Import mail from Outlook for Mac to Mail

jwlfe wrote:

Thanks for the help Glen. Unfortunately I am stuck in Outlook for Mac! I am trying to find a way out of OL for Mac to Mac mail. Any help would be appreciated.

Use Emailchemy to move from OLM, it's $30 and works extremely well.

Thank you for the appreciative comment, Csound1!

My thought on your situation is:

Export Mac Outlook files.

Copy them to the PC which has Outlook on it.

Import that file into Outlook.

If that (above) seems to work, then the process I described that worked nicely for me might be workable.

Hope this helps. (and I don't know, of course, if you came from Windows Outlook to Mac)

Glen

I did come from outlook on windows. I am going to research the emailchemy and see what reviews say. If that fails as a "one step" process, I will try to go back to pc and then into mac. Thanks again.

Oops. I complimented Csound1 when it was YOU, jwife, I was writing to! 😝

You're welcome (again) and FYI, I thought this process should be inexpensive and relatively easy to do. I decided, after looking at many solutions, where almost every one was aimed at buying s/w to do this one-time process, to do the straight-forward Thunderbird-import-from-Outlook (it does this automatically when you check the box to do so upon completing the installation of Thunderbird!!!) ... It all worked quite seamlessly.

I didn't want to go to the dark side for a one-time process. I didn't have to. And, it worked. That's why I wrote on this forum. I wanted to share the success and the option of not paying $30. Now, as a computer guy, *if* someone needs this help (more of my customers are becoming Mac people!) I can do this for them. (and, I learned something kool!)

My Best to you, Jwife.

Glen

OK Glen, I hate to take up your time, but, you are being helpful and I don't want to waste someone's kindness. Can I do the following.

I started in outlook on my PC (dell) for many years amassing many e-mails from clients. I got a mac almost two years ago and bought the office and outlook for mac as that was what I was accustomed to seeing. I transfered all of my e-mails into Outlook for Mac and no longer have the pc and plus have now amassed many more e-mails directly into outlook for mac. That is my current spot.

Can I download Thunderbird on my mac and then do the process you suggest of importing into thunderbird and then jumping to mac mail? Hope I didn't confuse.

Jwife,

I think that might work. Try it!

I just downloaded and installed Thunderbird on my Mac.

As soon as I fired it up it requested my email settings (which I did not give it nor complete setting it up).

I looked under "Tools" and there was the entry for "Import".

For you: I would continue with the "Import" - selecting "ALL" (you want your contacts and messages to be imported).

I imagine, but can only find out by going through the process, that Thunderbird will find not only Mac's Mail program, but Mac's Outlook program - and associated files!

Thunderbird will import the files from Outlook into it. BUT, it will NOT delete the files from Outlook. So, not to be worried about this process of importing. It's not an erase/delete process, simply a copying.

Then, at the end of the importing by Thunderbird, it will ask you if you want it to be your default mail program. (I unchecked this box so that it WASN'T the default program. I would only want to use Thunderbird as a vehicle to get from Outlook to Mac's Mail program. Get it?)

Now comes the trickier part! Getting Thunderbird email over to Mac Mail.

Here's what I've found. For Free (the programs, that is):

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Export_to_Mail.app

EXCERPTED FROM THE ABOVE LINK:

This article was originally written for Thunderbird but also applies to Mozilla Mail. ...

The best way to move your Thunderbird mailboxes to Mail.app on Mac OS X is "Eudora Mailbox Cleaner" - it will import all mailboxes (or a hierarchy of mailboxes like your complete ~/Library/Thunderbird/Profiles/youruserprofile/Mail/Local Folders/ folder) to Mail.app.

You can download Eudora Mailbox Cleaner from its homepage. <- I went to that link and found the instructions there relatively straight forward!

Jwife, there's a lot there (above) to work with. I think it IS possible to migrate from Mac Outlook to Mac Mail. Time comsuming? Yes! Doable? Seems so. WIll these steps above work nicely in the end? I HOPE SO! ...

Do let us know how you fare. Yes, I know it's quite a task, but in the end, if it works (and I believe it will. If you live in Orange County, California, I could do it for you!), the time and energy will certainly be well worth it!!

Best of luck to you!

Glen

Unfortunately I do not leave out your way. I downloaded thunderbird and followed your lead. Got to the point where it asks for what kind of mail. The options were Eudora and Apple. Couldn't find anything under either.

This is by far the easiest and risk-free way to do this that I found. I've made a few switches in the past 12 months after changing from Windows, thinking Outlook would be the best option and now regretting it I wanted to change back. No need to buy add-ons or software, apply for gmail or anything else outside of your Mac.

Drag all your mail folders from Outlook onto your desktop and then you can bulk select them through the Import Mailbox option in the File menu in Mail.

Thanks JChp53!

JChp53 wrote:

There is a longish way to do this.

In Outlook, Select the folder you want to move (If there are folders within the folder, you have to select each individual subfolder, as the subfolders won't copy along with the main folder, only the messages in the folder will copy). Click and drag the selected folder (ex: inbox folder) to a new folder on your desktop. I couldn't figure out a way to select all the folders, so i dragged each folder and subfolder from Outlook into the folder on the desktop. Once you're done copying all the Outlook folders, open up Mac Mail. Go to File --> import mailboxes. Then select "Files in mbox format" and click continue. Then select desktop, and the folder you dragged all of your Outlook folders into. Hit "Choose." Mac Mail will import all of these folders, and when it's finished, will tell you that they are under the folder labeled "imports" in Mac Mail, and you just have to move all your subfolders back into their main folders.

Like I said, it takes a little while longer than I would like, but it worked for me and now I have all my old mail from Outlook in Mac Mail.

Hope that helps (and that I explained right)!

Message was edited by: DemetersRest for clarity.

Easy and great way to do it... Thanks

DemetersRest and JChp53,

Maybe you can resolve the issue I had with this process. I tried exactly what you wrote, however, not all of the actual e-mails in the folder made the trip from OL for mac to mac mail using this drag and import process. The unique thing is that the e-mails that did not transfer are only e-mails that were sent to a recipient from me. For example: in a folder with 100 e-mails (50 sent to me and 50 sent from me) only 90 were actually transfered into mac mail. The 10 that did not make it were all "sent from me" e-mails. Any thoughts?

jwlfe wrote:

DemetersRest and JChp53,

Maybe you can resolve the issue I had with this process. I tried exactly what you wrote, however, not all of the actual e-mails in the folder made the trip from OL for mac to mac mail using this drag and import process. The unique thing is that the e-mails that did not transfer are only e-mails that were sent to a recipient from me. For example: in a folder with 100 e-mails (50 sent to me and 50 sent from me) only 90 were actually transfered into mac mail. The 10 that did not make it were all "sent from me" e-mails. Any thoughts?

Hi jwife,

I didn't encounter this issue, but one thing that did catch me out initially is the conversation feature. Replies back and forth are grouped. This is indicated by a number and an arrow below the time the message was dated. If the message is selected you can hit the right arrow on your keyboard to see the individual messages in a heirachal structure or you can scroll through the entire conversation in the preview pane.

This, perhaps, could be what happened to your missing emails? Hope this helps.

I can't believe how easy this is!! It took me awhile, but here is an easy fix with Lion, moving Outlook for Mac files to Mac Mail:

>Open Outlook, click and drag your folders to a "work folder" in your docs viewer (must be individual folders, unfortunately). They will drop in as MBOX files!

>Open Mail and File>Import Mailboxes

>Choose "File in mbox format">Continue

>Browse and select All the mbox files you just dragged from Outlook (in your work folder)>Choose

Walla! All your emails appear in a folder named "Import" that you can drag and place/organize wherever you like.

... ok i just realized this was already posted. I just didnt read far enough! Well... at least its nice and neat. 🙂 Hope it helps anyway.

JChp53

There is a longish way to do this.

In Outlook, Select the folder you want to move (If there are folders within the folder, you have to select each individual subfolder, as the subfolders won't copy along with the main folder, only the messages in the folder will copy). Click and drag the selected folder (ex: inbox folder) to a new folder on your desktop. I couldn't figure out a way to select all the folders, so i dragged each folder and subfolder from Outlook into the folder on the desktop. Once you're done copying all the Outlook folders, open up Mac Mail. Go to File --> import mailboxes. Then select "Files in mbox format" and click continue. Then select desktop, and the folder you dragged all of your Outlook folders into. Hit "Choose." Mac Mail will import all of these folders, and when it's finished, will tell you that they are under the folder labeled "imports" in Mac Mail, and you just have to move all your subfolders back into their main folders.

Like I said, it takes a little while longer than I would like, but it worked for me and now I have all my old mail from Outlook in Mac Mail.

Hope that helps (and that I explained right)!

Thank you very much JChp53 for this great solution.

:-)

It is in fact a very quick and easy way.

Thanks again

Peter

Message was edited by: PeterOFre

Thank you very much for this great tip!

It worked half/half:

some mails without attachments, some mails are difficult to read: the original text is kept somewhere after scrolling pages of impossible amount of signs, symbols and unreadable text...

Not perfect But, how te resolve ???

>>> Outlook for Mac 2011 > Mail (for Mac)