Swapping from Entourage to Thunderbird to Oulook for Dummies

At the beginning of the year I was using a Mac. It was very nice and I still have it except that I have switched to a Sony VAIO now which I love (it is only 1.7 kgs which makes it easy for girls to carry ). I needed to get my mail from my Mac to my PC. The problem is that Entourage on Mac and Outlook are not compatible. You would think that because Entourage and Outlook are both Microsoft they would be but alas no. You have to go through this tedious process to get your frikkin mail!

So the process goes: Entourage (Mac) –> Thunderbird (Mac) –> Thunderbird (PC) –> Outlook Express –> Outlook (whew!)

I had no problem moving my mail from Entourage to Thunderbird on my Mac (there are many places that tell you how to do it and it is quite simple). I then moved from Mac Thunderbird to Thunderbird on my VAIO which was also quite easy to do (just time consuming). I am not going to go into this as there are many sites that tell you how to do this.

The trouble came when I wanted to move to Outlook. Thunderbird stores files with an .mbox extension whereas Outlook uses .eml. And you can’t import mail straight from Thunderbird into Outlook express. SO…

1. I downloaded an export conversion add on for Thunderbird from here.
2. In Thunderbird I went to Tools/Add ons/Install and looked for where I saved the file that was downloaded in step 1.
3. Install the add on and it will ask you to restart Thunderbird
4. Once you have reopened Thunderbird you can now select a folder and right click. Select Import-Export/Export all messages in the folder/Eml format
5. Create a new folder on your desktop called Thunderbird and save the file (it automatically creates a new folder for each mail folder). 
6. Repeat step 4-5 for each folder in your mailbox (it is a mission but it works!)
7. Once you have exported all your folders in eml format to one folder, you can now create the same folders on Outlook Express.
8. Open your Thunderbird folder that you saved all your mail in and open the first folder. Click on messages and you should then see all the individual mail messages. Highlight them all (ctrl + A) and drap and drop them into the corresponding Outlook Express folder.
9. Repeat step 8 for all mail folders.
10. Once all your mail is in Outlook Express, Open Outlook.
11. From Outlook click File/Import and Export/Import Internet mail and addresses / Outlook Express / Next.
12. You mail should then import from Outlook Express and voila!

Step 2

Step 4

Step 8

 

 

 

 

Step 8

 

 

 

 

 

Step 11

Step 11