Thanks Mike.
What we are specifically looking for is a converter for .OST or .PST files that have been given to me completely separated from the ability to deal with the account live on a server.  There are some good commercial solutions (Emailchemy and Aid4Mail) that do the conversions but in this case are looking for a bulk transformation solution.  

Will post back to the list progress made on this topic.  We are currently working on it as part 1 of a use case / solution pack at the OPF Digital Forensics hackathon.  [wiki.opf-labs.org]

Kari Smith
MIT Institute Archives and Special Collections
MIT Libraries

-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Friscia, Michael
Sent: Wednesday, June 05, 2013 7:35 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] WANTED: Open source solution converting OST to PST and OST to MBOX

OST is just a pointer to the stuff on the exchange server. You can delete that file and it will rebuild next time you open Outlook, there's not data in it. Converting that to a PST is just a matter of moving the files from the server portion of Outlook to a local email file. Given that the operation is proprietary from Microsoft, I don't see an open source solution. 

That said, I also don't see any way to convert it to MBOX except to open mac mail, create a folder "on my mac" and move all the contents there. Once done, don't setup the email as an exchange account, configure as a POP account and don't store mail on the server.

Maybe I'm missing the question or the ultimate goal. But the tools you need to accomplish both tasks exist in either Outlook or Mac Mail. If you are looking for an archival solution for born digital records, specifically email, I'm not sure you would want either PST or MBOX since that just spells an emulation nightmare in a few years. Email is new/simple enough for format migration. 

Again, my apologies if I am missing the question.
-mike

_______________________________________
Michael Friscia
Manager, Digital Library & Programming Services Yale University Library
(203) 432-1856
________________________________________
From: Code for Libraries [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Kari R Smith [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, June 03, 2013 2:38 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [CODE4LIB] WANTED:  Open source solution converting OST to PST  and OST to MBOX

Anyone point me to an open-source (preferably) or a tried and true solution for 1.. extracting just the PST part of an OST file 2.  converting OST file to MBOX format

Thanks!

Kari R. Smith, Digital Archivist
MIT Libraries, Institute Archives and Special Collections
617-258-5568  |   smithkr (at) mit.edu
http://libraries.mit.edu/archives/