Importing Outlook Express Messages w their Account

[Guest]

I want to upgrade my Outlook Express V6 to Outlook 2003 because my file size
is getting dangerously high. I have a half dozen different e-mail accounts
from different providers that I use with OE. I can successfully export
and/or import the account information for each, and I can import all the
messages, folders, and contacts. However, I seem to lose the account
information associated with each e-mail message so I can no longer tell which
e-mail account they were received on. The account info for each message gets
reset to whatever the Default Account is in Oulook. This seems very strange
since both OE and Oulook maintain the account information for each message
they receive and Outlook will keep and display the right info for any new
messages it receives. Does anyone know how to successfully migrate the
account information for each message?

 

[Roady [MVP]]

The Export function within OE usually tends to do a better job at
maintaining email meta information than the Import process of Outlook. If
the Export function doesn't transfer this information than I think you're
out of luck.

However the "To" information should usually give you a good indication of
which account has been used as well. If that is not flexible enough for, you
could also consider assigning different categories to your (past) mail
items.

 

[Guest]

I have tried both methods (exporting from OE and also importing to Outlook.
Neither works, but I did notice that one of these methods also messed up the
date info which is even a bigger problem than the account info). I don't use
categories yet. I suppose it would be easy to sort all my mail by account
and then assign categories in groups of selected mail with a category that is
the same as the account. That would be enough for me if the category info
survives the move to Outlook. Do you know how many categories Outlook
supports? I'd hate to use them all up with this problem since I may use them
in the future.

I hope you don't mind that I did not mark this thread completed since I am
still hoping (albeit fading) someone else might know how to handle the lost
account issue.

 

[Guest]

Added note - I explored OE for categories. No wonder I never used them.
They don't exist..... So that approach won't help either. It will be too
late to add categories after they are in Outlook. I have a gazillion e-mails.

 

[Roady [MVP]]

Importing from Outlook will indeed reset the dates.
Outlook supports more categories than you'll ever need ;-)

 

[Roady [MVP]]

Yes, Categories is an Outlook function; not OE. You'll indeed have to assign
it after the migration. For a large part you can automate this by using
rules based on the information in the "To" or "Cc" line. As I said before;
those lines will also give a clear indication by which account you received
the email.

 

[Guest]

Yes, I discovered that OE does not have categories after replying to your
last note.

Using rules after the import based on the "to" info won't help much. I am
only copied on most of the messages I get. I have not figured out how to
modify the rule based on the cc or bc info.....

Best would be to find a utility of some kind that will migrate the data and
preserve the account info.

I am thinking that another alternative would be to sort my mail in each
folder by account, delete all but one account in each and every folder, then
export and import, then change the default account in Outlook, reload the
original data in OE, resort and delete, and repeat again for each account.
This way I can save my categories for what categories should be used for.

Any idea why MSoft didn't provide for the need to import/export account info
and message date?