If you were a hardcore internet user any time back in the 90′s, chance are good that at one point or another you had an AOL account. If that’s the case, you may have also saved/archived your old email into an AOL Personal Filing Cabinet, or .PFC file.
Unfortunately, the AOL PFC is a proprietary file format for archiving e-mail and can’t be read by Outlook or most other common mail viewers.
That’s where PFC Viewer comes in. At one point in time, a savvy developer created a java-based PFC viewer that would inspect the contents of an AOL PFC file and let you get access to all of your old e-mail without installing the client. Sadly, his original website and code went missing, but through some determined investigating of my own, I was able to found the source and original release.
Download Link: http://www.imasuper.com/myuploads/2009/12/pfcview.jar
Download the JAR file and double-click to open. Then navigate to File > Open and open your PFC. And there’s your old email.
The original PFC Viewer was released under the MIT software license, which allows me to provide a download link to the application here without cause for license violation.
If this software helped you, please consider donating a small amount to further my website development:
I downloaded application and used it in sort of ‘test mode’ and it worked well. Now 24h later, it’s GONE! Even system search can’t find it. Why can’t I make an Icon on my desktop? How do I find it?
Well, when all else fails, download it again.
Somehow a link for download appeared and I downloaded it and it worked like a dream with W7 and a very large (200MB) ‘organize’ file. Thank you very much
I can’t download this application – is it still alive?
Hi Priv A. See! Now I’ve upgraded my computer to W7 it doesn’t work! I download a JAR file but it won’t open – windows just says it needs to know what program to use to open it! Help!?
I’ve downloaded the file, it opened and I was able to locate the pfc file. Only problem is the same as some I’ve read, it gives the info regarding the email, but not the contents of the email. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance.
Hi,
can anyone explain why I can open the above on a user account but not my administrator account on my desk top…help please?
Can I place this jar file on a coldfusion server and make an online version? Thanks Dan
Can I print from the pfc viewer. I am able to move the file to an mbx but cannot open to view. Tried everything am not a computer genius just trying to print some old emails. Can you help PLEASE?
herb_75@yahoo.com
I retrieved all of the PFC files for my AOL friend.
How can I read them or place them in an AOL mail folder.
Many thanks, Marvin
When i try to download the fix so I can see my pfc files it says it could damage my computer….is this true?
Brilliant – hank you very much. Just one question: In my “Incoming saved mail” file the emails are all listed with date, From/To, subject & index but when I open I get an awful lot of technical bits like –
v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
.shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
and finding the message is difficult
What am I doing wrong?
I tried all the tricks but I always get the following error message in a “Java Virtual Machine Launcher” window:
X Could not find the main class. Program will exit!
Any ideas? Thank you.
UR a Genius ! A couple of Q’s: I can see the contents of my PFC, but can the emails themselves actually be viewed? Also, what makes the PFC file size so gigantic @ 270mb?
I downloaded the application and tried to open my PFC but it stalls out at 40%. I’ve tried repeatedly with exactly the same result. Is there any way to get past that? It is a very large file, admittedly: 790mb. That represents several years of archived mail which I would love to recover.
Still unable to find a solution 3 weeks later. Help!
Samantha,
It may just be too large for the PFC Viewer. I am assuming you have a fairly modern machine? There is mention (Down below) of people installing the original AOL application and viewing their mail there. Would this be a possibility?
At one point I had considered rewriting the tool in a different language with more consistent support, but I’m not suer if or when I’ll wrap up that project.
It opens and says it’s reading the cabinet file, but nothing appears. Can anyone please help? I had a lot of work on that file.
Sorry you’re having trouble Casey. How big is the file?
1.26 GB.
In answer to does this software work on a Mac, it works fine on my Mac (iMac 511).
Thanks very much.
Thanks for researching that, David. I had no idea it’d work on a Mac. Look at that… Java is multi-platform after all!
Can you detail a step by step for associating this “jar” file with Java? I have repeatedly attempted to associate it with every possible Java 6 application listed in the Java and/or “OpenOffice 3.1″ Java Program file. I have tried to follow your “Run” prompt listed down thread, and all of this without any success. Alternatively, could you just provide a pre-associated link with Java that is just click –> download –> execute and then arrive at the screen you show in the screen shot? Have wasted half the day on this already.
Tom,
Do you know the location of your Java installation? (i.e C:\Progarm files\Java\java.exe)
If you know the path to java.exe, please reply with it and I’ll give you a step by step.
The confusion for some is when you go to download, it may try to save the file as pfcview.zip no .jar.
What they are saying is to save as pfcview.jar, don’t use the default name. Once downloaded, just double click the file and it will work.
I didn’t realize this until the third try as you can unzip the file and there are contents, but none readily usable unless you know how to use java class files.
Good luck
Thanks for the input Ben. Hopefully this helps some people.
Pfc view opens my saved aol emails and shows a list of my saved emails.
If I click on an email in the list it displays; Date:, To: and Subject:, but not the contents of the email.
What have I done wrong?
Please help.
Worked perfectly to retrieve my mom’s old favorite places and turn them into an HTML file IE can read! Thanks a ton!
I’m another poor soul who has archived important AOL e-mails (incoming and outgoing) over the last 10 years or so, naturally assuming I would continue to be able to open those files when I need them to write an article, or even a book, on the very historically significant events they document first-hand. When my computer was dying and had to be replaced, I put all my files on a flashdrive and carefully transferred them to my new computer. Horrors: My jazzy new HP Windows 7 computer easily opens all my documents — except the vital PFC. files I need. In high hopes, I carefully followed your generously supplied “fix”, but Windows 7 still won’t open the files. Perhaps the only option I have left will be to try your fix on a friend’s Windows XP (or even more outdated) computer, and if it works, PRINT OUT the hundreds of e-mails. Would that sound like something worth trying? THANKS SO MUCH FOR YOUR NOBLE — YES, NOBLE — EFFORTS! — Jennifer
Jennifer, can you elaborate on ‘won’t open’? Did the PFC Viewer give you an error when you attempted to open the PFC?
Pfc opens my aol saved emails and shows a list.
If I click on an email it displays; Date:, To: and Subject:, but not the contents of the email.
Why?
Do you have any way or suggestion to open attachments in the aol email? I have been trying for days to figure that out, until I came across this, by the way works great, but still cant get to the attachment which is the gold I am looking for. i can see the attachment name and ext but can not open it and do not know why thank you:)
No – it looks like the most it extracts is the attachment names, but not the data itself. Unfortunately, there isn’t much more I have to offer.
this sounds very impressive. Any remote chance you know of something that would work on a Mac. Retired my PC along with the aol software years ago. thanks
Rich,
You know, there is a good possibility that this will work on an apple machine because it’s written in Java – and Java is a multi-platform environment. Of course, no way to be sure but I’d give it a try. You’ll just need to have Java installed on your mac (likely already done) and then I did some google searches like this:
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=run+jar+on+mac
Let me know if you can get the mac version working!
Pfcviwer saved the day! Thanks for posting it; didn't know such a tool existed. Just out of curiosity, is the source code available?
Adam,
I was certain (see original post) that I had found the source along with the compiled JAR's but I can't seem to find it. I must have saved it to another drive or something. If I ever come across it, I may share it here. Fortunately, the MIT license that the software was issued forth under doesn't require me to have it to distribute the software, so I'm still able to share it with everyone.
Great, works a treat woop woop !
worked like a charm! many many thanks.
Worked like a charm! Many thanks for the tip.
I keep trying to use the viewer but it snags at 20% everytime. Is my pfc currupted?
The only reason im useing this program is because aol no longer sees my pfc and I have lost the last 8 years of work. Any advice appreciated.
I'm stumped. Are there any instructions for using the viewer? I've tried a lot of things and got a list of my favorites titles, but cannot get the addresses. I started by copying my favorites from AOL to my desktop. Then I opened the file in the pfcviewer. When I import or export the list to Internet Explorer, I get a list of what appears to be highlighted titles, but when I click on them, I get "Internet Explorer cannot display that page" and gives the location as my desktop. What am I doing wrong? Please help … I feel like with your help so far, I'm soooo close.
GREAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nicely done. Thank you for sharing.
Tom
thanks so much i thought i had lost all my daughters college info and my old clients info after my aol became infected and i had to reinstall aol and found no saved on my pc file
Thank You so much!! I have been wanting to delete my AOL software for so long but could not find a way to access my saved mail. You are brilliant!
Thanks for releasing pfcview. I want to use this tool to recover some emails from a pfc file, however, there are a few limitations I need to overcome:
1) The "newmail" folder view limits email addresses (From/To) to 17 characters and subject lines to 46. Perhaps that's a limitation of the PFC file, but that doesn't seem likely to me.
2) There's no way to send output anywhere other than the screen. I've had to resort to OCR'ing screen captures. (yuck!)
Any chance I can get the source? Or perhaps you'd be willing to make some modifications yourself? Email me if you want to discuss further.
@John:
Make sure you save the file with a .jar extension.
(the link above links to pfcview.jar. Make sure in Windows it's actually saved with .jar and not some other random file extension).
To Mike: Also can't get ti to run; save what with the jar ext ?
John
JESUS JOSEPH AND MARY IN TINSELTOWN! This is exactly what I have been looking for. Thank you to everybody who made this program possible! Wonderful!
Thankyouthankyouthankyou.
I had heard rumors about this but never actually found it until today.
You are so fabulous.
It works great, though reading these old emails shows me my day was just as mundane in 1999.
Thank you all over again!
Oh my God this is amazing. Thank you!!!
Just re-downloaded it and made sure I saved it with the .jar extension this time. Yep that did it for me. awesome
Awesome software.
sorry i must be ignorant, i can not get this to work when i down load the pfc viewer and extract files to java folder and then try to open up the pfc save files the dos prompt just flashes and nothing happens,any help would be appriciated
All done… Thanks.
Just re-downloaded it and made sure I saved it with the .jar extension this time.
Thanks, "Priv"…. It says it's a Zip file… even if I rename, it stil says pfcviewer.jar.zip.
Tried using Open with… no success… not sure which Java to select….
Can't get to a DOS prompt from vista… forgot how…
Any other thoughts? Gracias.
David,
Since you took the time to ask, I’ll take the time to respond
It looks like you have java installed, but .jar files aren’t associated with java, so windows is just decompressing the jar instead of trying to run it.
Try opening up a command console (“DOS Prompt”) and running the application from within Java, using your java root path.
For example, if Java is located at c:j2sdk1.4.2_02injava, you would run this from your console:
C:j2sdk1.4.2_02injava -jar pfcviewer.jar
Make sure you copy pfcviewer.jar into your java folder, or tell java the full path to your file, like so:
C:j2sdk1.4.2_02injava -jar “C:usersmedownloadspfcviewer.jar”
Hopefully this helps.
java is running … but all i get are a bunch of zipped "CLASS" files? What did i do wrong?
Many thanks its working great
I'm trying to open my old pfc AOL email files. Can't get the hang of it. Java platform is installed. Also downloaded IZArc which did open the program. But I can't open the pfc file to view. Please help. Many thanks.
Cindy
I waited years to find a way to read my old AOL email. Back then I wasn't even sure of what files to save from the AOL folder. Now I can get a glimpse of what was going on all the way back to 97.
Thanks very much for your article.