[SATLUG] pop e-mail question

[Sean Carolan]

On Wed, 2004-06-30 at 09:24, Martin wrote:
> I'm trying to eliminate MS Windows as much as possible and after some
> research I discover that the main reason for my continued use of Windows is
> e-mail. I have several thousand business related e-mail in Outlook XP that I
> need to transfer to a Linux compatible program. I know that just about any
> program can import the Outlook .pst but I don't want to get suck in some
> format with a program that I don't like due to a non-standard file type. I
> am look for some advise as to which standard file type to export my Outlook
> data that could be imported in "any" mail program. (IMAP?) The ideal
> solution would be to set-up some sort of database that I could sync my two
> notebooks with regardless of mail program and keep an absolute identical
> copy on both system. Does anyone have some suggestions to accomplish any or
> all of this?


Martin:

Here's what I did to extract our users' email and contacts from Outlook to 
Ximian Evolution:

1.  Download Mozilla Thunderbird - you can use this to export your .pst file 
into mbox format.  This is done under windows.

2.  Save your mbox files to a disk or partition where you can access them 
from your linux installation.

3.  When you boot into your Linux install, open up Ximian Evolution, then 
set up a new account.  Create a new folder for each of the old folders you 
had before.  There should be one mbox file for each folder.

4.  Do a File >> Import and find the mbox file for the folder you want to
import.  Select "Import a Single File", then do File Type >> Automatic.

5.  Lather, Rinse, Repeat.  You need to do this for each and every folder 
that you want to create.  (Hint - if you have dozens and dozens of mail folders
under outlook you might want to consolidate some of them first before exporting)

6.  For exporting your contact list you can use a program called "Outport".  I
think you can grab it from sourceforge.  If not just google for "outport". Just 
export everything to a folder, then you can copy it right into your evolution
folder (over the existing ones) under linux.

Forgive me if I missed any details, it's been a few months since we did this.  But 
it worked fine even for my two years worth of emails, about 1800 emails total.
It even brings over attachments, etc.  And outport worked great for moving all my
contacts to the new system.

The advantage of having your email stored in mbox format is that its not a 
proprietary solution like outlook.pst file would be - you can easily export your 
email to Mozilla Thunderbird, or whatever you like.

I don't know if you'll be able to have a seamless data-syncing system between
your linux and windoze systems.  Generally speaking windows software doesn't like
to play nice with linux, because it costs MS money if they leave the door wide 
open for people to take their data and port it to linux.

regards,


Sean