# Accessing a mailbox.pab file

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accessing-a-mailbox-pab-file/178403>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [May 30, 2003, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accessing-a-mailbox-pab-file/178403 "2003-05-30T00:06:02Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\
**Post date:** [May 30, 2003, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accessing-a-mailbox-pab-file/178403/1 "2003-05-30T00:06:02Z")

</div>

I have a mailbox.pab file that contains my personal email address book from my work computer. Unfortunately, my work computer used microsoft outlook, and my home computer uses microsoft outlook express, which doesn’t seem to be able to impor the .pab file. (It does have an option for imorting a microsoft exchange personal address book… but when I invoke that option, it doesn’t let me browse for a file…)  
Anyhow, does anyone know to import a .pab file into outlook express, or, failing that, how to at least extract the data from a .pab file into a human-readable format?

thanks

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\
**Post date:** [May 30, 2003, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accessing-a-mailbox-pab-file/178403/2 "2003-05-30T00:33:39Z")

</div>

On your work computer, click File \> Export \> Address Book, and select the program or format you want to export to.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\
**Post date:** [May 30, 2003, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accessing-a-mailbox-pab-file/178403/3 "2003-05-30T00:47:29Z")

</div>

> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Q.E.D. \*  
> \*\*On your work computer, click File \> Export \> Address Book, and select the program or format you want to export to. \*\*

No can do… the company went bankrupt and I no longer have access to the work computer…

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\
**Post date:** [May 30, 2003, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accessing-a-mailbox-pab-file/178403/4 "2003-05-30T00:52:00Z")

</div>

Well, that puts a wrinkle in things, doesn’t it? Maybe you can install Outlook on your home system?