected mail archive or selected set of mails by a user to CSV file, user can select
what fields to export, the date format and one of two time zones.
Option to normalize content encoding is also available. Default encoding is set to UTF-8 and should
not be changed except possibly in special cases.
The “Limit Message to N Characters” value is set by default to 32500 characters and it should not
be set higher otherwise Excel and LibreOffice will complain that the character count limit per
spreadsheet cell was exceeded. LibreOffice will gracefully handle the text overflow, Excel
spreadsheet will get corrupted.
User can configure string that separates attachment names. The special CRLF string will be
replaced with \r\n string in the CSV output.

10.22 Mail Attachments

Mail attachments are shown at the bottom of the Message window. Note that the “*’ character may
appear in the first column for the associated mail to indicate presence of associated attachments. To
open location of attachments, double click on the mail in the Summary window or select
“View”→”ViewEML” menu option. Temporary folder will open containing all attachments for the
email. Use standard Windows applications to view attachments.
You can also double left click to view attachments. Picture attachments will be viewed in the
Picture Viewer (if configured in the global Options) and other file types will be viewed by the
associated default Windows applications.

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10.22.1 Attachment context menu
Right click on the selected attachment to open the context menu. The context menu allows to open
or print the attachment by the associated default application. You can also open the folder housing
the attachment. The selected attachment will be highlighted in the folder.

10.22.2 Attachments Configuration

The “Attachment Config” dialog enables users to configure attachment window size, content and

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attachment indicator criteria. Users can also configure whether image attachments should be
appended to mails when showing and/or printing.

Select “File→Attachment Config” to access the dialog.

10.22.3 Exporting All Attachments of All Mails

User can export all attachments to the AttachmentCache folder by right clicking on the active mail
archive and selecting “Export All Mail Attachments” option. To avoid appendix name clashes,
Mbox Viewer will prepend the following prefix to each attachment name:

YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS-IDDDDDD attachment name

where YYYY denotes the year, MM denotes the month, DD denotes day, HH denotes hour, MM
denotes minues, SS denotes second of a mail abd IDDDDDD denotes unique ID assign to this
email.

10.23 Inline Image Cache

The mboxview will create the cache of inline images to support images embedded directly into the
mail body/message. The cache with all images can be created during the initial parsing of the mail
archive file or subset of images can be created later when needed. Separate cache sub-folder is
created per each archive file (assuming at least one inline image was found) in the
FolderHousingMailArchives/ImageCache folder. If the inline image cache is missing for any
reason, try to refresh the index file by selecting “Refresh Index File” context option on the
respective file archive.

10.24 Export of all Mails to a Separate Eml files

User can export all mails to separate Eml files via mail archive context menu. Right click on the

32
selected mail archive and select “Export All Mails as Eml” option. Eml files will created in the
FolderHousingAllMailArchives/EmlCache/SlectedMailArchiveName folder.
Mbox Viewer will create Eml file names as follow:

YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS-IDDDDDD name using File Name Configuration under File –> Print
Config dialog.

where YYYY denotes the year, MM denotes the month, DD denotes day, HH denotes hour, MM
denotes minues, SS denotes second of a mail abd IDDDDDD denotes unique ID assign to this
email.

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 10.25 Picture Viewer
Double left Click on any attachment to start Picture Viewer dialog, example below.

The Picture Viewer supports files with the png, jpg, pjpg, jpeg, pjpeg, jpe, gif, bmp, ico, tif, tiff, jfif,
emf, wmf, dib suffixes.
The NEXT and PREV controls enable user to browse all picture/image attachments associated with
the selected email. You can select specific attachment to be displayed. You can later browse through
all picture attachments.
The ROTATE control allow to rotate clockwise the current/visible picture.
The ZOOM control allows to zoom in/out picture. Click on ZOOM to enable/disable zooming.
Slide to right to enlarge an image, slide to left to shrink. Enlarged image can be dragged using the
left and scroll buttons of the mouse. Click ZOOM to disable zooming and reset the image to
original size.
The PRINT control allow to print via default application.
The Picture Viewer is enabled by default but it can be disabled via FILE→Options dialog. Setting
persists in the Registry across multiple runs.

34
All attachments are also accessible by double clicking on the selected mail in the Summary window
or by selecting “View”→”ViewEML” menu option.

10.26 Mail Navigation

Click on a specific mail in the Summary window and use UP, DOWN keys to move to the next or
previous mail respectively.
Use HOME key to jump to the first mail. Use END key to jump to the last mail.
Use the mouse wheel or vertical bar to scroll up and down mails and then select one of the mails.

10.27 Mail Sorting

The Summary window is divided into 6 columns: attachment indicator, date, from, to, subject and
mail size. Each column can be sorted by clicking on the column title. Subsequent click on the same
column title will reverse the sorting rule. By clicking on the first column title, emails are sorted by
conversations and mark by different color as shown below.
Mail can also be sorted via the mail archive context menu or by selecting “File”->“Sort By” menu
option.

[Link] Subject Sorting Rules

Subject sorting creates subject threads, that is a group of mails (or threads) with the same subject.
Emails within a thread are sorted by time.
By default the subject threads are sorted alphanumerically.
Subject threads can sorted by time by selecting “File-→Options→time ordered threads” option.

35
10.28 Dynamic Column Resize
Columns in the Summary windows are automatically resized when the window is resized.
However, if columns are resized manually, some of the columns may no longer be present in visible
area/window.
You may need to use the scroll bar to see missing columns, otherwise maximize and then restore the
window to see all columns within the Summary window again.

10.29 Mail Searching

Mbox viewer supports two search options, i.e. basic Find and Advanced Find.
The basic Find option allows users to specify single keyword for searching across header fields,
mail text, attachment text and attachment names.
The advanced Find option allows user to specify keyword per each header field, mail text,
attachment names and attachments.

10.29.1 Basic Find

The basic Find option allows users to specify single keyword/string for searching across header
fields, mail text and attachments.
Users can configure the search scope by selecting all or subset of the from, to, subject, message
text, attachment names and attachment text options. The search succeeds if the specified keyword
matches any of the checked fields.
Click the “Edit” drop menu and select “Find” option to configure and start the search. Alternatively
the CTRL+F will also present the search dialog.
The search dialog box allows user to specify the search string, whether to match the whole word,
whether the search is case sensitive, configure the search scope, the start and end dates to consider
for filtering, the Next/Previous search direction and whether to highlight all occurrences of the
matched text.
Note that the Next search start with the oldest email while the Previous search starts with the latest.
The search logic simple, i.e. mail is considered a match if the search string is found in any of the
checked fields in that mail.

36
To repeat the search in order to find the next matching mail, click the “Edit” drop menu and select
“Find again” option, or select F3 key.
If “Find again” or F3 key is selected without prior “Find” or CTRL+F, the search dialog box will
be presented to a user.

[Link] Find all mails that match Option

User can check “Find all mails that match” to find all matching mails. Automatic highlighting of all
keyword occurrences is not supported in this case. Matched mails will be displayed under the Found
Mails List and the corresponding button in the dialog bar will be highlighted. User can left click on
All Mails button to switch mail list back to All Mails.
The basic Find can also be run while in the Found Mails list and while in User Selected Mails list
when the list is enabled.

[Link] Find mails that don’t match option

User can check “Find mails that don’t match” option to find mails that don’t match search criteria.

37
[Link] Handling of special ‘*’ search string
User can specify single ‘*’ character as the search string to find subset of mails as follows:
1. Find mails that have CC header field by checking out CC check box only.
2. Find mails that have BCC header field by checking only BCC check box only.
3. Find mails that have at least one attachment by checking out Attachment Name check box
only.
4. Match all mails by checking out any of others check boxes only.
NOTE that if the Find all occurrences option is not selected, user will be traversing the subset of
mails/matched mails between the start and end dates.

[Link] Filter Dates

Filter Dates option enables users to search mails specified by the date range. By default the start
date corresponds to the oldest mail and the end date corresponds to the latest mail. If the Filter
Dates option is not set, all mails on the selected list (All Mails, Find Mails, User Selected Mails) are
searched regardless of start and end dates values. If the Filter Dates option is set, user can configure
the start and end dates for searching. The start and end date processing depends on the mail list
selected (All Mails, Find Mails, User Selected Mails). While in All Mails list, the start and end
dates are fully under the user control regardless of other user actions such as selecting other lists.
However, the start and dates do not persist across application restarts or when new mbox mail
archive file is selected by the user. User can set the start and end dates while in Find Mails or User
Selected Mails list but the initial values are set to default values.

38
10.29.2 Advanced Find
The advanced Find option allows user to specify different keyword per each header field, mail text,
attachment name and attachments.
Users can configure the search scope by selecting all or subset of the from, to, subject, cc, bcc,
message text, attachment name and text attachments options.
Click the “Edit” drop menu and select “Find Advanced” option to configure and start the search.
The Find Advanced is also available as menu option for the selected mail. Right click on the mail
and select Find Advanced option. Mbox Viewer will pre-populate From, To and Subject fields in
this case.

Only checked fields are use by matching logic and search strings are ignored if present unless field
is checked.
The search logic is hard-coded for the most common cases. Select “Configure Filter Rule” button to
start dialog and select one of the preconfigured filter rules.

39
More complex searching can be achieved by leveraging User Selected mails list. User can run
multiple advanced searches and merge results into User Selected Mails list.

[Link] Find all mails that don’t match option

User can check “Find all mails that don’t match” option to find mails that don’t match search
criteria.

[Link] Handling of special ‘*’ search string

User can specify single ‘*’ character as the search string in any of the Filter fields to find subset of
mails as follows:
1. Find all mails that have CC header field by checking out CC check box only.
2. Find all mails that have BCC header field by checking only BCC check box only.
3. Find all mails that have at least one attachment by checking out Attachment Name check
box only.
4. Match all mails by checking out any of others check boxes only.

[Link] Filter Dates

Filter Dates processing is the same for Basic Find and Find Advanced search. See chapter [Link]

10.29.3 Search Reliability

MBox Viewer searching is Unicode based since version [Link]. The search string, mail header
fields and mail content are encoded first as Unicode UTF8 strings. Encoding into UT8 is done on

40
the fly in most cases.
Comparing Unicode strings has challenges since the same character may have multiple binary
representation. To overcome the problem, Unicode strings need to be normalized before they can be
compared. MBox Viewer relies on non-canonical normalization form KC. String normalization is
not without issues. To help to resolve or minimize issues, please create tickets and provide as
many details as possible to help to diagnose the issue.
In most cases the received mail data contains plain text and html text blocks. Both encode the
same/similar content. If the mail contains plain text blocks, only the plain text blocks will be
searched. If the mail doesn’t contain any plain text blocks, the html text blocks will be searched.
False positive results may sometimes happen when searching text/html content blocks. MBox
Viewer will attempt to extract text from html but the extraction solution is not perfect due to
simplistic but low cpu overhead approach.

10.29.4 Search for Words

Search for words is quite reliable for words composed from the following characters from ASCII
and ISO-8859-1 (Also known as ISO Latin 1) character sets:
"0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz_ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZÀÁÂÃÄÅÆÇÈÉÊËÌÍÎÏÐÑÒÓÔÕ
ÖØÙÚÛÜÝÞßàáâãäåæçèéêëìíîïðñòóôõöøùúûüýþÿ"

Any other characters from ASCII and ISO-8859-1 sets are considered as word delimiters.
Searching for words in other character sets/languages is currently not reliable for the following
reasons:
1. Some languages don’t have word delimiters
2. Set of all UNICODE delimiters is very large and currently not known to MBox Viewer. Future
releases may enhance the search.
Option to search for words should not be set when searching emails not composed from ASCII and
ISO-8859-1 character sets.

10.29.5 Search Progress Bar

Search progress bar displays the progress along the configured search string and enables user to
cancel the search is so desired. The progress bar is not created unless a given search duration lasts
longer than the delay time controlled by -PROGRESS_BAR_DELAY command line option or
specified via GUI. Default value is 1 second.

10.29.6 Search Performance

Searching of header fields performs best since all fields reside in the memory.
Searching of messages and text attachments may take some time for very large files, say larger than
10-20 Gbytes. Search requires to read the content blocks from the email file and decode the content
when required. Worse case scenario is when the specified search string is not present in the mail

41
archive. When activated, the search progress bar shows the configured search string and enables
user to cancel the search is so desired.
Note that when searching of message and text attachments is configured, all mails will be sorted by
date first, except when sorted by conversations, to maximize search performance.

10.30 Refreshing Archive Tree Window

If an additional mbox or eml file is placed in the already selected folder, the Archive Tree window
needs to be refreshed to see the new additions. This can be done by selecting “Refresh” option
under the “File” drop menu or by clicking on the button showed below. Individual Folder can be
refreshed by the right click on the folder and selecting “Refresh Folder” menu option.

10.31 Language (Character Sets) Support

10.31.1 Message Window
Different languages (character sets) are properly supported in the Message Window. This is thanks
to the Microsoft Web Browser emulation/control class integrated into the mboxview. The mboxview
generates the htm file from the mail’s body and Web Browser displays the generated file in the
Message window.
Display may not be correct if the character set for the mail’s body is not defined in the mail. To
resolve the incorrect display, you can try to apply different encoding by right clicking within the
window, selecting “encoding” and “more” options to apply different language.

42
[Link] Header of Message Window
The text of the mail header fields is displayed correctly as long as the corresponding field encoding
type is present in the email.

Two global options can be used to address incorrect field presentation in the Message Header in
case the field encoding is not present in the email. Missing field encoding type may or may not be a
problem. It should not be a problem if the default/local character set installed on your computer
matches the original encoding of the header fields. It might be an issue if you are receiving emails
from different countries.
As shown below, you can see all encoding/character sets applied to the header fields by enabling
“Show Charsets” option. To enable, select “Options” from the “File” drop menu and enable “Show
Charsets”.

43
If the field text presentation is not correct, you can try to configure character set (or so called code
page according to Microsoft terminology) for the selected header fields and see if that helps. Per
field code pages can be configured via Options dialog box. Note that the user provided encoding
doesn't override encoding in the email, if present, which is denoted by the code page greater than
zero. Code Page set to zero indicates missing or unknown character set.
If you change the code page value(s) in the Options Dialog box, you need to refresh the selected
email by going up and down (or down and up).
All Windows supported code pages are listed in chapter 14 or can be viewed in the external
Browser by selecting “View”→”View Code Page Ids”.
The character set information appears after the field title and is formatted as “(character set
name/code page)”. The ‘*” star character is appended after the code page if the user specified code
is applied). Example “(UTF-8/65001*)”.
The character set information after the “Date:’ title shows the local/default character set installed on
your computer.

10.31.2 Summary Window

Mail header fields are displayed correctly as long as the corresponding field encoding type is
present in the email.

10.32 Mail List Auditing

Mail list auditing capability enables users to compose mail list from all mails by merging results of
multiple searches and/or by merging one or more user selected mails.
To support list auditing, the Mbox Viewer maintains 3 internal mail lists:

44
 • All Mails list is populated from the selected archive file under the Mail Tree.
• Found Mails list is populated by the search results. User can run Find Advanced dialog or
set the Find All Occurrences option in the Find dialog.
• User Selected Mails list is composed by a user from the mails in the All Mails and Found
Mails lists. Mails on All Mails and Found Mails lists are marked by the red vertical bar in
the first column if they are also on User Selected Mails list.
Each internal mail list has associated button in the dialog bar located next to the tool bar. When a
particular mail list is shown in the Mail Summary Window, associated button is highlighted.
Access to the User Selected Mails list is disabled upon startup and the associated Button gray out. It
can be enabled by the user to perform simple list auditing if desired by selecting View->User
Selected Mail List to enable/disable.
When User Selected Mails list is enabled, additional mail menu options will also be enabled such as
Copy Selected Mails to User Selected Mails.
Content of the User Selected Mails list is controlled by the user. User can merge search results with
the content of the User Selected List.
User can run the search multiples time and merge results multiple times with the User Selected List.
Search results can be pruned before merging.
In addition, user has an option to select/highlight one or more mails in the Summary Mail Window
and copy to the User Selected Mails list.
Standard Windows method is used to select and highlight multiple mails, i.e. Shift+Left Click and
CTRL+Left Click and CTRL+A.
Merging/copying process will not create duplicate mails in the User Selected List.
User can select and highlight one or more mails in the Summary Mail Window and remove from the
active list. Mails can't be removed from the All Mails list.
All Mails list content persists until new mail archive is selected.
Found Mails list content persists until new search or when new mail archive is selected.
User Selected Mails list content persists until cleared by the user or new mail archive is selected.

10.32.1 Mail List Archiving

Found Mails list and User Selected Mails list content can be saved to new mbox archive files or just
to the .mboxlist mail list files.
Mail Archive and Mail List files will be created in the
FolderHousingMailArchives/ArchiveCache/MailArchiveName folder.
Archive file created from the Found Mails list will be created by appending _FIND suffix to the
base name of the main archive file name.

45
The _USER suffix will be appended when creating archive file from the User Selected Mails list.
For example, if the main mbox archive file from Gmail is called "All mail Including Spam and
[Link]", then created archive file will be named "All mail Including Spam and
Trash.11.09.2018_USER.mbox."
When creation of the archive is completed, user is presented with the dialog to open the folder with
the created archive file or to open the archive file within the Mbox Viewer.
Separately, user can save mails in User Select Mails list to .mboxlist file, for example "All mail
Including Spam and Trash.11.09.2018_USER.[Link]”. The .mboxlist files are much
smaller than the mail archive files. To protect against catastrophic failure of the mbox viewer while
saving mails to .mboxlist file, the mbox viewer maintains “All mail Including Spam and
Trash.11.09.2018_USER.[Link].bak1” and “All mail Including Spam and
Trash.11.09.2018_USER.[Link].bak2” files. To recover, user must copy one of these two
files to "All mail Including Spam and Trash.11.09.2018_USER.[Link]” file.
User can reload the last mail list file into the User Select Mails. Reload can be requested at any time
including after restart of the mbox viewer.
After mbox viewer is restarted or when User Selected Mails List is empty, User Selected Mails list
can be restored when All Mails list is active.
When User Selected Mails list is active and not empty, it can be reloaded by a user from the
last .mboxlist file.
WARNING: The .mboxlist file will no longer be valid if the master mail archive is changed.

10.32.2 Merging Multiple Mail Archives

[Link] Merging files using command line options
Multiple Mbox and Eml files (full path) can be listed in a file and concatenated into a single archive
file using two command line options.
-MBOX_MERGE_LIST_FILE=listFile Name and -MBOX_MERGE_TO_FILE=mergedFile
Name command line options to merge content of mbox files listed in the listFile Name. Wildcard
file names to merge are supported. The merged mbox file is automatically open in the Mbox
Viewer.

[Link] Merging files from GUI

Multiple archives can be concatenated into a single archive using "Right click on folder name ->
Merge Mail Archive Files" option. This is useful if you need to analyze multiple mail views,
provided as separate archive files, derived from the same archive file.
After merging is completed, select " Right click on folder name -> Refresh Folder" to request the
Mbox Viewer to discover new archive.
In order to remove duplicate mails from the concatenated file:
1. Select the created archive.

46
 2. Select "View -> User Selected Mails" to enable User Select Mails list.
3. Right click on any mail to select "Copy All into User Selected Mails" option to copy all
mails into User Selected Mails list.
4. Click on the "User Selected Mails" button to select User Select Mails list.
5. Right click on any mail to select "Remove Duplicate Mails" option to remove duplicate
mails from User Select Mails list.
6. Mails are considered duplicate if the Date, From, To header fields and unique message ID
generated by the mail provider match.
7. Select "Save as Mail Archive file" option to save mails on the User Selected Mails list.
8. Select " Right click on folder name -> Refresh" to discover new no duplicate mails archive
file by the Mbox Viewer.
9. You may want to rename the default name assigned to the archive file before the above step.

10.33 Mail Printing Overview

Mbox Viewer supports printing of all, single or multiple mails to CSV, Text, HTML, PDF files and
to PDF printer. Mails can also be printed to PDF from any Web Browser by opening mails printed
to HTML files.
By default all, single or multiple mails are printed to single CSV, Text, HTML and PDF files
without any additional configuration or manual steps. However there is a limit how many mails can
effectively be printed to a single file. Option is provided to print mails to separate files to scale to
larger number of mails. See 10.33.7 section.
The next sections below will cover these limitations and alternate solutions.

10.33.1 Print Configuration Dialog

Many aspects of printing can be controlled via “File → Print Config” option. The dialog is shown
below and the usage is covered in the subsequent sections.

47
[Link] Custom Name Template
User can create custom name template by checking “CUSTOM TEMPLATE” and then selecting
“Compose Custom Template”. User will be presented with the below template configuration dialog.

48
10.33.2 Mail Printing to CSV Spreadsheet file
By default, Mbox Viewer supports printing of all mails or selected group of mails to a single CSV
file. All mails can be printed to single CSV file but a particular Spreadsheet tool may limit the
maximum supported size of the spreadsheet file.
User can select and print groups/subset of mails to separate CVS files as a work around. There is no
option to automatically split all mails into configurable number of mail groups for printing to
separate CSV files.

10.33.3 Mail Printing to TEXT file

By default Mbox Viewer supports printing of all, single or selected group of mails to single Text
file. All mails can be printed to single TEXT file but a particular Text viewer tool may limit the
maximum supported size of the text file.
User can select and print groups/subset of mails to separate Text files as a work around. There is no
option to automatically split all mails into configurable number of mail groups for printing to
separate Text files

10.33.4 Mail Printing to HTML file

By default Mbox Viewer supports printing of all mails, single or selected group of mails to single
HTML file. Mails can also be printed to a separate per mail HTML file for further processing as
described in “Mail Printing to PDF” 10.33.6 section and “Mail Printing to PDF files by Power
Users” 10.33.7 section.
All archive mails can be printed to single HTML file but HTML viewer tools/Web Browsers may
not be able to process large HTML files, become very slow or completely overloaded.
User can select and print groups/subset of mails to separate HTML files as a work around. There is
no option to automatically split all mails into configurable number of mail groups for printing to
separate HTML files.
There is no hard rule how many mails can be printed to a single HTML file and viewed by a Web
Browser. It depends on the size and content (such as heavy graphics) of mails. It should be doable to
print up to a couple of thousands small to medium size text mails to a single HTML file for further
processing.

10.33.5 Mail Printing to PDF printer

Mbox Viewer supports printing of all, single or selected group of mails to PDF printer.
Printing to PDF printer relies on Microsoft HTML Document object to print its content. First,
Mbox Viewer will print mails to a single HTML file, then it will load this file into HTML
Document object and request the document object to print itself.
The limitations as far as the maximum number of mails that can be printed are described in the
"Printing Mails to HTML file" section.

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The "File -> Print Config -> Page Setup" dialog option allows users to control the page title, header,
footer and background color.
By default user is prompted to select PDF printer for printing mails. If the PDF printer is configured
as the default printer, user can set "File -> Print Config -> Do Not Prompt" dialog option to skip the
printer prompt step.

10.33.6 Mail Printing to PDF file

Mbox Viewer supports multiple ways to print all, single or multiple mails to PDF file. All methods
convert HTML files, created first from mails by the Mbox Viewer, to PDF format.
By default all, single or selected mails are printed to a single HTML file and then converted to PDF
format. The default method limits the number of mails that can be effectively printed to single
HTML file as noted in previous sections. More scalable method for is described in “Mail Printing to
PDF files by Power Users” 10.33.7 section.
Mbox Viewer supports an option to print mails directly to PDF file without any user interaction.
Direct printing to PDF file invokes external application to convert HTML files to PDF. Standard
Google Chrome and/or Microsoft Edge browser in so called headless mode are used to perform
conversion. MS Edge and Chrome allows users to configure printing of pages with or without
standard header and footer.

[Link] Use of free wkhtmltopdf application

NOTE: Support for wkhtmltopdf will likely be removed in the future releases. The wkhtmltopdf
project is no longer actively developed. It was archived by the main developer and it is in the read-
only mode. Open the provided link to view history and status of this project wkhtmltopdf .
An option is provided to leverage free wkhtmltopdf application to covert HTML to PDF and to
control the page title, header and footer and the background color. Note however that free
wkhtmltopdf application was not fully evaluated and should only be used in very rare cases.
Support for wkhtmltopdf seems to be lagging for number of years in comparison to Edge and
Chrome.
User can set "File -> Print Config -> Path To User Defined Script" to invoke HTML2PDF-single-
[Link] script included in the release package. [Link]
script creates PDF files with the right footer "Page Number of Total Pages" and no page Title and
Header. The script can be customized by users if desired.
The wkhtmltopdf can be downloaded from [Link] downloads.
The wkhtmltopdf command line options are documented in [Link] usage.

[Link] Print Options

When printing multiple mails to a single PDF file, user can
1. Set "File -> Print Config -> Page Break After Each Mail" option to start each mail at new
page, or

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 2. Set "File -> Print Config -> Page Break After Each Conversation Thread" to start
conversation or subject thread at new page.
User can unset "File -> Print Config -> Mail Hdr Background Color" option to remove mail header
background color and save on the ink when printing.
User can set/unset "File -> Print Config -> Header and Footer" option to control printing of page
standard header and footer via MS Edge and Chrome browser.

[Link] Printing directly from Firefox, Chrome and Edge browsers

HTML files created by MBox Viewer can be open within Firefox, Chrome, MS Edge, etc. browser
and printed to PDF file and take advantage of additional printing options.
Note that in order for links to attachments be clickable the “Save to PDF” option must be
used when printing directly from Edge and Chrome browsers.
Note that links to attachments are clickable when PDF document is open in Edge or Chrome
browser but they are not clickable in Firefox.

[Link] Impact on Font Size when Printing of Multiple Mails to a Single

PDF
MBox Viewer's solution to Print multiple mails to single PDF is non-standard and can affect font
sizes in all mails. MBox Viewer concatenates content of all mails and headers in HTML format and
ask Edge or Chrome Web Browser to convert HTML document into PDF.
Some of mails may have complex style definitions and they can leak and "pollute" environment of
other mails. Frequently, font sizes become smaller and may need to be zoomed in by the PDF
viewer. There is no similar solution for zooming when printing generated PDF documents to paper.
Note that this problem was basically resolved over time and no longer occurs in practice.
The following approach is suggested when printing multiple mails into a single PDF.
1. Print mails using default mode. Right-click on selected mails and select "Print Selected Mails to
--> PDF --> Default". Evaluate generated PDF document and if not acceptable, follow step 2.
2. Print mails using Merge mode. Right-click on selected mails and select "Print Selected Mails to
--> PDF --> Merge" option. By default, this will print all selected mails into separate PDF files first
and then merge them into a single target PDF file. Conversion of mails into PDF format by Edge or
Chrome Browsers is typically high quality and the merging process typically preserves original
quality. Each mail starts at the beginning of a page in the merged PDF. This may be considered less
than optimal for small mails. In order to run Merge mode, user must install free java PDFBox
command line tool and Java VM. Java VM is typically installed on Windows but PDFBox
application must be downloaded from the following link.
[Link]
Please download the latest pdfbox-app-3.*.jar file and install in the same directory as

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[Link]. Also, check whether [Link] is installed on your system as follow.
Start Command Prompt and type “where java”. If [Link] is not listed in the output, you need to
install java for Windows. You may also have to update PATH system environmental variable and
restart Explorer and MBox Viewer.
Note that in approach 1 and 2 you can configure MBox Viewer to print page break after each mail
or after each conversation thread of mails. Select "File-→Print Config-->PDF document options-
>Page Break After Each Mail/Page Break After Each Conversation Thread".

[Link] Performance
Maximum number of mails that can be merged by 1 and 2 options depends on the complexity and
size of mails to be merged.
Merging may take minutes when merging relatively small plain text mails or it may take hours
when merging large number of business mails with hyperlinks, graphics, tables, etc.
For example, running option 2 (that is merge option), it took 3 hours to print 3926 mails, mix of
simple and business mails, into separate PDFs and another 40 minutes to merge them by PDFBox.
Task Manager was showing that PDFBox process memory utilization was close to 8gigabytes.
Option 1 never finished with the same set of mails. The test was canceled when it didn't finish
within 5 hours.

10.33.7 Mail Printing to PDF files by Power Users

Some users may need to print very large number of mails to a single PDF file. This is supported by
Mbox Viewer but one or multiple manual steps are required. User must first print group of mails to
separate HTML files and eventually to PDF files and then merge them into a single PDF file by
running provided script.
The count of mails to merge into single HTML file is controlled by the following option:
“File-->General options Config-->Number of HTML mails to merge to increase scalability”
Merging multiple mails into single HTML file reduced time to convert all mails to PDF and also
helps to reduce size of the final PDF file. The conversion time of HTML files to PDF files can be
reduced further by utilizing multiple Chrome or Edge instances.
Follow the following steps to optimize merging of large number of files into single PDF:
1. Set “Number of HTML mails to merge to increase scalability” option to 100 for example.
This number depends on the size and complexity of mails. This will reduce the total number
of HTML files to convert to PDF by 100 times.
2. Install pdfbox-app-3.*.jar file and Java VM as described in section [Link]
3. Open the target folder for PDF files as follow: a) Select any two mails, b) select “Print
Selected Mails To --> PDF --> Merge” option, c) wait until Print is done and select Open
File Location. Keep the folder open for the future use.

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 4. Select all or subset of mails to convert to single PDF file.
5. Right click on one of the selected files and select “Print Selected Mails To --> PDF -->
Merge” option.
6. Wait until MBox Viewer finishes creating HTML files and begins to convert HTML files to
PDF.
7. Select Cancel button and wait until Cancel is completed.
8. Copy the following scripts to the target folder for PDF files:
- scripts/[Link]
- scripts/[Link]
- scripts/[Link]
9. Update [Link] script to set NumberOfBrowsers and RootUserDataDir. It is
recommended that NumberOfBrowsers is not set higher than number of physical cores on
user’s computer. Create sub-folders 0,1,2,etc, one per browser instance, under
RootUserDataDir folder.
10. Left double click on [Link] to start HTML to PDF conversion. This will
create number of windows, some will be minimized. Once conversion of HTML files to
PDF is complete, Close all windows created by [Link] script.
11. Once conversion of HTML files to PDF is complete, left double click on PDFMerge-
[Link] to merge all PDF files into the target PDF created under PDF_MERGE sub-
folder.
The entire process may take many hours depending on the complexity of emails and the number of
Browsers configured for conversion.
If more than one merged PDF file is created in the PDF_MERGE sub-folder, PDFMerge-
[Link] script and pdfbox-app-3.*.jar file need to be copied to that sub-folder and the script
executed again until [Link] script creates single PDF file only.
Free PDFBox java tool can be downloaded from [Link].
PDFBox command line tools usage example can be found in [Link] commandline tools.
Java 8 can must be installed and can be downloaded from jdk8-downloads.

10.34 Viewing Large PDF files

Chrome, Edge and Firefox browsers and even Adobe Acrobat viewer have problems handling large
Gigabytes PDF files. The Okular viewer seems to be the best and also free viewer for viewing very
large PDF files [Link] .

10.35 Mail Sharing with other People

The Mail Sharing (or Mail Export) feature enables users to share one or more of the selected mails

53
in HTML and PDF format with other people. The MBox Viewer will create the following files
under ExportCache folder when exporting one or more selected mails. Only files related to selected
mails are exported.
1. The “Export selected single mail to a file” option. When single mail is exported the following
files are created:
a. Single [Link] file under ExportCache folder, where SelectedMailName is a
unique name constructed for the selected mail. User can define custom template for file
name via “File->Print Config->Custom Template->Compose Custom Template” dialog.
b. “Attachments” folder for all inline and non inline attachments.
2. The “Export selected multiple mails to separate files” option. When multiple mails are exported
to separate files the following files and folders are created:
a. The [Link] file that shows all mails as the table with the following columns: attachment
indicator, Date, Subject, From and To.
b. “Mails” folder for all exported mails in Html format. MBox Viewer creates a separate file
for each exported mail as [Link] file, where SelectedMailName is a unique
name constructed for the selected mail. User can define custom template for file name via
“File->Print Config->Custom Template->Compose Custom Template” dialog.
c. “Attachments” folder for all inline non inline attachments
3. The “Export selected multiple mails to a single file” option. If multiple mails are exported to
single file the following files are created:
a. [Link] file under ExportCache folder, where SelectedMailName is a
unique name constructed for the selected mails being concatenated.
b. “Attachments” folder for all inline and non inline attachments
In all cases, the [Link] file will also be created in the AttachmentCache folder to
create PDF file from mails when needed by a user. By default MBox Viewer doesn’t export mails in
PDF format since links to attachments are created as absolute links and work only on local
computer. Instead, MBox Viewer creates command script to enable users to create PDF files locally.
Edge or Chrome browser must be installed on the user computer.
MBox Viewer allows single export per mbox mail file at a time. If exported files exist already, user
is asked to copy ExportCache folder to another location, or to agree to override the existing export
folder, that is to delete existing files and create new files.
User can configure how to open linked documents via “Export Selected Mails-> Config” option, i.e.
links to attachments or links to mails in the [Link] file. The same configuration options are
available via “Print Config->HTML/PDF Mail Header Configuration->How to open attachment
link” options. The options are persistent.

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10.36 Support for Outlook .msg Mail Files
Starting with v1.0.3.54, MBox Viewer offers experimental support for Outlook .msg files. The .msg
files are converted to Mime .eml files first in order to leverage standard MBox Viewer features.
User can view individual .msg file or all .msg files can be converted to .eml files first and merged
into a single .mbox file.
Processing of .msg files is quite complicated and requires significant effort. This initial release
doesn't support:
1. message body encoded as RTF Text. This usually is not a problem since typically the message is
included multiple times in the mail as Plain, HTML or RTF HTML text encoded body.
User feedback will help to decide whether additional development effort is justified in the future.

10.36.1 Viewing single .msg file

Select “File-->Select Folder..” option to select folder with .msg files and install the folder under the
Mail Tree pane. Left click to select any msg file. New instance of MBox Viewer will be created to
process and to show the content of the selected file. When done viewing, user can terminate the
created MBox Viewer instance by selecting standard Windows Close button or by selecting Escape
key on the keyboard.

10.36.2 Viewing Outlook msg internal structure

Left click on selected .msg file to open the Outlook message. Next, right click on the selected .msg
file to open options menu and select “Print --> Basic” or “Print --> Expanded” option to print
internal structure of the selected Outlook msg.

10.36.3 Merging multiple Outlook .msg mail files

MBox Viewer provides an option to merge multiple .msg files into single Mime .mbox files. The
merged file can later be processed by MBox Viewer as yet another .mbox mail file.
User must install the folder under the Mail Tree pane by selecting Select “File-->Select Folder..”
option to select folder with .msg files. Next, user must select the installed folder by left-click. And
finally, user needs to right-click on the selected folder and select “Merge Outlook Msg Mail Files”
option. Once merging is complete, user will be presented with the option to open the created file or
to open folder containing the created file.

10.37 Support for [Link] and .ms-tnef attachments

Users can view [Link] and .ms-tnef attachments by double left-click on the selected
attachment or by right click on the attachment and selecting `open` option.
Content of these files will be shown in the separate instance of MBox Viewer.

55
 10.38 Export and Print Directory Structure
MBox Viewer creates data directory and uses as target directory for files and sub-folders created by
MboxViewer such as “Print...” export all mails as eml files, etc
The DIRECTORY is constructed as follow based on the selected data folder:
DIRECTORY= UserSelectedDataFolder\UMBoxViewer\MappedMboxFilePath
Mapping example. Assuming
MboxFilePath=F:\Account\[Link], then it will be mapped to
MappedMboxFilePath=F\ Account\Inbox-mbox
and DIRECTORY to
DIRECTORY=UserSelectedDataFolder\UMBoxViewer\F\ Account\Inbox-mbox
The ‘:’ character will be removed and “.mbox” extension, if present, will be mapped to “-mbox”

DIRECTORY - target directory for files and sub-directories created by MBox Viewer
DIRECTORY\[Link]
DIRECTORY\[Link]
DIRECTORY\[Link]
DIRECTORY\[Link]
DIRECTORY\ImageCache
DIRECTORY\ImageCache\MailArchiveFile1- target directory for image files, such as png, jpg, etc, embeded into mails
DIRECTORY\ImageCache\MailArchiveFile2
DIRECTORY\ArchiveCache
DIRECTORY\ArchiveCache\MailArchiveFile1- target directory for saving Find Mails and User Selected Mails as .mbox archive files and .mboxlist
mail list files
DIRECTORY\ArchiveCache\MailArchiveFile2
DIRECTORY\PrintCache
DIRECTORY\PrintCache\MailArchiveFile1 - target directory for printing to single CSV, TEXT, HTML and PDF files
z

DIRECTORY\PrintCache\MailArchiveFile1\PDF_GROUP - target directory for printing to separate PDF files

z

DIRECTORY\PrintCache\MailArchiveFile1\HTML_GROUP - target directory for printing to separate HTML files

z

DIRECTORY\PrintCache\MailArchiveFile2
DIRECTORY\AttachmentCache\MailArchiveFile1 - target directory for all attachment files
DIRECTORY\AttachmentCache\MailArchiveFile2

DIRECTORY\EmlCache\MailArchiveFile1 - target directory for all Eml files

DIRECTORY\EmlCache\MailArchiveFile2

DIRECTORY\LabelCache - target directory for all Label files

DIRECTORY\MergeCache - target directory for intermediate file created when “File-→Select root folder for merging” is selected.

DIRECTORY\ExportCache - target directory for exporting/sharing mails

DIRECTORY\ExportCache\Mails - target directory for mails encoded as HTML files.
DIRECTORY\ExportCache\Attachments - target directory for inline and non-inline attachments related to exported mails.

Mbox Viewer also creates UserSelectedDataFolder/MergeFolder directory to store created merged

files when user decides to open created merge file (via presented Open File option) after merging is
completed.

Mbox Viewer also creates and manages temporary

56
C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Temp\UMBoxViewer and
C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Temp\UMBoxViewerPreview
directories to store temporary files (attachments, eml and htm) created when a single mail is
selected by the user.
Mbox Viewer created help files such as [Link] and [Link] are stored in
the temporary directory C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Temp\UMBoxViewer\MboxHelp
directory.

11 Support for Read Only Media

MBox Viewer supports mbox mail archive files saved on Read Only media such as CDs.
MBox Viewer will create index files and other internal directories under the writable data directory
as described sections 10.38 and 10.6.

12 Forward Mails directly from MBox Viewer

12.1 Overview
Users can forward single or selected group of emails directly from MBox Viewer. MBox Viewer
connects to one of the preconfigured SMTP (Simple Mail Transport Protocol) Servers to forward
emails. Emails can be forwarded via Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook Live mail service or user configured
Mail Service.
MBox Viewer relies on a separate standalone process, [Link], to connect to SMTP
Server and to send emails using the TLS encrypted communication. MBox Viewer links proven
MailKit software library to communicate with the SMTP server.
Note that [Link] can’t access user mail account data since SMTP Server can
send data only.
Be aware that all Mail Services impose limits on the rate, size of sending mails and other factors,
see chapter 12.3 . For regular users, Gmail seems to offer better more predictable service than
Yahoo or Outlook. However, Yahoo supports mails up to 39MB in size vs 35MB by Outlook and vs
25MB by Gmail.
Note that even so Yahoo can send large mails of 39MB, Outlook may ignore mails larger than
35MB. When forwarding important emails, it is good idea to ask recipient for confirmation.

12.2 User Accounts and Passwords

Mail Service providers usually require third-party applications to follow special authentication
requirements in order to gain access to their services, i.e. to SMTP Server in this case.
If for whatever reasons you would rather not make changes to your main mail account, you can
always create additional mail account on another mail service just to be able forward emails directly

57
from MBox Viewer.
NOTE(2024): During testing in 2024 it was discovered that forwarding mails via Outlook is not
working for now. Microsoft dropped basic user authentication method (user name and password)
and introduced more complex user authentication for SMTP service.
NOTE(2024): During testing in 2024 it was discovered that forwarding mails via Yahoo is quite
slow. Forwarding mails via Gmail is fast, much faster than forwarding mails over Yahoo.

12.2.1 Yahoo Mail Service

In order for third-party SMTP client applications such as [Link] to access Yahoo
SMTP Server, user must login to Yahoo mail account first and generate one time App Password that
can later be used to authenticate ForwardEmlFile application to SMTP Server.
App Password is long string of 16 random characters. Using App Password is very safe since it
practically can’t be guessed by hackers using brute force.
Select the below link and click on + sign next to “Generate an App Password” and follow all steps
to generate globally unique password for application named ForwardEmlFile. You will need App
Password and Yahoo mail user name to communicate with Yahoo SMTP Server.
[Link]

12.2.2 Gmail Mail Service

Third-party SMTP client application such as [Link] can connect to Gmail SMTP
Server and be authenticated using either 1) Gmail user name and Gmail user password, or 2)
Gmail user name and Gmail App Password.
Note (Nov 2022). Authentication by user name and password is no longer supported by Gmail.

[Link] Gmail user didn’t enable 2-step verification to sign up into Gmail
In order to use Gmail user name and Gmail user password, user must login to the Gmail account
and enable “Less secure app access” option, see the link:
[Link]
If you are concerned about this change, you can disable “Less secure app access” option after you
are done forwarding emails.
NOTE (2024): “Less secure app access” option is no longer supported by Gmail.

[Link] Gmail user did enable 2-step verification to sign up into Gmail
User must login to Google account and generate App Password for Gmail Account. App Password
is long string of 16 random characters. Using App Password is very safe since it practically can’t be
guessed by hackers using brute force.
Use following link for the general information:

58
Sign in with app passwords
or search Web for “Sign in with app passwords”
Use the link below to generate App Password:
Create and manage your app passwords
Login and enter “mboxview” as the application name to generate application password.

12.2.3 Outlook Live Mail Service

NOTE: Until further notice, forwarding via Outlook is not supported.
Testing was done using Outlook Live free mail account. Microsoft also offers payable Premium
Outlook mail service under Office 365 and Microsoft 365 plans. These plans offer much higher
sending limits but no evaluation was performed.
If a user did enable 2-step versification, user needs to generate App Password to be properly
authenticated, see chapter [Link] . App Password is long string of 16 random characters. Using
App Password is very safe since it practically can’t be guessed by hackers using brute force.
If a user didn’t enable 2-step versification, there is no requirement to change any security setting for
Outlook Live account to be able to send mails via Outlook SMTP Server.
Creating User name and Password to gain access to Outlook SMTP is not exactly clear and can be

59
confusing to set up.

[Link] Create Outlook Account, User Name and Password

I suggest the following steps to create valid user names and password. For more information,
examine the following link.
Everything you need to know about Microsoft accounts | Windows Community
In my case I already had Microsoft and Outlook accounts but had to perform additional
configuration.

[Link].1 You don’t have Microsoft Account (know as MSA) and you don’t have
Outlook Live account
Use the following link to create Microsoft account page:
[Link]
Select “Sign in”, then select “Create one!”, then select “Get a new email address” and create your
new MyName@[Link] email address.
The below link has more details.
[Link]
a84675c3-3e9e-17cf-2911-3d56b15c0aaf
Use your new Outlook User name and Password to open SMTP Server Configuration dialog and
configure user name and password. Attempt to forward one of the mails and check if all works.

[Link].2 You already have both Microsoft Account and Outlook Live Account
This is the case I faced. Forwarding of emails was not working properly until I created email alias
and make this alias primary as described in following link:
[Link]
com-459b1989-356d-40fa-a689-8f285b13f1f2
For some reason, Outlook Account User Name and Password did not work for me but Microsoft
Account User name and Password did work.

[Link] Generate App Password for Outlook

User must login to Outlook account, enable 2-step verification and generate App Password for
Outlook Account. Follow the link below to generate App Password:
[Link]
support-two-step-verification-5896ed9b-4263-e681-128a-a6f2979a7944

12.3 Mail Sending and Size Limits

The limits are listed here to the best of our knowledge and they might be changed by the mail
service providers anytime without notice. For regular users, Gmail seems to offer better more

60
predictable service than Yahoo or Outlook. However, Yahoo supports mails up to 39MB in size vs
35MB by Outlook and vs 25MB by Gmail.
Users are mainly responsible for observing sending limits. MBox Viewer will limit the sending rate
to 30 mails/minute.

12.3.1 Gmail Mail Service

Sending can be rejected by Gmail for variety of reasons. If a user exceeds various limits, user
account can be locked for up to 24 hours. User can take manual steps to restore access.
Regular users are allowed to send up to 500 mails per day.
Mails can be rejected if they are being sent too fast or to too many recipients.
Mails of up to 25MB are accepted.

12.3.2 Yahoo Mail Service

Sending can be rejected by Yahoo for variety of reasons. If a user exceeds various limits, user
account can be locked for up to 24 hours. User can take manual steps to restore access.
Yahoo does not disclose sending and size limits.
Mails of up to 39MB are accepted.

12.3.3 Outlook Mail Service

Sending can be rejected by Outlook for variety of reasons including suspicion of spamming. If a
user exceeds various limits, user account can be locked for up to 24 hours. User can take manual
steps to restore access.
Mails of up to 35MB are accepted. If you attempt to send larger mail, it will appear that the sending
was successful. However, Outlook will post rejection mail into your Outlook account.
The other sending limits are not known.

12.4 SMTP Server Configuration

Select “File → SMTP Mail Server Config” to open the configuration dialog. Select one of the
listed mail services, enter User Account and Password and click on the “Save” button to save the
changes.
When you select “Close” button, the [Link] file is created for the selected service in C:\Users\
%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\MBoxViewer\MailService and used by [Link] to
support forwarding of emails.
The “Cancel” button is used to clear unsaved changes made in the dialog. If you switch to different
mail service, the unsaved changes in the dialog are lost.
When you exit MBox Viewer, User Password is not saved in the system for safety reasons and must

61
be reentered before any mail can be forwarded again.

12.4.1 SMTP Servers Default Settings

SMTP Server Address [Link] [Link] [Link]
SMTP Server Port 587 587 587
SMTP Security StartTls StartTls StartTls

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12.5 Forwarding Mails
MBox viewer supports forwarding of a single and multiple emails.
Note that From address can be specified by a user while in Custom SMTP Configuration
option only.

12.5.1 Forwarding a single email

Right click on any email and select “Forward Mail” option to open the dialog to forward the
selected email. The dialog can be manually resized if needed.

The non-empty To field is required. Other fields are optional. When you open the dialog, To, CC,
BCC and User Text fields will show the values set in the last dialog. You can clear these fields by
clicking on the “Clear” button.
It is important to make sure all addresses are correct and valid. If any address is not valid, a

63
rejection email will be send by the mail service to the respective user’s mail account. MBox Viewer
doesn’t have access to user’s mail accounts.

12.5.2 Forwarding a list of selected emails

User can select multiple email, then right click on any of the selected emails and select “Forward
Mails” option to open the dialog to forward the selected email.
To avoid suspension of the user account, the user is warned if the user attempts to forward batch of
emails larger than 100. User is also warned when any of the select mails to forward is larger than
supported maximum size.

12.5.3 Error Reporting

If forwarding of a mail fails, MBox Viewer will create Message Box with relevant error text.

13 Support for Multiple Languages

Starting with version [Link], MBox Viewer implements more complete support for multiple
languages.
Window’s text, button’s labels, menu labels, etc of dialogues, message boxes, menus of mails, mail
files and Help Files, User Guide can be configured by users to display in German, French, Spanish,
Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Portuguese-Brazil languages, Japanese, Chinese-Simplified and Arabic.

13.1 Language Configuration

Language to be used by MBox Viewer can be configured by selecting “Language-->Select
Language” main menu option. The following dialog will appear and allow users to select new
language. MBox Viewer must be restarted for new language to take effect.

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13.2 Limitations
1. In many cases the text translated to other languages will not fit in the fixed template defined
for English text and it will be truncated. As a work around, user can move cursor over the
truncated text to activate Tool Tips with the full text.
2. The English text and documents were translated to other languages by free Google
Translation service and not reviewed by humans yet. Free Google Translation service is not
domain specific and therefore has limitations. It is designed to translate commonly daily
spoken language. Better use of Google Translation service needs to be investigated.
3. There are occasional issues with WORD documents translated by free Google Translation
service with regard to formatting and other issues. Translated WORD documents are later
exported to PDF.
4. Support for Arabic language is experimental and needs users feedback fluent in both English
and Arabic.

14 Windows Code Page Identifiers

The table below shows the supported character sets/code pages by Windows platform. The list is
based on the following link.
[Link]

Code Page Name Display Name

37 IBM037 IBM EBCDIC (US-Canada)
437 IBM437 OEM United States
500 IBM500 IBM EBCDIC (International)
708 ASMO-708 Arabic (ASMO 708)
720 DOS-720 Arabic (DOS)
737 ibm737 Greek (DOS)
775 ibm775 Baltic (DOS)
850 ibm850 Western European (DOS)
852 ibm852 Central European (DOS)
855 IBM855 OEM Cyrillic
857 ibm857 Turkish (DOS)
858 IBM00858 OEM Multilingual Latin I
860 IBM860 Portuguese (DOS)
861 ibm861 Icelandic (DOS)
862 DOS-862 Hebrew (DOS)
863 IBM863 French Canadian (DOS)
864 IBM864 Arabic (864)
865 IBM865 Nordic (DOS)
866 cp866 Cyrillic (DOS)

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Code Page Name Display Name
869 ibm869 Greek , Modern (DOS)
870 IBM870 IBM EBCDIC (Multilingual Latin-2)
874 windows-874 Thai (Windows)
875 cp875 IBM EBCDIC (Greek Modern)
932 shift_jis Japanese (Shift-JIS)
936 gb2312 Chinese Simplified (GB2312)
949 ks_c_5601-1987 Korean
950 big5 Chinese Traditional (Big5)
1026 IBM1026 IBM EBCDIC (Turkish Latin-5)
1047 IBM01047 IBM Latin-1
1140 IBM01140 IBM EBCDIC (US-Canada-Euro)
1141 IBM01141 IBM EBCDIC (Germany-Euro)
1142 IBM01142 IBM EBCDIC (Denmark-Norway-Euro)
1143 IBM01143 IBM EBCDIC (Finland-Sweden-Euro)
1144 IBM01144 IBM EBCDIC (Italy-Euro)
1145 IBM01145 IBM EBCDIC (Spain-Euro)
1146 IBM01146 IBM EBCDIC (UK-Euro)
1147 IBM01147 IBM EBCDIC (France-Euro)
1148 IBM01148 IBM EBCDIC (International-Euro)
1149 IBM01149 IBM EBCDIC (Icelandic-Euro)
1200 utf-16 Unicode
1201 unicodeFFFE Unicode (Big-Endian)
1250 windows-1250 Central European (Windows)
1251 windows-1251 Cyrillic (Windows)
1252 Windows-1252 Western European (Windows)
1253 windows-1253 Greek (Windows)
1254 windows-1254 Turkish (Windows)
1255 windows-1255 Hebrew (Windows)
1256 windows-1256 Arabic (Windows)
1257 windows-1257 Baltic (Windows)
1258 windows-1258 Vietnamese (Windows)
1361 Johab Korean (Johab)
10000 macintosh Western European (Mac)
10001 x-mac-japanese Japanese (Mac)
10002 x-mac-chinesetrad Chinese Traditional (Mac)
10003 x-mac-korean Korean (Mac)
10004 x-mac-arabic Arabic (Mac)
10005 x-mac-hebrew Hebrew (Mac)
10006 x-mac-greek Greek (Mac)

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Code Page Name Display Name
10007 x-mac-cyrillic Cyrillic (Mac)
10008 x-mac-chinesesimp Chinese Simplified (Mac)
10010 x-mac-romanian Romanian (Mac)
10017 x-mac-ukrainian Ukrainian (Mac)
10021 x-mac-thai Thai (Mac)
10029 x-mac-ce Central European (Mac)
10079 x-mac-icelandic Icelandic (Mac)
10081 x-mac-turkish Turkish (Mac)
10082 x-mac-croatian Croatian (Mac)
12000 utf-32 Unicode (UTF-32)
12001 utf-32BE Unicode (UTF-32 Big-Endian)
20000 x-Chinese-CNS Chinese Traditional (CNS)
20001 x-cp20001 TCA Taiwan
20002 x-Chinese-Eten Chinese Traditional (Eten)
20003 x-cp20003 IBM5550 Taiwan
20004 x-cp20004 TeleText Taiwan
20005 x-cp20005 Wang Taiwan
20105 x-IA5 Western European (IA5)
20106 x-IA5-German German (IA5)
20107 x-IA5-Swedish Swedish (IA5)
20108 x-IA5-Norwegian Norwegian (IA5)
20127 us-ascii US-ASCII
20261 x-cp20261 T.61
20269 x-cp20269 ISO-6937
20273 IBM273 IBM EBCDIC (Germany)
20277 IBM277 IBM EBCDIC (Denmark-Norway)
20278 IBM278 IBM EBCDIC (Finland-Sweden)
20280 IBM280 IBM EBCDIC (Italy)
20284 IBM284 IBM EBCDIC (Spain)
20285 IBM285 IBM EBCDIC (UK)
20290 IBM290 IBM EBCDIC (Japanese katakana)
20297 IBM297 IBM EBCDIC (France)
20420 IBM420 IBM EBCDIC (Arabic)
20423 IBM423 IBM EBCDIC (Greek)
20424 IBM424 IBM EBCDIC (Hebrew)
20833 x-EBCDIC-KoreanExtended IBM EBCDIC (Korean Extended)
20838 IBM-Thai IBM EBCDIC (Thai)
20866 koi8-r Cyrillic (KOI8-R)
20871 IBM871 IBM EBCDIC (Icelandic)

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Code Page Name Display Name
20880 IBM880 IBM EBCDIC (Cyrillic Russian)
20905 IBM905 IBM EBCDIC (Turkish)
20924 IBM00924 IBM Latin-1
20932 EUC-JP Japanese (JIS 0208-1990 and 0212-1990)
20936 x-cp20936 Chinese Simplified (GB2312-80)
20949 x-cp20949 Korean Wansung
21025 cp1025 IBM EBCDIC (Cyrillic Serbian-Bulgarian)
21866 koi8-u Cyrillic (KOI8-U)
28591 iso-8859-1 Western European (ISO)
28592 iso-8859-2 Central European (ISO)
28593 iso-8859-3 Latin 3 (ISO)
28594 iso-8859-4 Baltic (ISO)
28595 iso-8859-5 Cyrillic (ISO)
28596 iso-8859-6 Arabic (ISO)
28597 iso-8859-7 Greek (ISO)
28598 iso-8859-8 Hebrew (ISO-Visual)
28599 iso-8859-9 Turkish (ISO)
28603 iso-8859-13 Estonian (ISO)
28605 iso-8859-15 Latin 9 (ISO)
29001 x-Europa Europa
38598 iso-8859-8-i Hebrew (ISO-Logical)
50220 iso-2022-jp Japanese (JIS)
50221 csISO2022JP Japanese (JIS-Allow 1 byte Kana)
50222 iso-2022-jp Japanese (JIS-Allow 1 byte Kana - SO/SI)
50225 iso-2022-kr Korean (ISO)
50227 x-cp50227 Chinese Simplified (ISO-2022)
51932 euc-jp Japanese (EUC)
51936 EUC-CN Chinese Simplified (EUC)
51949 euc-kr Korean (EUC)
52936 hz-gb-2312 Chinese Simplified (HZ)
54936 GB18030 Chinese Simplified (GB18030)
57002 x-iscii-de ISCII Devanagari
57003 x-iscii-be ISCII Bengali
57004 x-iscii-ta ISCII Tamil
57005 x-iscii-te ISCII Telugu
57006 x-iscii-as ISCII Assamese
57007 x-iscii-or ISCII Oriya
57008 x-iscii-ka ISCII Kannada
57009 x-iscii-ma ISCII Malayalam

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Code Page Name Display Name
57010 x-iscii-gu ISCII Gujarati
57011 x-iscii-pa ISCII Punjabi
65000 utf-7 Unicode (UTF-7)
65001 utf-8 Unicode (UTF-8)

14.1 Handling Unknown Code Page Names

In a few cases, mboxview will map unknown code names to the equivalent code names supported
by Windows.

Unknown Code Name Mapped To Code Name

gbk GB18030
cp1252 Windows-1252
ascii us-ascii
cp819 iso-8859-1
latin1 iso-8859-1
latin2 iso-8859-2
big-5 big5
SJIS shift_jis

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