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Outlook migration to mac

elf69

elf69

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jun 2, 2016
2,333
489
Cornwall UK
It has been a long time since I played with outlook so little help please.

A friend has a windows 7 dell with about 6 years worth of emails in outlook.
He now has a 2008 imac running sierra with the patcher.

It has outlook and have setup his account in it.
the windows machine is pop3 so emails are on it not server (set to delete emails after 5 days)

can I just copy a file from windows and place in right place in mac to move emails?

Or do I need export his emails, then his contacts and import back in.
going take some time with his emails as 6 years worth!

thanks guys
 
Just a thought for the future:
How does his backup procedure look? Can he afford to lose 6 years of mail? Otherwise POP3 to a local machine sounds like a really bad idea to start with, unless his mail provider has worse backup procedures than what he does...

For your actual question:
Export to PST from the source computer. Import the PST on the Mac. https://support.office.com/en-us/ar...-Windows-1BEBC2D6-3683-4D93-AAD6-385FF06DE1E8
 
his mail provider has NO BACKUP scheme.
he has to use pop3 due to limited space on server, it is a small company.

he cannot afford to loose the data no.
He is a consultant (legal) and needs to refer back to data sometimes.

thought pst would be the way.
and CSV for contacts
 
elf69 said:
his mail provider has NO BACKUP scheme.
he has to use pop3 due to limited space on server, it is a small company.

he cannot afford to loose the data no.
He is a consultant (legal) and needs to refer back to data sometimes.

thought pst would be the way.
and CSV for contacts
Click to expand...
Try PST for contacts too. If it works, it'll be easier. If not, CSV is a good way forward.

And ensure he gets a good backup set-up. For a company, the very least he'll need is two TimeMachine disks where one is always off-site. Those couple of hundred dollars of investment are probably way less than he'll lose if his hard drive breaks.
 
True I plan on setting up a time machine drive with him USB to start and sort another out in few weeks.

He a light user of machine but very very heavy email user!
 
A couple of options, depending on the Mac app being used. Outlook for the Mac imports PST files with no issues. Using the stock Mac apps presents a bit more of a headache. Agreed with previous posts here in exporting to PST files is the way to go, keeping all relationships intact between the embedded files.

If your friend is using Outlook on the Mac platform, it's just a simple import command and a bit of waiting. For that many emails/contacts, I'd also consider a small fan directed at the Mac - it'll get pretty warm…

I do migrate some of my employees from a Win PC to a Mac workstation a few times each year, depending on their scheduled workflow, but this bit is FYI only here. On the Windows side, we use a Technical License of CubeXSoft's Outlook Export Tool, which exports PST files to just about any format needed on the other end, including MBOX EML files. If you need to do this only once, OET is serious overkill - but it works well.

On the Mac end, my GF and I use PST Converter Pro, it works perfectly. This is the more cost effective solution IMO, and it's on the MAS.
 
  1. Have your friend set up a free Gmail or similar IMAP account with plenty of allowed storage.
  2. Add the new account to Outlook on the Windows 7 PC.
  3. Create folders for mail in the new IMAP account (if needed below).
  4. Copy mail from the POP account folders to the corresponding folders in the IMAP account. Be careful to confirm that mail is copied properly and completely. Check webmail at the IMAP account for verification. This is now his cloud backup.
  5. Delete the mail from the POP account.
  6. Add both accounts to the Mac and behold how all his mail shows up.
  7. He can now continue to use the POP account and move messages to the IMAP account for storage synced to all his devices.
 
He is using outlook for mac, has comes with office 2011 which we bought him used on ebay.

his account is working in outlook just need move over so pst and time is all I need.

In his office heat is not an issue trust me, cornish granite house which is quite cold.

Time machine will be first backup solution, second in time will be nas and then followed by cloud later.
 
yes true but I dont want confuse the guy.

he like it as it is.

I will adapt it in time but for now just need get it up and going.
 
elf69 said:
yes true but I dont want confuse the guy.

he like it as it is.

I will adapt it in time but for now just need get it up and going.
Click to expand...

Confusion is bad.

However, I'll say that, in the past, Outlook databases on the Mac have been known to get corrupted enough to break the ability to migrate or import to a newer version of Outlook. In addition, Outlook could appear to be working fine for a long period of time with such corruption meaning that all the Time Machine backups of the database while corrupted are also corrupt.

In conclusion, using "On My Mac" folders in Outlook on a Mac for archiving email is NOT recommended by me. Additionally, I recommend against using ANY email client for such "on the Mac only" archiving.
 
I agree fully!

at present both mac and windows are picking up new emails, just need the past 6 years on the mac.
 
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