Microsoft Outlook Email for Mac?

[CitiXen]

My dad's old pc is failing frequently and it is time for a new computer. I have a MBP and he's seen the things Macs can do. He is considering an iMac but he does a lot of emails using an microsoft outlook email address. How does that work with Macs? I have heard of entourage or mac mail, what is the best method of syncing his existing email address with his new Mac? Will it work 100%?

 

[ziggyonice]

You say that your dad is familiar with Microsoft Outlook. While Outlook isn't available on the Mac, Microsoft Entourage is. Entourage is essentially the same as Outlook, it's just been created for the Mac. They're actually going to be replacing Entourage with Outlook when Microsoft Office 2010 comes out next year.

You say that your dad has "a lot of emails using an microsoft outlook email address". I'm not exactly sure what you mean by that. Outlook doesn't have an email address exactly. Are you talking about an Exchange account, per chance? A lot of companies/schools use Exchange servers, which can synchronize with Outlook (or Entourage). Although since the release of Snow Leopard, you don't even need Entourage to connect to an Exchange server -- it comes built right in using the Mac's Mail program.

 

[BittenApple]

Does he use exchange? OS X has native support for exchange.

 

[CitiXen]

You say that your dad is familiar with Microsoft Outlook. While Outlook isn't available on the Mac, Microsoft Entourage is. Entourage is essentially the same as Outlook, it's just been created for the Mac. They're actually going to be replacing Entourage with Outlook when Microsoft Office 2010 comes out next year.

You say that your dad has "a lot of emails using an microsoft outlook email address". I'm not exactly sure what you mean by that. Outlook doesn't have an email address exactly. Are you talking about an Exchange account, per chance? A lot of companies/schools use Exchange servers, which can synchronize with Outlook (or Entourage). Although since the release of Snow Leopard, you don't even need Entourage to connect to an Exchange server -- it comes built right in using the Mac's Mail program.

He doesn't own a Mac yet, he has an older PC. His e-mail address is a shaw.ca and it is managed through MS Outlook. Is it best to use Apple Mail or entourage to connect his existing email address? What's involved in importing his MS Outlook contacts? Thanks.

 

[EndlessMac]

Your Dad can also try using Mozilla Thunderbird which is from the makers of Firefox web browser. Go to this site: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Importing_and_exporting_your_mail to learn about how to import your Dad's Outlook over to Thunderbird. The nice thing about Thunderbird is that it's available on both Mac and PC. This means that your Dad can start using Thunderbird on his PC to get used to it and then import everything over when he switches over to a Mac or if he's getting a Mac now he can just do the import directly to his Mac. The downside with Thunderbird is that I don't believe the current version uses Mac's Address Book program but rather it uses it's own address book.

I use Apple's Mail program myself and I'm sure there is a way to import addresses over but I can't find it on Apple's support website. I didn't look that hard though. The Mozilla website is more organized.

Basically to bring over your Dad's email address book and emails there should be an export function in Outlook. The trick is your new email program has to be able to read that exported file.