MDaemon AddrBook.mrk, Calendar.mrk & HIWATER.MRK Files – An Overview

MDaemon, developed by ALT-N Technologies, is a groupware email messaging server, running on Windows systems. When we open MDaemon/Users, at the store location of a local machine, a list of .msg files are displayed. Along with these .msg files, a few files having the extension .mrk (AddrBook.mrk, HIWATER.mrk, Imap.mrk), will also appear as shown below :

So, what are these MSG and MRK files :

MSG is the file extension, used for storing a mail message. It contains headers (showing sender’s and receiver’s address) and message body in plain text format, along with links and attachments, spam details, if any.

Just like MSG files are important (since they contain all the messages), MRK files (like IMAP.MRK, HIWATER.MRK) have their importance too. HIWATER.MRK file contains all the user account’s information, IMAP folders subscription, IMAP/POP mailing services access information, access to shared folders, last access data, email rulings etc.

What is WorldClient ?

WorldClient, which is MDaemon’s web based email client, providing users to access their emails, contacts, calendars etc. from any location having internet connectivity. It stores all its emails, messages, calendars, documents, notes etc. in .mrk format, one for each data type, stored in their respective parent IMAP folder. These IMAP folders are saved in a single folder of a particular user account.

When the individual IMAP folder, say contacts.IMAP, is opened, a list of its files appear : AddrBook.MRK, HIWATER.MRK, Imap.mrk and a list of .msg files (each .msg file for individual contact, e.g. if a user has 50 contacts, 50 .msg files will be there, one for each contact).

Similarly, all other IMAP folder will have their corresponding files as shown below :

• Calendars.IMAP folder – Calendars.mrk, HIWATER.MRK, Imap.mrk and .msg files
• Tasks.IMAP folder – tasklist.mrk, HIWATER.MRK, Imap.mrk and .msg files
• Notes.IMAP folder – HIWATER.mrk, Imap.mrk and .msg files

As it can be seen that, all these folders have HIWATER.MRK file, which contains all the relevant information related to that IMAP folder. Each parent IMAP folder has their respective .mrk file containing their related information.

What are AddrBook.mrk and Calendars.mrk Files are and what information they hold?

Worldclient reads all its data from their respective .mrk files.  For example, it reads contacts from AddrBook.mrk file, calendars data from calendar.mrk, tasks from tasklist.mrk files and so on. Whereas, Outlook reads all its data from the series of .msg files saved in their respective IMAP folders.

How these .mrk files .msg files are related to each other?

What happens when user accidently deletes AddrBook.mrk file or deletes all the contacts from WorldClient. They automatically gets deleted from Outlook also (with all the .msg files automatically getting deleted from MS Outlook).

Important : Once the AddreBook.mrk is deleted, MDaemon automatically creates a new copy of AddrBook.mrk, having no data in it.

After restoring the backup copy of addrBook.IMAP, all the contact will be shown under <contact></contact>. (Still no .msg file is found in Contacts.IMAP folder :

When Outlook is opened, all the contacts will be restored, based on the information provided in AddrBook.mrk file. And, the time at which these contacts are opened in Outlook, their respective .msg files are recreated too, in Contacts.IMAP folder, at the store location :

The same concept applies for tasks, notes, calendars etc. Each corresponds with an .mrk file, which reads data from and creates respective MSG files, when user views data in Outlook with Outlook Connector.

Why is there need to convert MDaemon emails to Outlook?

Outlook Connector is needed to view MDaemon data in MS Outlook. Or it can be said Outlook’s working is dependent on Connector, when viewing MDaemon email data. When some data is lost from MDaemon, it automatically gets lost from Outlook too. Consider a situation, where MDameon crashed and user needs to view their emails. Or users want to view their emails in Outlook, without needing any supported connector. These situation may lead users to convert MDaemon emails to Outlook.

How to view MDaemon Emails in MS Outlook without Outlook Connector ?

The answer is simple : convert MDaemon messages to such a file format, easily recognized by Outlook. With MDaemon Mailbox to PST Converter, you can easily convert your MDaemon emails to PST, which is native extension of MS Outlook. The software is an easy to use utility, which supports bulk conversion of MDaemon mailboxes to Outlook, without any problems. Powered to convert single mailbox as well as multiple mailboxes, the software helps users in managing their MDaemon to Microsoft Outlook conversion process in limited time frame and that too without any data loss.