Outlook Express e-mail folder
application/octet-stream
Magic Bytes
Offset: 0
CF FA ED FE
Outlook Express Email Folder (DBX) is a proprietary data storage format developed by Microsoft for managing electronic mail and folder structures. It serves as a primary local container for storing email messages and custom folder hierarchies within the legacy Outlook Express client. Although now obsolete, these files are frequently encountered during forensic data recovery or migration into modern applications, and while inherently safe, users should exercise caution as the database may contain malicious attachments.
Validation Code
How to validate .dbx files in Python
Python
def is_dbx(file_path: str) -> bool:
"""Check if file is a valid DBX by magic bytes."""
signature = bytes([0xCF, 0xFA, 0xED, 0xFE])
with open(file_path, "rb") as f:
return f.read(4) == signatureHow to validate .dbx files in Node.js
Node.js
function isDBX(buffer: Buffer): boolean {
const signature = Buffer.from([0xCF, 0xFA, 0xED, 0xFE]);
return buffer.subarray(0, 4).equals(signature);
}
Go
func IsDBX(data []byte) bool {
signature := []byte{0xCF, 0xFA, 0xED, 0xFE}
if len(data) < 4 {
return false
}
return bytes.Equal(data[:4], signature)
}API Endpoint
GET
/api/v1/dbx
curl https://filesignature.org/api/v1/dbx