Problem using thunderbird to transfer outlook archive to Mail

Y

ycsboston

Registered
Hi,
I recently switched from PC to intel-based iMac. I tried to import my Outlook archive (PST files) into the Mac environment. I followed the advice of experts in this forum and transport my Outlook archive to Thunderbird first. The PST file is about 200MB, and it contains multiple mail folders. I was able to read the mails with no problem in Thunderbird (although some of the formatting got screwed up) on PC. However, when I import thunderbird mbox in the Mail program using the import command (I believe it's version 2), only the first mail in each folder was read in.
I also tried O2M, and the result is even worse--only a couple of folders were read and only 1 mail in each folder showed up.

Thank you for the help.

YC
 
I don't use Thunderbird, but it sounds like it may possibly be a problem with the line break character. Windows uses (IIRC) a carriage return character AND a line break. Unix / Mac OSs use a line break only (IIRC).
So, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to make a copy of your mail file(s) and run them through a conversion utility.

Can someone else help me out here with specific utilities?

Doug
 
You should try "Emailchemy" by Weird Kid Software (www.weirdkid.com). The demo version will convert all your mail but will change the subject and sender to "please purchase Emailchemy"

It's worth a try !
 
I had the exact same problem but a linebreak change didn't fix it. What did work though was downloading Thunderbird onto my windows machine and transferring all my mail from MS Outlook into this. Then sorted my mail in there and deleted unwanted stuff.

Then (here's the great part) I downloaded a little app called Eudora Mailbox Cleaner(for mac, and free). And just dragged only the mbox file (the one with no suffix) onto the program icon and it imports all the mail. Brilliant and easy.

Check out : http://kb.mozillazine.org/Export_to_Mail.app for details.
And check out: http://homepage.mac.com/aamann/Eudora_Mailbox_Cleaner.html for the app.

Hope this helps someone.
 
Hmm, weird that O2M did not work. Maybe an email to the authors will help. I used O2M on 2 different machines, Outlook 2003 and both .PST files were larger than 1GB with many subfolders. Worked like a charm!

As a recent convert to Mac this was the most important part, getting our mail converted. (By "our" I mean myself and my company president.) In fact, he is liking the Mac experience so much that he wants us to switch company-wide!

I did considerable reading beforehand and the other, drawn out procedures did not enthuse me at all. It might be feasable to do for a few machines, but not many in a short period of time.

Happy hunting
 
I used O2M to export half a gig of Outlook 2003 folders/emails, plus the Contacts folder, but I can't import any of them into either Entourage 2004 or Mail on my new iMac. The import utilities for both programs show the .MBX files/folders as always grayed out in the selection box, thereby rendering the import utility useless. I also tried dragging and dropping the .MBX files into a new email folder in Entourage but nothing happened there either. Is there something simple I'm missing? Everyone else seems to have had such good luck with O2M. Perhaps it's because I just converted to Mac from a PC and am completely naive about something basic involving plain old common sense. Or did something go awry during the export function of O2M?
 
The fix by ScottiouS above got me all the way from Outlook on WinXP to Mail in Mac OS 10.5 via Thunderbird. Here's a walk-through of the steps for clarity. Thanks everyone for posting the helpful info...

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How-To - How to transfer PST files from Outlook (Win XP) to Mac OS X 10.5 Mail (2008.08):

Install Mozilla Thunderbird on the PC

When opening Thunderbird for first time, let it import all emails and contacts (select "Outlook" from the drop-down menu)

This converts all your files to the mbox format (note that no suffix appears after the file name for mbox files)

Locate the Thunderbird mail files. In Win XP, the location is something like this: C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\[eightcharactercode].default\Mail\Local Folders

Copy the folders/files you want from the PC to the Mac using a USB drive, etc.

Download the free Eudora Mailbox Cleaner program onto the Mac: http://homepage.mac.com/aamann/Eudora_Mailbox_Cleaner.html#Download

Open the Eudora Mailbox Cleaner and put the .app file into the Application folder (or the desktop)

Make sure Mail is closed on the Mac

Simply drag the copied master mailbox folder (or specific folders) onto the Eudora Mailbox Cleaner.app icon, then select "Thunderbird" as the source

After opening Mail, look for the "Imported" mailbox folders

You will need to select each new mailbox individually, then click Mailbox -> Rebuild from the menus to populate email mailbox

That's all!
 
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