Transfer Outlook files

[JKV]

I use Outlook:Mac 2011 and would like to move or in some way make available the messages and attachments received to date to a new computer. Is there a way to transfer what I have now and then perhaps a way to avoid this for the future?

 

[Bruno09]

Hi,

is (are) your mail account(s) POP or IMAP ?

If IMAP, you would have nothing to do but set up your mail account(s) on the new computer : all the messages and attachments will be here.

 

[JKV]

It is POP.

 

[Bruno09]

I don't now for Outlook, but for the others mail clients (as Mail from Apple) the simplest way is to convert your POP account into an IMAP account.

Thus, any device (computer, smartphone, tablet) will "see" the same account (messages + attachments).

 

[JKV]

Thanks. I'll give that a try.

 

[organicCPU]

Is Drag and Drop of the message folders not working anymore?

 

[JKV]

How would I do that to move from one computer to another?

 

[organicCPU]

For Entourage 2008 it worked to drag a whole inbox or outgoing mail folder to somewhere (desktop, external drive, etc.).
Better split message folders that contain very much data into chunks (create subfolders) of 2 GB or less.

Dragged files should be MBOX format. Depending on the app you'll use on your new computer the import procedure differs. For import to Mail, there was the need to convert line endings of the mbox file. For import to Thunderbird there is ImportExportTools add-on existing.

 

[JKV]

I tried a single folder to see if it would work and after a couple of attempts to import I got the right combination of options to complete the import and it worked! Yea! Thanks.

 

[Bruno09]

perhaps a way to avoid this for the future?

You can do by export/import.

However, using IMAP accounts is by far a better solution : no export/import needed, no problem in the future, and all your devices (computers, tablets, smartphones) can see and use the same (mail) content.

 

[JKV]

Thanks. I'm checking with our IT person to see if I can change from POP to IMAP, but at least I know I can do the drag and drop/import if necessary.

 

[hallux]

All that info is stored in /Documents/Microsoft User Data by default. If you copy that folder from one Mac to the other it should (theoretically) bring all that over.

 

[organicCPU]

All that info is stored in /Documents/Microsoft User Data by default. If you copy that folder from one Mac to the other it should (theoretically) bring all that over.

If one transfers data from Microsoft Office to Microsoft Office on another Mac this should work, at least for identical versions. AFAIK it's important to close ALL Microsoft apps and services that access those data in advance to get an intact copy/backup of the Microsoft User Data folder. The folder should reside in ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data.

Outlook offers various import options to migrate from an older version of Outlook even from Entourage, but not all scenarios are supported. Therefore and for import to third party apps the mbox method is more generic.