Features

See also:

Aid4Mail is available in four different editions:
Home, Professional, eDiscovery, and Console.

The following table shows their features.

Home Professional eDiscovery Console
User-friendly wizard interface, designed with accessibility in mind Yes Yes Yes No
Easy, fast, and accurate mail conversion of:
  • mailboxes
  • messages
  • attachments
  • embedded contents
  • status information (most formats)
 Yes Yes Yes Yes
Process over 40 email programs and file formats (1) :
  • Office Outlook, Windows Live Mail, Outlook Express,
  • Mozilla Thunderbird, Eudora, Apple Mail,
  • Outlook MSG and PST files, DBX, mbox, EML,
  • IMAP accounts, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Outlook Live,
  • and more...
 Yes Yes Yes Yes
Process email files separated from their mail program Yes Yes Yes Yes
Convert directly from an external drive (e.g. USB, CD, DVD) Yes Yes Yes Yes
Create highly compressed, future-proof ZIP archives Yes Yes Yes Yes
Extract email addresses, attachments, and other contents Yes Yes Yes Yes
Rebuild proprietary formats to Internet standards (2) Yes Yes Yes Yes
Filter out duplicate emails and attachments Yes Yes Yes Yes
Save emails in plain text format Yes Yes Yes Yes
Process huge files (tested on a 264 GB mbox with 3 million emails) Yes Yes Yes Yes
Merge multiple mailboxes to a single file Yes Yes Yes Yes
Split mailboxes into individual message files Yes Yes Yes Yes
Split large mailboxes into smaller files No Yes Yes Yes
Process Microsoft Exchange through a MAPI profile (3) No Yes Yes Yes
Save emails to CSV for database or spreadsheet use No Yes Yes Yes
Filter emails by:
  • date,
  • keywords,
  • text,
using:
  • wildcards,
  • Regular Expressions,
  • logical operators.
 No Yes Yes Yes
Scriptable for full control over:
  • email searching and filtering,
  • message data extraction,
  • custom export formats.
 No Yes Yes Yes
Export to Excel, XML, and HTML for viewing in Internet Explorer No Yes Yes Yes
Export to searchable PDF No Yes Yes (4)
Export to PDF/A (long-term archiving format) No No Yes (4)
Export to encrypted and password-protected PDF files No No Yes (4)
Embed original SMTP header or full email in PDF files No No Yes (4)
Process and restore unpurged email (except MS Outlook & Exchange) No No Yes Yes
Advanced hash functions for scripting No No Yes Yes
Process email data with external console programs No No Yes Yes
Offline license activation (see details) No No Yes (5)
Run from a server or USB key (thumb drive) No No (5) (5)
Convert directly from PST to PST No No No Yes
Batch process multiple PST files No No No Yes
Run from other applications, scripts, batch files, and Windows Services No No No Yes
Command-line interface (run unattended) No No No Yes
(1)
To process (from/to) Outlook MSG files, PST files, and Outlook/MAPI mail profiles, Aid4Mail requires either a 32-bit version of Office Outlook or a standalone version of MAPI. For details, free options, and limitations, see the System Requirements.
(2)
Typically Eudora, PocoMail, and Barca mailboxes, and Calypso and Courier archives.
(3)
Microsoft Exchange can either be processed through an Outlook/MAPI mail profile (1), or through the IMAP protocol in which case the Exchange server needs to be set up for IMAP access (see instructions).
(4)
Yes, except for Console Migrator license (due to third-party licensing conditions).
(5)
Yes, depending on license terms.

Definition of "Unpurged Mail"

When you move a message from one folder to another in your email client, or delete a message, the process is more complicated that it would initially seem. A copy of the message is placed in the appropriate destination folder, but the original message is not removed immediately. Instead it is flagged as "unpurged", and hidden from display, until such a time that the folder that contains it is compacted.

The reason for this behavior is to optimize the move/delete process by not having to reorganize a mailbox every time a message is removed from it. As mailboxes can become very large, and messages can usually be moved around without limitation, this can provide a considerable time-saving. However it also means that when you process a mailbox with Aid4Mail, the mailbox can potentially contain unpurged messages.

As these messages are generally unwanted, they are automatically skipped by the Home and Professional versions of Aid4Mail. The eDiscovery versions offer an option to process unpurged mail, which is usually only required in a forensics context.