Thread: Conversion of email personal file folders to a standard format for importing into program

Hi All,

I'm new to the forums!! Just registered today. I am working on an idea to convert email personnal file folders like .ost and .pst etc to a standard format for import to my program. I would like to be able to handle any format and dont want to have to create a different process for each one or have the need to udate as new formats appear.

I was wondering if anyone had any ideas as to how to approach this problem? Or if anyone has come across this somewhere else?

Any help would be great. Its gonna be an open source application for analysing email.

Regards,

Dracuswolf

Hey!! Thanks for the quick reply.

I am working with the data in hex and not too worried about the encryption at the moment. I'll be initially working with unencrytped formats to begin with. I would like to get it going first and worry about it later. My main concern at the moment is trying to convert any unencrypted file format into a standard format so that i can extract emails and do some interesting things.

Is it just a matter of getting the hex dumps and extracting the info i want and saving them in a custom format? Or in java is there a quicker way. I have no problem extracting the data but i have a feeling it will get messy.