Extract text from MAI files
To convert your MAI file to another format, you need MailEnable or other System software.
To convert other file formats to the "Email Queue File" file type, you need software like MailEnable or a similar tool.
The .MAI extension is a classic example of a filename collision where the specific use case completely dictates the conversion strategy. The most common variation (approx. 67%) is a MailEnable Queue File, generated by the MailEnable server software on Windows. These files function as temporary holding containers for emails awaiting delivery or processing. Because they are strictly internal system files, they lack native support in standard desktop clients like Microsoft Outlook or web browsers. Users typically encounter them when troubleshooting stuck mail queues or investigating server logs. While you technically cannot "convert" a live queue file without disrupting the server, you can often open them as plain text or convert them to TXT to inspect headers and failure diagnostics.
A significant minority of these files (approx. 7%) are MariaDB Aria Storage Engine files. In this context, the .MAI file serves as the binary index for a database table (often paired with a MAD data file). These are not documents; they are raw database dependencies. Attempting to open them in a text editor produces garbled binary noise. To "convert" this data, you must use MariaDB or MySQL tools to export the table to SQL or CSV formats.
Finally, legacy users may encounter .MAI files from the defunct Microsoft Mail system or ancient Sony CLIE PDAs (where the format stores low-resolution video). These legacy formats are effectively dead; modern operating systems cannot render them. For Microsoft Mail archives, the only pragmatic path is converting to EML or PST for import into modern clients. For Sony videos, conversion to MP4 is necessary for viewing on current hardware.
Convert.Guru analyzes your MAI file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
Users also converted MAD, CLOG, VBO and HWL files.
If you want to convert MAI file to CSV, JSON, XML, YAML, YML, TOML, INI, CFG, CONF, DAT, DB or SQL, you can use MailEnable or similar software from the "Mail Server Queue" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert DBF, XML, SQLITE, XLSX, SQL, TSV, ACCDB, YAML, MDB, CSV, ODS or JSON files to MAI, try MailEnable or another comparable tool in the "Mail Server Queue" category.
The history of Convert.Guru began over 25 years ago in California with Tom Simondi’s file-format database. A former contributor to Space Shuttle development and a software pioneer of the 1980s, Simondi established a trusted resource for file type analysis that was even referenced by Microsoft Windows XP. Today, we use modern technology to process and convert thousands of file formats while continually improving our MAI converter.