I just bought a MacBookPro.
I have Microsoft Office 2016 installed on it and I wish to use Outlook.
On my older MacBookPro I have Entourage for Mac2008 installed.
Is there a way to export all emails/contacts from the old Mac to the new one?
Any help would be appreciated.
MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11.4)
There isn't one. You have to able to import the 2008 Entourge data into Outlook 2011. You can then import the converted 2011 data into Outlook 2016. Microsoft has provided no means of moving the 2008 data directly to 2016.
That's a Microsoft product. You will have to talk to them to see if you can download a copy of Office 2011. If you can't, you may be able to purchase a full retail copy of Office 2011 from someone who still has it in stock.
Hi Csound1,
Unfortunately, you can only proceed to a download if you have a valid product key to enter. Which would be on a sticker on the CD sleeve of a physical Office 2011 package. Or, if you purchased Office 2011 as an electronic download and received your product key via email.
I've tried finding a trial version in the past and was never able to locate one.
rreisley wrote:
Where can I get a trial copy of Outlook 2011. I have not found anything on the MS website.
FWIW, software companies as a rule don't offer trial versions of software they no longer sell. Microsoft is no exception.
Found a site where you can download the full Office 2011 installer. You should be able to run it in demo mode long enough to import your 2008 data so you can get that into Office 2016.
I cannot vouch for the safety of files downloaded from this site. Proceed at your own risk.
For a reasonably safe method, make a complete and restorable backup of your system, first!
Install Office 2011 and import the 2008 data.
Copy the converted 2011 Main Identity folder to another drive.
Restore your system to remove any and all changes made by the 2011 installer.
Copy the 2011 data back and import it into Office 2016.
How I was able to export all from Entourage and import into Outlook 2016:
Converting from Mac Entourage e-mail to a PST file for import into Mac Outlook 2016
Purchase SYSTOOLS’ “SysTools Mac MBOX Converter” and install.
https://www.systoolsgroup.com/mac/mbox-converter/
Runs on a Mac, is a little pricey for a one-trick pony, but it does work.
From within Entourage, export the mailbox – resulting output will be “Main Identity.rge” file.
Right-click or <Opt><RC> on the Main Identity file and select Show Package Contents.
E-mail is in Mail/On My Computer/ (Folders listed below)
Deleted Items, Drafts, Inbox, Junk E-mail, Saved Messages, Sent Items
Within each of the mailbox folders listed above is its respective .mbox file.
Right-click on ‘Mail’, or on ‘On my Computer’, or the desired mailbox and select Copy.
On the Desktop, right-click Paste, then just close the Finder window that is showing the Entourage Package Contents (you can always re-open it the same way). Do not delete the Main Identity file as you may struggle initially or need to retrieve deleted e-mails you originally thought you don’t need.
Note: You could import the mbox file(s) directly into Mac Mail if you so desire.
Create a folder on the Desktop where you will ultimately save the PST file(s) to.
Run Mac MBOX Converter and follow these basic steps until you get the hang of it.
From the choices listed on the right side, select Add File(s) and navigate to the desired mbox file and select it and then select the Open button.
Select the Next button and make sure PST is selected and the filter dates are the desired beginning and ending date range.
Select the Browse button to select your destination path for the resulting PST file.
Select the Export button and observe the status.
When complete, in Outlook select the File menu > Import and navigate to your PST file.
Outlook will create PST folder under On My Computer. Within the folder will be 6 other folders, but all the imported e-mails will be in the Mails folder.
You can highlight and drag e-mails to desired location mailbox or folder locations, rename folders, etc.
Note: If you have multiple Entourage folders and sub-folders, it will take a while to recreate everything as you may have had it set up in Entourage. It will be cumbersome at first, but you’ll establish a rhythm and it will eventually go much quicker. Remember to retain the Main Identify file.
If you don't have the ability to go through Outlook 2011, another alternative would be to use Emailchemy which I have used in the past (2010 and earlier?) to convert from various email formats to various other email formats:
https://weirdkid.com/emailchemy/
It is a bit cheaper than Mac MBOX Converter, which I have no experience with. Emailchemy is certainly useful for all sorts of mail conversion tasks, but most people only use it once or twice.
If you were using Windows the typical approach might be to create a PST file and save everything in that on the first (older) computer, and then open the PST file on the newer computer and choose what you want to import.
However you are using a Mac and Microsoft slime balls that they are do not allow Entourage nor even Outlook on the Mac to create PST files.
The only backup function of Entourage is to backup everything absolutely everything in to a single massive olm file. Even worse the only way to use it on the newer computer is to import everything, absolutely everything on to the new computer. You cannot chose specific folders to backup or restore - unlike you would be able to do on a Windows PC with a PST file.
So, if as Microsoft suggest you do backups to olm files, each will be the size of your entire mail database, if you then import one of these files just to get at a single message you have to import the entire ohm file of possibly tens of thousands of emails potentially doubling the size of your mail database.
This is not a Mac problem it is the slimy toads at Microsoft problem.
However…
If you have everything stored in your MS Exchange account anyway, then you don't need to backup and restore anything anyway, all you need to do is add the account to Outlook on the new Mac and it will re-download all the messages, contacts, and calendar data once again.
You should be able to separately export just the contacts from Entourage but as far as I remember you cannot export the calendar data.
Outlook 2011 can import the Entourage Database correctly, see this info sheet from MS, I am unaware if 2016 retains the ability
When you install Office 2016 and run Outlook for the first time, it will ask if you have a previous database to import. If Office 2011 or earlier is already on the drive, it should automatically find the folder Main Identity and offer to import it.
Since you are changing Macs, all you need to do is copy the Main Identity folder over to your new Mac. You'll find it in your user account. Drop it anywhere on the new Mac (such as the desktop). Run Outlook 2016 and point it to the location where you copied your previous data to. The Main Identity folder contains everything from your old email, which includes all Inbox folders, Sent, Drafts, your contacts, email settings, etc.
Once imported, the data is saved to a new location and the Main Identity folder can be deleted since it will no longer be used.
I thank everyone for their assistance.
For anyone that needs to do this, here is what worked for me:
I had Outlook 2011 and Entourage 2008 installed on the old computer.
I exported all Entourage files [seperately - calendar, notes, tasks, mail], then imported them to Outlook 2011. I probably should have just imported from a previous version of Outlook as suggested above in one of the posts.
I then exported all files from Outlook 2011 and saved them on the new computer. I started Outlook 2016 and imported all of these in.
Everything seems to work well - none of the message rules work, however, so I had to re-enter those in.
Cheers.
This is not helpful if you don't have access to Outlook 2011. Please advise on an alternative solution or one that does not require the purchase of Outlook 2011.
Where can I get a trial copy of Outlook 2011. I have not found anything on the MS website.
rreisley wrote:
Where can I get a trial copy of Outlook 2011. I have not found anything on the MS website.
You can download it here:
microsoft entourage 2008 to outlook 2016
