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Convert .pst to Mac

S

sheadit

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 11, 2007
2
0
I know there have been a bunch of posts on this topic but I have a slightly diferent situation-- I have .pst files from Outlook on XP but no longer have the PC and don't have a copy of Outlook. I need to find a way to convert the raw .pst files to an email system that will work on the Mac. Doers anyone have any ideas/suggestions?

Many thanks
 
I just Googled the issue-probably your best bet if someone else doesn't have a specific idea. Found this program http://www.weirdkid.com/products/emailchemy/

that claims to be able to convert file formats like that. I've never heard of it before, have no idea if it's legitimate.

Ordinarily I'd just say to try to find somewhere you can open that .pst file and get the contents emailed somewhere else (or moved onto an imap or Exchange server or whatever) or manually save out the messages or whatever.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that possibly Entourage can open .PST files, or maybe that's the format it even uses, since it's Microsoft's Outlook equivalent for OS X (more or less). That might be worth looking at if you already own Office. (If you DON'T already own Office and want to buy it, I'd personally wait until Januaryish when the new Office 2008 is supposed to launch.)

EDIT2: Guess others already beat me to answering this :)
 
I'd actually never heard of the emailchemy program... it sounds interesting, if it actually does what it says.

Entourage doesn't really help you at all, sadly.
 
mkrishnan said:
I'd actually never heard of the emailchemy program... it sounds interesting, if it actually does what it says.

Entourage doesn't really help you at all, sadly.
Click to expand...

That's kind of funny...when you think about it, being able to read the format the Windows version of the program saves messages in is a pretty obvious feature for Entourage to have :p
 
never tried this emailchemy but the only way i know how to convert them is to import them into thunderbird in windows and export from there. Mail should then be able to import the files.
 
Iiiiinteresting. If the Windows Thunderbird can import them, I'd assume the OS X version can too, right? I had no idea Thunderbird could do that. Sounds like that might be the easiest/cheapest/safest option then (if it does it decently).

Just checked, and sure enough the Windows Thunderbird can import from Outlook, but I don't know if that's in the Mac version.
 
Wolfpup said:
Just checked, and sure enough the Windows Thunderbird can import from Outlook, but I don't know if that's in the Mac version.
Click to expand...

Even if it did, it's unlikely that it would work well, the windows version uses the MAPI underpinnings present in Windows.

B
 
Okay, that makes sense for why it wouldn't be in the OS X version-they'd have to rewrite it from scratch I guess. Thanks!

Well, sounds like a solid possibility if you've got access to a Windows machine or a copy of Windows.
 
Wolfpup said:
That's kind of funny...when you think about it, being able to read the format the Windows version of the program saves messages in is a pretty obvious feature for Entourage to have :p
Click to expand...
The absence of Outlook file-compatibility is just one of the many ways that Entourage 2004 sucks. To add insult to injury, Microsoft offers a free utility to convert .pst files to Entourage. It works only for .pst files created using Outlook 2001, the last version of Outlook for the Mac!
 
MisterMe said:
The absence of Outlook file-compatibility is just one of the many ways that Entourage 2004 sucks. To add insult to injury, Microsoft offers a free utility to convert .pst files to Entourage. It works only for .pst files created using Outlook 2001, the last version of Outlook for the Mac!
Click to expand...

Wow, that's incredibly lame. I've used Outlook 2001, and was baffled by why it was never updated...
 
Thanks

Thanks folks - i tried the emailchemy product on my mac and couldn't get it to read my .pst file. I've now got hold of a PC and have downloaded a trila version of outlook - let's hope the PC route will work.
 
That's a great idea! I forgot they had demos. That should let you get it in another format or just export the messages individually or something (or move them over to a different email account or something so they're stored on a server).
 
Can someone please help. I am trying to convert my pst files to work on a mac os x version 10.5.8. using thunderbird. I used thunderbird on windows vista to import my pst files to thunderbird. Then I saved the mail directory and transfered to my mac. I dont know what to do now. I heard you must rename some file to mbox. Please Help........
 
sheadit said:
Thanks folks - i tried the emailchemy product on my mac and couldn't get it to read my .pst file. I've now got hold of a PC and have downloaded a trila version of outlook - let's hope the PC route will work.
Click to expand...

I've tried many different methods until I found emailchemy. It's always been the quickest, most reliable solution. It can convert just about any mail format into just about any mail format and even can convert a PST or Entourage database into an IMAP server. It's been able to recover messages from a corrupt Entourage database, Entourage/Rebuild Utility wouldn't even touch.

Sheadit.. if it wasn't working on that first try, try clicking to the Advanced Tools, rather than the Wizard, and selecting your file through that. You'll be able to tell Emailchemy that it's a PST, which may give better results.
 
confirmed said:
I've tried many different methods until I found emailchemy. It's always been the quickest, most reliable solution. It can convert just about any mail format into just about any mail format and even can convert a PST or Entourage database into an IMAP server. It's been able to recover messages from a corrupt Entourage database, Entourage/Rebuild Utility wouldn't even touch.

Sheadit.. if it wasn't working on that first try, try clicking to the Advanced Tools, rather than the Wizard, and selecting your file through that. You'll be able to tell Emailchemy that it's a PST, which may give better results.
Click to expand...

I just saw this thread. I had a Sandisk memory stick with all my old work emails (that i was allowed to take) in PST format. HOWEVER, I have no windows machine in the house and my VMWARE Xp had no outlook program (cost almost £100). The email files have therefore been sitting around for ages while i tried to figure out how to import them. I just bought and ran Emailchemy; specified the .PST folder on the drive; saved to my mac hard drive; and then imported from that location straight into mac mail. From beginning to end the process took about 2 minutes. FANTASTIC can see emails with original date stamps + attachments in an IMPORT headed folder in mac mail.
 
edesignuk said:
Doesn't help right now, but this should get easier. MS are opening up the PST format.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/26/outlook_data_spec_coming/
Click to expand...

I saw that too. Good news for folks like he emailchemy developer. An excellent product that just keeps getting better with every version IMHO!

I do wonder which flavor of PST they will specify though, there are at lest two. The Outlook 2003 and beyond version or the Outlook 200 and earlier version. from the original blog post it looks like the focus is on the currently shipping version which may not help much for those older files sitting on people's backup discs...

B
 
Wolfpup said:
Wow, that's incredibly lame. I've used Outlook 2001, and was baffled by why it was never updated...
Click to expand...
Internal politics within Microsoft. Outlook for Mac used to be developed by the Exchange unit, whereas Entourage is a MacBU product. For some reason this means that Entourage is neither allowed to use PST files nor have the MAPI interface for Exchange connectivity.
 
Thunderbird can do this but only when running on Windows. This is because Thunderbird does not directly read the PST files but using the APIs built into Windows (and Outlook) to access the PST file that way.

I spent a solid day trying to read my PST files onto my Mac before giving up and booting the old Wintel box up to do this (import PST into Thunderbird on Windows, save into a MBOX format, import that into Thunderbird on Mac).
 
Gatteau said:
Little Machines, does the job.
Click to expand...


You can spend hours and hours finding a solution, or you can go to the link above and spend $10 and get it down within minutes. I wasted way too much time trying to save $10, then went with this little piece of software. Should have done that in the first place. Worked GREAT!
 
midge50 said:
You can spend hours and hours finding a solution, or you can go to the link above and spend $10 and get it down within minutes. I wasted way too much time trying to save $10, then went with this little piece of software. Should have done that in the first place. Worked GREAT!
Click to expand...

at first, I got excited about Outlook2Mac (Little Machines) only to find that it's ONLY if you still have a PC computer or laptop. I only had a PST file on my Intel iMac without any immediate access to a PC computer.

Emailchemy did a GREAT job of converting the entire PST file as I was able to import all mail folders on Apple Mail without any problem, including attachments. It's worth each dime (even though 3x more than Outlook2Mac).
 
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