Free EDB Converter
Convert to Any Format

EDB (Exchange Database) is the primary mailbox database format used by Microsoft Exchange Server. It is a proprietary format built on the Extensible Storage Engine (ESE), the same technology used in other Microsoft products for high-performance database storage. When Exchange Server stores mailboxes, it writes data into .edb files along with transaction log files. The EDB file is not a simple container like a ZIP archive; it is a full database with a fixed signature (the first four bytes are 0xEF 0xCD 0xAB 0x89 in hexadecimal), a header that specifies page size and format version, and internal structures such as B-trees and pages that organize tables and indexes. Converting EDB means either using Exchange Server itself (e.g. recovery mode or export) or, in the case of this online tool, scanning the raw file for readable email content—headers and body text that appear in UTF-16LE or ASCII—and exporting that content to standard formats like EML, MBOX, CSV, HTML, TXT, or JSON. Full EDB parsing, which would recover every folder, message, and attachment in the exact structure, requires server-level or dedicated recovery tools; this converter focuses on extracting the email-like content that is readable within the file so you can save it for recovery or migration without needing Exchange Server.

Our free EDB Converter processes everything on your device. You drop an .edb file, and the tool first checks for the ESE database signature (0xEF 0xCD 0xAB 0x89). If present, it reads the database header at the specified offsets: format version at offset 232 and page size at offset 236. It then scans the file for readable text: it looks for UTF-16LE encoded strings (pairs of bytes where the high byte is often zero) that contain email-like patterns such as "From:", "Subject:", or "@", and it also scans for ASCII text blocks that contain similar patterns. When it finds blocks that look like RFC 822-style headers (From:, To:, Subject:, Date:) followed by a body, it parses them into structured email records. Duplicates are removed based on from, subject, and date. Once emails are extracted, you can export them as EML (one file per message), a ZIP of EML files (PST-limited option, since true PST creation from EDB online is not implemented), MBOX, CSV, HTML, TXT, or JSON. All processing happens on your device; nothing is uploaded. EDB conversion is especially useful when you have an offline EDB file from a backup or failed server and need to recover or migrate mail without access to the live Exchange environment.

Common scenarios include disaster recovery (extracting mail from an EDB backup when the server is down), migrating from on-premises Exchange to Office 365 or another platform (by converting EDB to EML or MBOX and then using the destination's import tools), backing up extracted messages as EML for portability, and producing CSV or HTML for compliance or analysis. Because the converter works online, you can use it on any operating system—you do not need Exchange Server or Windows. Just open the tool, drop your .edb file, review the file info (size, format version, extracted email count) and the preview table, choose an output format, and download. For complete recovery of an Exchange database with full fidelity (all folders, attachments, and metadata), Microsoft recommends using Exchange Server recovery procedures or supported third-party tools; this tool provides a quick, free, and private way to get readable email content out of an EDB file when those options are not available or you need a first pass without installing software.