I just found out that migrating emails from one client to another not quite as easy as a click of a button.
I am a very satisfied user of Mozilla Thunderbird and im using it for both business email and personal. The fact that it doesnt have all the nitty gritty function makes it a very efficient email client.
Previously, i used Microsoft Outlook. While it gobble up huge resources, it has all the integrated stuff that's useful for business users such as the calendar function, task bar and so on. I liked the features... it sort of makes life a wee bit easier at work.
Since i just got a laptop from the company, and workload has been enormous, I decided to migrate my business email to Outlook. Practically it is easier for me to integrate my schedule etc. without having to install another third party software.
Simple, I thought. Just a few clicks through the menu tab, and voila!
How i wish.
Went to Outlook menu, File -> Import/Export -> Import from another program or file. No, neither thunderbird nor Mozilla was on the list of option. Not even its nearest incarnation Netscape Mail was there. So I googled around. Apparently I foundout that there's no direct way to migrate/import Thunderbird mail to Outlook. And from Thunderbird, there are no option to export to other file formats. d'oh!
There are a few suggestion. Like install Eudora 5.x, import the Thunderbird/Mozilla file to Outlook Express then import that to Outlook. Tried that but that didnt work.
I tried another option. Download this freeware to convert the Thunderbir/Mozilla format (mbox) to Outlook Express (eml). The freeware was aptly named Mbox2eml.
A nice little java program. Download and installed it, tried to convert but it couldnt find any file.
A few more goolgling and apparently the files have to be renamed to include the file extension .mbx.
Renamed all the files and the program worked! It managed to convert all the mbox file to individual email in its respective folders.
Next, I had to drag and drop the eml into outlook express. And finally run Outlook to import the mails from Outlook Express.
Importing the contacts was slightly easier. In Thunderbird's adress book, there's an option to export the native addressbook to LDAP Data Interchange Format (LDIF). Once the file has been exported, run Outlook Express and import from other other address book. After that run Outlook and import address book from Outlook Express. So from now on, Microsoft Outlook for business and Mozilla Thunderbird for personal.
So much for a click of a button.
Great post. I'm pretty sure that i'm going to find it useful soon! :P
Cheers!!! :D
Posted by: hyelbaine | Thursday, October 14, 2004 at 15:59
I am converter of Thunderbird from Outlook. So far so good. You can add calendar function to Thunderbird by installing a calendar plugin. Here is the link: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/
Posted by: LcF | Thursday, October 14, 2004 at 18:28
Thanks for the pointer LcF, but im looking at expansion and stuff... maybe integration with pocketpc etc.
with that in mind, microsoft outlook still has the upper hand.
Posted by: KaZ | Friday, October 15, 2004 at 09:59
Excellent. I have used this method and it worked like it should. Good tip!!
Posted by: Rolf Akker | Thursday, June 09, 2005 at 15:15
Hello! I was interested in your article. It is rather instructive.
Posted by: roofing philadelphia | Thursday, September 01, 2005 at 18:45
This is really great. Thanks for the tip - I've just successfully migrated all my Thunderbird email from my Mac to Outlook on my PC. Only problem - with over 3,000 emails it was very, very slow (took over half an hour). Maybe someone needs to write an add-in for Outlook that would work directly on the mbox file format?
Posted by: limeboy | Wednesday, December 28, 2005 at 08:51