MS Outlook .pst file -> Mail program

Good Day All,

Greetings from the "sunny" Pacific Northwest in the US.

I am the proud owner of a new iMac, purchased 4 days ago, and I just joined this forum and this is my first post. The new computer is great and I am wondering why I waited so long to make the switch.

At this point I have a question and I am hoping somebody can help. On my Windows machine I use Outlook 2003 for my mail client. I am quite sure Outlook stores all messages (Inbox, Sent Mail, other personal folders) compressed and/or encrypted in a file called the .pst file. I would like to know if there is a way to get that data from Outlook and import it to Mail. Does anyone have experience with this?

Thanks in advance.
Hector Caroselli
Seattle

In Mail go to File > Import Mailboxes

Well, I don't know any free apps that can do the job. Here is a nice guide.

that guide is correct -- Mail cannot deal with *.pst files directly.

I used the first method explained in the guide in NoviceW's post when I bought my iMac, and it worked fine. It's a bit tedious as you have to move each mail message out of Outlook, then into Entourage, then into Mail, but it works as advertised.

My problem was that I had about 3 years of archived email in Outlook that I wanted available on the iMac, so it took a bit of time. But all is good now.

I must be an idiot

Thanks for the responses everyone. I am trying to follow the instructions in the "Guide" and I am encountering a small problem.

On the Windows computer I save the email messages as .msg files and they were saved to a flash memory device. The MAC recognizes the device just fine. When I start Entourage I am unable to drag and drop, or import the messages to Entourage.

I think this is either a dumb new user issue or perhaps the messages needed to be saved in a different format?

I need a little more guidance.

Thanks again.

Best way is to get an IMAP-enabled mail account (Googlemail) and move your old mails to that account in Outlook and they will all show up in Mail......

Hector -- any luck?

I'm also willing to try the Entourage method, but I'm a little bit confused by this step: "if you want to have them in mail - drag and drop them from entourage to mail"

So... I've renamed the files with .mbox, imported [? presumably] into Entourage, then... what am I dragging and dropping, and to where in Mail?

I went down this road a few weeks ago. Transferring from Outlook 2003 to Entourage 2004. I have 5 years of business emails archived in various folders in Outlook/Entourage. I would estimate it's around 10000 emails. Totaled 8gb in .pst files.

I struggled with this for many hours trying to do it the "free" way. In the end, I had a splitting headache and had wasted an entire weekend frustrating myself.

Little Machines makes a program called O2M (Outlook 2 Mac). It costs $10. It works like a champ. You run it on your PC. You select the Outlook folders you wish transfer and it compiles all the emails into an .mbox file. Copy the .mbox file to the Mac and Entourage can import these very quickly and easily.

http://www.littlemachines.com/

Spend the $10, enjoy your new found free time, and skip the headaches.

I also believe you said you wished to use Mail instead of Entourage. Some users report being able to import .mbox files into Mail without a problem. Others had issues if their .mbox files are very large. Fortunately, Mail can quickly Import anything you can get into Entourage.

Outlook to Entourage is the hard part. Entourage to Mail only take a few mouse clicks with Mail's Import command. From within Mail select File > Import Mailboxes. Both Entourage and .mbox files will show up as options to select from.

If I go the Outlook -> Tbird -> Entourage -> Mail route, where are the Entourage files located?

Ultimately, instead of clogging up three similar threads' worth of posts, I think I'm going to create a temporary gmail IMAP account, configure Outlook for that account, get all the emails I need from Outlook into that account, and then change the account to POP3 and use Mail to grab everything from that account.

And then I'll avoid the frustrations of adding more programs onto my machine and so on.

So far, this process has been the only complaint I have with having switched -- everything else seems to be completely decent.

Jaygray said:

Spend the $10, enjoy your new found free time, and skip the headaches.

Click to expand...

I used the demo version of this O2M but ran into problems. I'm trying to import to Entourage 2008. When I go through the import tool, the dialogue box will not let me select the *.mbox folder even though that is what I have instructed it to import.

I don't get why Microsoft/Apple has not come out with a proper import tool for PST files!

I found that O2M would freeze for no good reason when trying to export from my large multi-folder Outlook 2003 pst file. It seemed to get "stuck" on a message. Many of them actually. The "workaround" was to import what I could, delete stuff from the original, try again till it got stuck. Very painful.

MacJen said:

I used the demo version of this O2M but ran into problems. I'm trying to import to Entourage 2008. When I go through the import tool, the dialogue box will not let me select the *.mbox folder even though that is what I have instructed it to import.

I don't get why Microsoft/Apple has not come out with a proper import tool for PST files!

Click to expand...

Try this in Entourage 2008...

File > Import > Select 3rd option (text file) > Click right arrow in lower right corner

The following screen should have the mbox option.

Hi Jay,

I did find the MBOX option before, but the problem is when I select the Inbox.mbox, it is a directory rather than a file. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place?

I'm looking in Users/Library/Mail/

NB Jaygray,

Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou - purely on spec after your recommendation, I just paid for O2M without any further thought.

I am delighted to say the extraction, processing and import of the files (about 2 Gig and up to 5 years old) was flawless.

That's the best $10 (about £5.00 for Brits) I've spent. I am SO chuffed.

Well done. Anyone prevaricating - just DO and save your hair!

MacJen said:

Hi Jay,

I did find the MBOX option before, but the problem is when I select the Inbox.mbox, it is a directory rather than a file. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place?

I'm looking in Users/Library/Mail/

Click to expand...

Let's start from the beginning (and this is off the top of my head so bear with me if it's not exact)...

1. Run O2M on the PC. Create the .mbox files.

2. Copy the .mbox files from the PC to the Mac (external drive, USB drive, shared folder, whatever). I don't believe it matters where you put them.

3. Inside Entourage use the File > Import > Select Text File > Select mbox File. I imagine you will have to then select the location of the mbox file you just copied over.

I do not belive Entourage actually uses the .mbox files. It just copies the info out of them and into your Microsoft Identity folder. Once the import is complete, you should be able to remove the mbox file permanently.

I think Users/Library/Mail is for the OS X Mail application. Entourage does not use this folder. Everything Entourage uses is stored in Users/Documents/Microsoft User Data.

Incidentally, if you want to back up your Entourage emails, simply copy the entire Microsoft User Data folder and all subfolders to an external drive. If you need to revert back to this backup, just paste it over the existing folder in Documents on your Mac. I copy this folder to an external drive a couple times a week, repeatedly replacing the previously copied folder.

Thanks for your help Jay.

My husband ended up importing the emails to Thunderbird and changing the extensions. worked perfectly.

Sub Folders?

I appreciate the info in this thread.

I'm curious as I'm about to purchase a MBP, my first mac. I have a couple years worth emails with numerous (100's) of subfolders. I'm curious does the program mentioned above create the subfolders?

I guess what I'm asking is will it have the same look and feel as my Outlook 2003 with the folders and sub folders?