help move mail from outlook express (os9 pink iMac) to Thunderbird (osx iBook)

[RedTomato]

Help, I don't seem able to do the simple task of moving email folders, contacts etc from my partner's old pink iMac to her shiny new iBook - can you help me?

FROM: Outlook Express / os9.2 / 233mhz iMac (pink!)

TO: Thunderbird / os10.3 / 700mhz iBook.

The two macs didn't want to talk to each other over ethernet, but I have a firewire drive, so did a backup of desktop & applications & documents from the iMac, and put the files onto the iBook.

Problem is, Thunderbird doesnt seem to want to import anything - sorry to be so vague - the import menu just shows no option to import from Outlook Express. Am I going about it the right way? Can you help?

A look on google revealed the advice to install Outlook on the iBook. Huh. Outlook isn't available for os X anyway (!) Thunderbird is not available for os9 either, so couldnt take that route.

Many thanks if you can offer any advice - she's threatening to take away my geek certificates

Tomato

 

[madmaxmedia]

Have you googled for tips?

My situation was a little different, I needed to move stuff from Windows Outlook to Mac Mail. I ended up finding a great program called Outlook2Mac to do it. I am sure there ways to convert email from Mac OE to some sort of general format for import into other programs.

Also, search Macupdate too-

 

[CanadaRAM]

OEExporter will get the emails out of Outlook Express and into text format.
http://www.emailman.com/conversion/oeexporterimporter.html
This may give you more options for TBird import.

 

[RedTomato]

Thanks for the tips. Both suggested apps are for moving to mac from PC or vice-versa. This is an os9 - os x move on different computers. Eek!

I finally did it for free in a completely different way:

1. Copy the Applications and Documents folders from the os9 mac onto my firewire external drive.

2. Connect the external drive onto the iBook. Move the 'Main Identity' folder from:

External drive> os9 backup> Documents > Microsoft User Data > Identities > Name of Identity (typically 'Main Identity')

TO:

Home> Documents> Microsoft User Data > Identities on the iBook

3. Start up Mail on the iBook, select Import Mail > import from Outlook Express. Point it to the Outlook application in External drive > os9 backup > Applications

4. Mail automatically starts up Classic, and starts up Outlook Express. It then automatically found the mailboxes in Home > Documents > Microsoft User Data > Identities, and imported all the mail into Mail.app

[this is why I moved the folder in step 2. Otherwise Outlook can't find the mailboxes and you end up with a single 'welcome to outlook' message imported. Dumb i know. Outlook looks in different places when started up on os9 and os X. This can't be changed.]

5. Start up thunderbird and import from Mail.app. Daa daa!


But thanks for all your help.

xoxo

Tomato