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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Outlook Express (os 9)-to-mail Conversion
Andrea117 - Nov 19, 2005 - 2:17 pm
I'm using the latest version of Tiger 10.4.3 with the new Mac mini I just bought. I'm also a brand-new convert to OS X, but have used Macs since 1987.
As per the built-in help in Mail 2.0.5, I tried import > mailboxes, i.e., all my email folders from Outlook Express 5.0.6 into Mail. I thought everything was going along beautifully, and I could see the subjects of each mail message zipping by in the status bar. The import took a few minutes, because I have about 20MB worth of messages in Outlook Express.
When I opened Mail, I saw all the folders along the left edge under the Import top-level folder -- just as they were in Outlook Express. However, when I clicked on each of the folders, it showed 0 messages in the title bar, and nothing at all shown in the window. What's going on here?
I have years and years worth of emails I would like to keep and use in an OS X application. But I want to avoid buying Office with Entourage, which I know would import all my old emails -- at least for as long as I can.
Is there some setting I didn't set correctly? Or is this a bug in Mail?
As per the built-in help in Mail 2.0.5, I tried import > mailboxes, i.e., all my email folders from Outlook Express 5.0.6 into Mail. I thought everything was going along beautifully, and I could see the subjects of each mail message zipping by in the status bar. The import took a few minutes, because I have about 20MB worth of messages in Outlook Express.
When I opened Mail, I saw all the folders along the left edge under the Import top-level folder -- just as they were in Outlook Express. However, when I clicked on each of the folders, it showed 0 messages in the title bar, and nothing at all shown in the window. What's going on here?
I have years and years worth of emails I would like to keep and use in an OS X application. But I want to avoid buying Office with Entourage, which I know would import all my old emails -- at least for as long as I can.
Is there some setting I didn't set correctly? Or is this a bug in Mail?
edadams - Nov 19, 2005 - 8:03 pm
Andrea
Can you please click on the indiviual message folders one at a time and select from the menu Mailbox-Rebuild
Do your messages show up then?
You may need to fix each mailbox individually like this if it works.
If it does not work, then delete all the mailboxes and import again from OE
In my experience I have always had better luck importing from OE to MSEntourage then to Apple Mail, I have done a fair amount of these conversions like this.
--------
Regards
Ed
Can you please click on the indiviual message folders one at a time and select from the menu Mailbox-Rebuild
Do your messages show up then?
You may need to fix each mailbox individually like this if it works.
If it does not work, then delete all the mailboxes and import again from OE
In my experience I have always had better luck importing from OE to MSEntourage then to Apple Mail, I have done a fair amount of these conversions like this.
--------
Regards
Ed
Andrea117 - Nov 20, 2005 - 10:53 am
Well, Ed,
I tried all the steps you recommended and this time I thought it would work. The 2nd time I tried the import, I got a confirmation dialog box that asked which folders I wanted to import, so I left all of them checked. Then the import process went very slowly and took about 15 mins. At the end, I was able to click on several of the folders at the top (starting with the letters A-C) and I actually saw some emails. But quite a number of them had today's date and time of receipt (the time stamp was when they were imported) -- not the actual date and time as Outlook Express shows it.
And when I went down further in the folder list, I saw zero messages in each folder. Then I tried rebuilding, but that didn't help again, either. On top of that, clicking again on the first few folders resulted in NOTHING showing up -- no messages. The strange thing is that each folder has a number next to it, which I assume is the number of messages in that folder. In some cases, there are 300-450 messages, which I know is true in Outlook Express. But Mail simply can't show them for some reason.
So again it didn't work. Looks like I'll have to buy Office for the Mac. At least, I get a big discount on it by buying through Microsoft's Employee Purchase Plan, because my company has standardized on Windows and the Office package.
Can you tell me if you've experienced any problems with an Outlook Express-to-Entourage conversion? Or are the problems so minor that a workaround can easily fix them?
Thanks for your prompt response!
Andrea
I tried all the steps you recommended and this time I thought it would work. The 2nd time I tried the import, I got a confirmation dialog box that asked which folders I wanted to import, so I left all of them checked. Then the import process went very slowly and took about 15 mins. At the end, I was able to click on several of the folders at the top (starting with the letters A-C) and I actually saw some emails. But quite a number of them had today's date and time of receipt (the time stamp was when they were imported) -- not the actual date and time as Outlook Express shows it.
And when I went down further in the folder list, I saw zero messages in each folder. Then I tried rebuilding, but that didn't help again, either. On top of that, clicking again on the first few folders resulted in NOTHING showing up -- no messages. The strange thing is that each folder has a number next to it, which I assume is the number of messages in that folder. In some cases, there are 300-450 messages, which I know is true in Outlook Express. But Mail simply can't show them for some reason.
So again it didn't work. Looks like I'll have to buy Office for the Mac. At least, I get a big discount on it by buying through Microsoft's Employee Purchase Plan, because my company has standardized on Windows and the Office package.
Can you tell me if you've experienced any problems with an Outlook Express-to-Entourage conversion? Or are the problems so minor that a workaround can easily fix them?
Thanks for your prompt response!
Andrea
edadams - Nov 20, 2005 - 11:10 am
Andrea
Why not download the Office test drive? You will only be using entourage as the stepping stone to Apple Mail-
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/default...d=office2004td
I have had great success doing the mail conversion using Entourage with no issues I can think of.
Once you have loaded Office, open Entourage and select impoprt from OE, once all mail is imported then go to contacts and select all and drag to a desktop folder, this will give you v-cards which can be imported directly to Apple Address book.
With Entourage still running open Mail, probably best to start with a clean slate, so delete the "mail" folder inside /Users/username/Library/
Mail will generate a fresh copy when you start it up.
Go to File-Import mailboxes in Mail, select Entourage and begin to import your mail, again you may nedd to rebuild the individual mailboxes once complete.
--------
Regards
Ed
Why not download the Office test drive? You will only be using entourage as the stepping stone to Apple Mail-
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/default...d=office2004td
I have had great success doing the mail conversion using Entourage with no issues I can think of.
Once you have loaded Office, open Entourage and select impoprt from OE, once all mail is imported then go to contacts and select all and drag to a desktop folder, this will give you v-cards which can be imported directly to Apple Address book.
With Entourage still running open Mail, probably best to start with a clean slate, so delete the "mail" folder inside /Users/username/Library/
Mail will generate a fresh copy when you start it up.
Go to File-Import mailboxes in Mail, select Entourage and begin to import your mail, again you may nedd to rebuild the individual mailboxes once complete.
--------
Regards
Ed
Andrea117 - Nov 20, 2005 - 10:54 pm
I used Entourage (which was preloaded onto my Mac mini) as an intermediary and followed your instructions you gave me this morning. This time I thought the import would work. However, when I restarted the mini and then opened Mail, no folders appeared whatsoever, other than the In box and Sent, I think. All the 58 MB of my previous folders disappeared.
So since Entourage imported every email folder flawlessly, it looks like that is the only reliable solution. I can't continue hoping that my emails will be there one day and not the next. Tomorrow I will order Office 2004 for the Mac Std. Edition.
By the way, Address Book 4.0.3 DID directly import all my contacts from Outlook Express without any problems, so importing that part of Microsoft's emailer was at least a success. I had to tweak the field names here and there, but at least everything came over intact, as far as I can tell. And now I can finally print the list in Address Book! In Outlook Express I never had that ability (unless I downloaded some 3rd-party Apple-scripts and messed around with them, which I never bothered doing).
Thank you so much for your help. I appreciate your time.
So since Entourage imported every email folder flawlessly, it looks like that is the only reliable solution. I can't continue hoping that my emails will be there one day and not the next. Tomorrow I will order Office 2004 for the Mac Std. Edition.
By the way, Address Book 4.0.3 DID directly import all my contacts from Outlook Express without any problems, so importing that part of Microsoft's emailer was at least a success. I had to tweak the field names here and there, but at least everything came over intact, as far as I can tell. And now I can finally print the list in Address Book! In Outlook Express I never had that ability (unless I downloaded some 3rd-party Apple-scripts and messed around with them, which I never bothered doing).
Thank you so much for your help. I appreciate your time.
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