Import windows mail into outlook express

[PA-Woodchuck]

The wifes been using Vista's window mail while on the road and now needs to
import the mail back into XP's outlook express. I hae looked around but
can't find anyway to do the task. Looks like Microsoft only want you to go
the other way! Not a good idea MS.

regards

 

[Gary VanderMolen]

I assume you are talking about two different computers?
If both computers are checking the same email account, whichever
one completes its email download first will make those emails
unavailable to the second PC. To fix that problem, go to Tools,
Accounts, select your mail account, Properties, Advanced,
enable "Leave a copy of messages on server."
Repeat the above on the second computer.

 

[Patrick Keenan]

The wifes been using Vista's window mail while on the road and now needs
to import the mail back into XP's outlook express. I hae looked around but
can't find anyway to do the task. Looks like Microsoft only want you to go
the other way! Not a good idea MS.

regards

This isn't actually an uncommon sort of problem, and you just need to use
different tools for the job. In this case, the tools are various email
clients.

Not all mail clients allow import or export to all other formats, so you
have to find which mail clients are necessary. You may need several.

In your case, what you may have to do, for example, is to install
Thunderbird, and use tools like mboximport to get the mail into Thunderbird,
and then import that to Outlook Express by way of Netscape Communicator 4.7.

This is a bit of a kludge, but sometimes it's the easiest way to get the job
done, and it *does* allow you to get the job done. You do need to install
those mail clients for a short while, but they don't need to stay there.
Once you've established which clients you need, you can probably be done
within an hour or so, much of which is waiting for the import to complete.

You do need to check that the imports and exports worked properly. If
you're using Eudora as part of the process, various problems such as
stripped attachments or odd HTML renderings can occur.

You can likely use Outlook as the import intermediary, too. Sorry, I'm not
on a Vista system at the moment and can't check the steps, but you do
acutally have to have Outlook installed to do this. You do not need to
activate it, however, so you can use a trial version or borrow a legit
version for a temporary install. Remove it when done.

HTH
-pk

 

[Clark]

Gary,
Thanks it worked, now is there an easy way to import my saved emails in
folders on one computer to the other to make them available.

I assume you are talking about two different computers?
If both computers are checking the same email account, whichever
one completes its email download first will make those emails
unavailable to the second PC. To fix that problem, go to Tools,
Accounts, select your mail account, Properties, Advanced,
enable "Leave a copy of messages on server."
Repeat the above on the second computer.

 

[Earle Horton]

This isn't actually an uncommon sort of problem, and you just need to use
different tools for the job. In this case, the tools are various email
clients.

Not all mail clients allow import or export to all other formats, so you
have to find which mail clients are necessary. You may need several.

In your case, what you may have to do, for example, is to install
Thunderbird, and use tools like mboximport to get the mail into
Thunderbird, and then import that to Outlook Express by way of Netscape
Communicator 4.7.

This is a bit of a kludge, but sometimes it's the easiest way to get the
job done, and it *does* allow you to get the job done. You do need to
install those mail clients for a short while, but they don't need to stay
there. Once you've established which clients you need, you can probably be
done within an hour or so, much of which is waiting for the import to
complete.

You do need to check that the imports and exports worked properly. If
you're using Eudora as part of the process, various problems such as
stripped attachments or odd HTML renderings can occur.

You can likely use Outlook as the import intermediary, too. Sorry, I'm
not on a Vista system at the moment and can't check the steps, but you do
acutally have to have Outlook installed to do this. You do not need to
activate it, however, so you can use a trial version or borrow a legit
version for a temporary install. Remove it when done.

Outlook does not export mail messages from the file menu. Outlook has to be
present, for import or export to Outlook format to work, but message copying
has to be done from the other program, whether it is Windows Mail or Outlook
Express. You could install a trial version of Outlook on the Vista machine,
and export the messages from within Windows Mail to Microsoft Exchange
(Outlook). Then copy the .pst file to the XP machine. Then install the
trial version of Outlook on the XP machine, and import the messages from
within Outlook Express.

The files in Windows Mail's store folder are .eml format. They can be
dragged and dropped into Outlook Express (or most any email client). This
may be unworkable if there is a large number of messages though.

MSN Explorer email client can export mail messages directly into Outlook
Express, but it requires an MSN Premium subscription to work.

Using a Microsoft program for this operation is possible but unwieldly. You
don't normally wind up with stripped attachments though.

If the number of messages is small you could simply forward them from the
Vista machine to the XP machine, after disabling pop3 download on the Vista
machine.

Earle

 

[Gary VanderMolen]

That's not all that easy, especially when the mail clients are
different (OE and Windows Mail). I've never done this myself,
but I understand that one method involves dragging and dropping
each individual WM email into OE's message list pane.
Perhaps one of the other responders knows a quicker method.

 

[Steve Cochran]

Its not very difficult. My OEX program will actually let the users import
from a directory of eml (or nws) files into either WinMail or OE (depending
upon the OS) with a single button click.

steve

That's not all that easy, especially when the mail clients are
different (OE and Windows Mail). I've never done this myself,
but I understand that one method involves dragging and dropping
each individual WM email into OE's message list pane.
Perhaps one of the other responders knows a quicker method.