04-04-2009, 01:34 AM

I'm helping a friend upgrade from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X v10.4 and am having some trouble importing mail. I'm trying to import the Outlook emails into Mail, but when Outlook Express launches, I get an error:

You do not have the Text Encoding Converter installed. Please reinstall your System Software.

I downloaded the TEC from Apple's FTP server, but still get this error after installing it and rebooting Classic.

04-04-2009, 05:09 AM

Are you running OE in OS9 or using the classic environment in OS X

04-04-2009, 06:29 AM

I have had a look and there may be a simple solution

IN os 9 the Outlook express data is usually in Documents > Microsoft User Data > Main Identity (or a named identity - depending how OE is set up)

Copy (not just move) the Microsoft User Data folder to the OS X install, to Users > Username > Documents (so there is a copy of Microsoft User Data at Users > Username > Documents > Microsoft User Data).

Download the mac version of Eudora
Eudora Features-MAC

That should be able to import the OE data, acting a bridge between OE and Mail. If that succeeds then start up mail, and one of the options to import is Eudora.

Lets us know if this works

04-04-2009, 06:58 AM

I'm running a clean install of Mac OS X, and finally managed to update Classic from 9.1 to 9.2.1 and Mail is importing now. However, importing the address book is gonna be crazy. Ultimately, I'd like to have all the email and addresses in Thunderbird. Is there any software that makes importing OE address books smoother?

04-04-2009, 07:15 AM

maybe eudora might import the addresses, then it should be easy to move then to thunderbird (you can opt to import addresses only)

04-05-2009, 10:07 PM

Originally Posted by louishen

maybe eudora might import the addresses, then it should be easy to move then to thunderbird (you can opt to import addresses only)

Good call, it worked like a charm. But there are still some emails that were dragged from Outlook Express to the desktop that I don't know how to import. I tried the "import mail from file" option, but I'm guessing that only works with mailbox files rather than individual emails.

Also, importing into Thunderbird only gets the Inbox and Outbox, but not the Import folder.