I work for a computer repair firm which is currently adapting itself to the shift in the market from PCs to Macs. So far we have found one of our biggest headaches in switching users from their old PC to a Mac is getting their email transferred over.
Our current process involves importing the email from Outlook Express / Outlook to Thunderbird, then transferring Thunderbird's Profile to the Mac and importing it into Mail.app using Eudora Mailbox Cleaner. We then have to rebuild all the email folders and drag their inbox, sent, trash, etc to where it belongs. The contacts then have to be exported to CSV and imported separately. And to be honest, the process isn't flawless. Sometimes things don't line up like they should. Old email no longer shows the attachment icon when there is an attachment in the message. Full names of contacts are imported all into the First Name field of Address Book. Sometimes email doesn't want to drag from the imported Inbox folder into the main Inbox. The list of quirks will probably grow as we continue to discover them.
My stipulation is… there has got to be a better way! The Apple Store switches people's email, documents, etc over to a Mac for free. What kind of tools are they using? I've Googled around quite a bit but can't seem to dig up any best-of-breed methods other than what we're already using. A lot of our customers are business customers who use POP, and we really don't want to mess with their email accounts in the changeover process.
Maybe I'm rambling now but perhaps too I should try setting up Thunderbird on the Mac and then tell Mail.app to import from it? I wonder if that would be any cleaner a process…
Any suggestions from you? How have you switched friends, family, etc's email over to a Mac?
Our current process involves importing the email from Outlook Express / Outlook to Thunderbird, then transferring Thunderbird's Profile to the Mac and importing it into Mail.app using Eudora Mailbox Cleaner. We then have to rebuild all the email folders and drag their inbox, sent, trash, etc to where it belongs. The contacts then have to be exported to CSV and imported separately. And to be honest, the process isn't flawless. Sometimes things don't line up like they should. Old email no longer shows the attachment icon when there is an attachment in the message. Full names of contacts are imported all into the First Name field of Address Book. Sometimes email doesn't want to drag from the imported Inbox folder into the main Inbox. The list of quirks will probably grow as we continue to discover them.
My stipulation is… there has got to be a better way! The Apple Store switches people's email, documents, etc over to a Mac for free. What kind of tools are they using? I've Googled around quite a bit but can't seem to dig up any best-of-breed methods other than what we're already using. A lot of our customers are business customers who use POP, and we really don't want to mess with their email accounts in the changeover process.
Maybe I'm rambling now but perhaps too I should try setting up Thunderbird on the Mac and then tell Mail.app to import from it? I wonder if that would be any cleaner a process…
Any suggestions from you? How have you switched friends, family, etc's email over to a Mac?