Reading large .mbox email files without importing to Mail?

Solution 1:

You have to use a third-party app, on MacOS I haven't found any free ones (on Windows you have some free). This one for example: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/mbox-office-viewer-migration/id829623734

All messages in an .mbox mailbox are stored as plain text so you can also open it with any text editor.