What is the best, and easiest, way to get the information in my OE Address book into my just-purchased iMac. The old PC is still running and the iMac is yet to be plugged in. If there is doubt in anyone's mind, my talents lie elsewhere. Any guidance is appreciated and needed.
To be sure, but I am still faced with the prospect of manually inputting all that OE address book information unless there is some way of getting it from the old PC to the Mac en masse. That is the crux of my question.
To export contact information from OE on the PC to CSV format, try this:
1. Launch Outlook Express on the PC.
2. From the File menu, click Export, and then click Address Book.
3. Click Text File (Comma Separated Values), and then click Export.
4. Click Browse.
5. Choose or create a folder in which to save the file.
6. In the File Name box, type "addresses", and then click Save.
7. Click Next.
8. Click to select the check boxes for the fields that you want to export, and then click Finish.
9. Click OK and then click Close.
10. Transfer the file from the PC to the Mac.
To Import the file into the Mac OS X Address Book:
1. Launch Address Book on the Mac.
2. From the File menu choose Import.
3. Choose the format of the exported file from the submenu. In this case choose "Text file," which is appropriate for either a tab-delimited or CSV file.
4. Select the file that contains the exported addresses.
5. Use the pop-up menus in the Text File Import dialog that appears to specify how to import the data. The first line in the file contains labels, so check the "Ignore first card" checkbox.
6. Use the left and right arrows to see different records in the file you're importing. This will let you determine how to set the popup menus. If you don't want to import a field, set the popup menu to "Do not import."
7. To set the popup menus for address fields, choose the type of address (home, work, or other) in the pop-up menu next to the first item of the address. Then use the address popup menus that appear to choose the corresponding data for each address field.
To transfer emails, you'll need to work with Entourage as a middleman, which you probably have as part of a 30 day trial of Office 2008 on the new iMac, but this is what you do:
1. On your PC, run Outlook Express ("OE") and select all messages in your Inbox folder (Control-A), and drag and drop all of the selected messages to an empty folder named Inbox on your PC Desktop.
Verify that the number of files inside that new folder you created matches the number of msgs in your OE Inbox (right-click on the Inbox icon in OE and select Properties to get that number). The exported files are ".eml" files which have the header and body of the message, in plain text format.
Do the same for messages in your Sent mailbox.
2. Transfer those new folders to your Mac, whether by Ethernet or CD-RW, USB drive or whatever way you choose.
3. Launch Entourage; create a new subfolder folder of "On My Computer." In Mac OS, select all the .eml files which came from OE "Inbox" and drag and drop them into this new subfolder in Entourage (the cursor will show a + sign if Entourage allows you to do the drop. This may take awhile to complete, depending on how many messages you're transferring; Entourage, or Mac OS, may not respond for a few minutes. You'll have to do this for "Sent" and any other OE folders, but not now; you need to do these one folder set at a time.
4. Create an Entourage Mail View that excludes all folders, including the one new subfolder you just creeated. For Criteria, set Match "if all criteria are met," "Folder Is Not Inbox," "Folder Is Not Outbox," etc.). What you're trying to do is identify the messages just imported and consolidate them in one view listing. Check the view for errors. Sort it by date and scroll through from the start to end to check if the topmost and bottommost messages have either empty dates or today's date and time in it. If there are such messages, these are errors and you can correct or delete them.
When all the messages look good to you, or if you choose to just delete the ones with errors, make sure Entourage is finished populating the view, then select and drag and drop the Mail View folder (the view icon, not the messages) to your Desktop. This will create a ".mbox" file on your Desktop with the name of the view.
You can now create separate mbox files for your OE "Sent" and other folders; however, you must delete the new subfolder you previously created in Entourage, empty the deleted items folder and start over with a new Entourage subfolder before doing each drop -- otherwise the view will pick up messages from previous drop(s).
5. Import the Entourage .mbox file(s) using Apple Mail. In Apple Mail, select File -> Import Mailboxes, select Standard mbox files and point it to the folder with your .mbox file(s). Ensure each .mbox file is checked. After clicking ">>", Mail will start importing one message at a time.
Be sure to check the number of messages imported into Apple Mail (shown when the mailbox is opened in Mail) -- the number should match the number of .eml files fed into Entourage. If it doesn't match, a common error is the Entourage Mail View wasn't populated completely when it was exported to mbox; start over with the import into Entourage and make sure the view is finished populating. Another error is the From/To error mentioned above; if you chose to just delete the bad messages, the numbers won't match exactly. Also, make sure the deleted items folder is emptied between each drop to avoid duplicate messages.
Peter - I switched to Mac (an iMac) last September. I must admit that I don't remember all of the details, but it was relatively easy to transfer my data...about 10 years worth.
I downloaded Mozilla's Thunderbird (free) on my PC, and imported the OE data to Thunderbird. I then exported (or maybe just copied) the mail files produced by Thunderbird, and burned them to a CD (I may have moved the files to my Mac via Ethernet). I then downloaded and installed Thunderbird on my Mac, and then imported the Thunderbird file created on my PC. From there, I verified operation in Thunderbird, then imported the files into my iMac's Mail program. (I don't recall if I exported csv or other files from Thunderbird as a first step or not).
It wasn't very difficult, to be sure, so don't despair....it may take a little fiddlin', but this worked very well for me. Good luck! Bill
Mission accomplished. I followed the detailed instructions provided by the previous responder and, lo and behold, that hurdle has been jumped! I've never before been party to an on-line discussion, but this experience has confirmed my long-held belief in collective wisdom and most people's willingness to be helpful. Thank you. Peter
I spent $10 on O2M from Little Machines to move mail from Outlook to Mail. They even allow you to test drive the software on 5 emails. Worked great. Almost no effort.
I am also having a hard time importing Outlook contacts into my new iMac.
I exported my contacts out of my old PC just as suggested here, mapped the fields in the Text File Import window in Address Book, but when I hit OK nothing happens! I can scroll using the fwd & reverse arrows to see the first 8 of my contacts and all appears to be mapped correctly. Except, when I try to advance to the 9th contact, the application freezes & I have to force quit Address Book. Any suggestions?
I figured it out. There is another forum that discusses my problem in detail with Address Book freezing. It didn't like carriage returns in my .csv file.
Ok Im now a reformed PC'er and have been trying all day to follow those instructions of Mulders (which were excellent) and when I get to the text file import page and hit ok, nothing happens. Do you have to hit ok for each card or what. Is there something else I should be doing?
Thanks for all your help and I'm sure I'll be here often
Ferrell
