Pegasus folders
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PMM folders, CNM new mail, PMI indexes and the rest of the PMAIL family. Any device, nothing to install, nothing uploaded.
Pick a PMM folder, a CNM message or your whole PMAIL folder. The mail is read here on your Windows, Mac, Linux or mobile browser and is never sent to a server.
Pegasus Mail is an email program written by David Harris in Dunedin, New Zealand and first released in 1990 for Novell NetWare and MS-DOS. It stores mail in its own file types, not in one standard mailbox. This page reads those files in your browser so you can open old Pegasus mail without the program.
The formats come from how Pegasus Mail and the mail server that went with it, the Mercury Mail Transport System, saved messages on a PC or a network drive. A PMM file is a mail folder. A CNM file is one new message. A PMI file is the index that sits next to a folder. The names and layout have stayed the same since the NetWare years, so files from a 1995 mailbox and a 2024 one open the same way here.
Two file names get mixed up. A .PMM here is Pegasus email, not a MikuMikuDance animation project. A .CNM here is a Pegasus new mail message, not a LexisNexis NoteMap outline. This page only reads the Pegasus kind.
Reference: Pegasus Mail and the Mercury Mail Transport System, both by David Harris.
Many online mail tools send your file to a server first. This Pegasus viewer does the reading in the page itself, so a PMM folder or CNM message opens on your own machine and no copy leaves it. That matters most for legal, HR or forensic mail, where the file cannot be shared with anyone else.
There is no upload step and no server copy. Close the tab and nothing is left behind.
Windows, Mac, Linux, Chromebook, iPhone, iPad and Android. Pegasus Mail itself only runs on Windows.
Save a message as .eml or .txt, download an attachment, zip every attachment or export the list as .csv.
Pegasus Mail only ever ran on Windows, MS-DOS and Novell NetWare, so its mailbox files will not open on any other system. This viewer reads PMM, CNM and the rest of the PMAIL set in whatever browser the device already has. Pegasus Mail does not need to be installed on that machine.
Old PMAIL folders from an old PC open right away in Edge, Chrome or Firefox.
Pegasus Mail has no Mac version any more, so a browser is the simplest way to read the files.
No Wine and no virtual machine. Open the PMM file in Firefox or Chromium.
Copy the folder to Files, open this page and pick it. Nothing is installed.
Save the Pegasus file into the Files app. Open this page in Safari, tap Choose Pegasus files and the mail loads.
Works in Chrome. Large folders read best on a computer, but a phone handles normal ones fine.
Pegasus Mail splits one mailbox into several kinds of file. Here is what each one holds and what this page does with it.
The main folder file. It starts with a 128 byte header and then stores each message one after another, split by a Ctrl-Z character. The viewer reads that structure directly, so every message in the folder is listed.
Every message that lands in the New Mail folder is written as its own file. Names starting with P came in over POP3 and names starting with Y were delivered locally. Select as many as you like at once.
An index that sits beside a folder and holds no message text of its own. Pick the folder and its index together and the viewer pairs them up and reads the folder. Open an index on its own and it will still try to find any message hidden inside.
A plain text list with one email address per line. Pegasus Mail sends to the whole list when you address a message to @name.PML. The viewer shows the names and addresses as a table.
Written when a local message is sent with files attached. The viewer looks inside and pulls out any message or attachment it holds.
A PMN file is a note Pegasus Mail keeps next to a message, and it opens as readable text. A PNM file is a small Mercury IMAP flag cache. The viewer reads any real text either one holds.
Unusual PMAIL files are scanned for real message content rather than rejected, so a file with an unexpected name is still checked.
The older NetWare era folder format uses the same layout as PMM with a PMG index. Those open too.
Drag a PMM or CNM file onto the box at the top, or use Select your PMAIL folder to open the whole mailbox at once.
The folder tree loads on the left and messages appear as the file is scanned. Filter by sender, subject or recipient, then open a message to see its body, headers and attachments.
Export one message to .eml or .txt, save a single attachment, zip every attachment in a message or save the whole list to .csv.
Pegasus Mail keeps everything under one folder, which makes an old mailbox easy to get back.
Look for a folder named PMAIL, often at C:\PMAIL or inside the program folder. Mail usually sits in a MAIL subfolder with one folder per user.
Pegasus Mail can run from a USB stick without touching the registry, so the whole mailbox may already be on a removable drive. Open it right from there.
Mail from a Novell NetWare and Mercury setup uses the same PMM and CNM layout, including the older MBX folders.
Copy the PMAIL folder out of the backup and pick it here. The viewer opens files read only and never writes to them.
Real folder names live in a file called HIERARCH.PM. Include it when you pick the folder and the viewer will show the names you remember instead of codes like FOLD0001.
To move everything at once, the Univik Pegasus Email Converter writes PST, MBOX, EML, MSG and PDF in batch.
Univik makes both. Use this page to read a mailbox and check what is inside. Use the Pegasus Email Converter when you need to move the mail into another program.
| Feature | Online Pegasus Mail Viewer | Pegasus Email Converter |
|---|---|---|
| Install needed | None, opens in the browser | Windows setup |
| Operating system | Windows, Mac, Linux, Chromebook, iOS, Android | Windows |
| Files uploaded | Never, runs on your device | Never, runs on your PC |
| File types | PMM, CNM, PMI, PNM, PML, PMF, PMC, MBX | PMM, CNM, PMI, PNM, PML, PMF, PMC |
| Reading messages | HTML and plain text views | Preview before converting |
| Attachments | Preview, download, zip them all | Saved out in batch |
| Converting | One message at a time as .eml or .txt | PST, MBOX, EML, MSG, PDF, HTML, CSV in bulk |
| Whole PMAIL folder | Folder names from HIERARCH.PM | Full tree with subfolders |
| Price | Free | Paid, free trial |
Direct answers about reading PMM, CNM and PMI files in a browser, on any device, without Pegasus Mail.
No. The whole Pegasus viewer is inside this one page. Your browser reads the PMM or CNM file straight from disk a chunk at a time and builds the list on your own machine. Univik receives nothing and keeps no copy. Turn off your connection after the page loads and it still reads the mail, which is proof the file never left your device.
Drop the PMM file onto the box at the top of this page and the messages appear right away. No copy of Pegasus Mail is needed, and none of the old Windows, DOS or NetWare setup either. To keep the real folder names, pick the entire PMAIL folder so the viewer can read HIERARCH.PM alongside it.
A PMM file is a mail folder holding many messages. A CNM file is a single message that arrived in the New Mail folder. A PMI file is the index that sits beside a PMM folder and holds no message text of its own. To read the mail you want the PMM and CNM files, and this viewer opens all three.
Because an index file stores positions and flags rather than message text. Open the PMM file with the same name and the messages will be there. If you only have the PMI, the viewer will still scan it and show anything that looks like a real message, which sometimes gets back pieces of mail from a damaged mailbox.
Yes. The file is read in small pieces rather than loaded whole, so folders of several gigabytes open without using up memory. Only the message you click is decoded in full. Very large folders read fastest on a computer rather than a phone.
Yes. MIME attachments are decoded, and so are the older uuencode and BinHex styles that Pegasus Mail used. Compressed attachments such as .gz are opened up where the browser can do it. Text is decoded across the full range of charsets, from 1990s DOS code pages through Windows and ISO sets to UTF-8, including messages that state the wrong charset.
No. A PMM folder stores its messages as plain text one after another with no compression on the folder itself. Compression only appears inside a message, as a transfer encoding or a compressed attachment. The viewer handles both.
Often, yes. When a copy stops partway, each message ahead of the break reads in full and the last one shows up to the point where the file stops. When the 128 byte header or the Ctrl-Z separators are damaged, the viewer searches the file for message starts and rebuilds the list from whatever is left. This is what makes it useful on backup discs and recovered drives.
The file stays on your own machine, so the mail is as private as the machine is. The viewer opens every file read only and never changes a single byte, so the original stays exactly as it was, which matters for legal evidence. Remote images stay blocked until you allow them, so viewing a message does not tell the sender it was read.
Yes it is free, with no account and no sign up. There is no file size cap put on by this page. The file is read in pieces on your own device, so folders of several gigabytes open fine. The only real limit is the memory of the machine you use.
Yes. Pegasus Mail has no Mac version, so a browser is the easiest way. Copy the PMM, CNM or whole PMAIL folder to your Mac, open this page in Safari or Chrome and pick the file. It reads on the Mac itself and nothing is uploaded.
No. The page itself is the whole tool, with no add on, download or account to set up. Save the link and open it again the next time you have a Pegasus file to read.
No cost, no upload and no account. Your Pegasus mailbox is read on your own device and never uploaded.
Choose a Pegasus file