Mail rescue from Dovecot Server

Question

I have a mail folder from Dovecot server. Contents are shown below.

Is there any way to convert to PST or another way to import everything to Outlook? Could I setup my own Dovecot server and import/export from there?

Answer 1

That looks to be a folder in MailDir format with Dovecot adding some indexing information. MailDir is a standard format, so you don't really need to do anything Dovecot-specific. Here are a couple options, though I'm not sure which is easier.

1. As you suggest, spin up your own Dovecot server (or whatever IMAP server you have handy), then have Outlook (or any other mail client) connect to it like like any other IMAP server and copy it to whatever mail store you want (possibly another IMAP server or a .pst file).
2. Try to convert it to a .pst file more directly. There's a question on Server Fault about doing this that might give some guidance, and a quick search shows various tools available that I haven't vetted, and this really isn't a great forum for recommending specific tools anyway.