Exporting Outlook Express Emails

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I'm going to be upgrading my computer (very) soon and in the process of which I will be formatting my hard drive. Most of my files are now backed up but I am unsure how to backup my emails.

Currently I'm on Win98SE using Outlook Express 5. When I've backed up before I've only been reinstalling Win98SE again so I have just copied the whole folder (where all the emails are stored, e.g. CWindows\ApplicationData\Identities\Microsoft\Outlook etc) and then copied them back into the new Ident folder after reinstallation.

This time however I am upgrading to dual booting Mandrake 10 and Windows 2000. In windows 2000 I intend to use Thunderbird rather than whatever version of Outlook comes with the OS. Will I be able to import my emails into Thunderbird (or into Win2000 Outlook and then into Tbird) simply using the store folder backup method I have previously used, or do I need to backup the files in some other way?

Note: I have found online tutorials for importing from outlook to thunderbird but not from a backup store folder alone.

Thanks in advance for any (and all) help.

 

It appears that Thunderbird doesn't allow you to specify the location of the mail files. Since the profile folder structure is different for Windows 2000 than it was for Windows 98, you'll want to put those OE files in a different location.

You'll want to start up OE so the Identities directory gets created, then copy the .dbx files from your backup to CDocuments and Settings\<your profile name>\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\<your identity>\Microsoft\Outlook Express. Now, when you open Thunderbird, you can go to Tools | Import, select Mail, select Outlook Express, and all your folders and emails should be imported.

I simulated this on a Windows XP machine, but I don't think the Documents and Settings directory structure changed much from Windows 2000. There might be an easier way, but this definitely works. Hope this helps.

 

Thanks for the replies. I have upgraded my computer, partly anyway. All the new components are in (though the ram I was going to use from my old motherboard was too old so I've got some more on order) but linux and 98 didn't get on (I'd lost my win2k cd) so just running 98 until I can find the 2k cd. Seems to be running pretty sweet at the moment. Haven't imported emails yet (will wait till find the 2k cd).

Thanks again for the replies.

 

I have an idea...

Install Thunderbird now, get the mail from OE, export from Thunderbird? (iirc you can export from thunderbird. )

 

[Edit] DOH! Ok found out that all I needed to do was to import only the non-summary (.msf) files in the mail folder into the new folder and it worked. Woot!

Have finally got Win2k installed and restoring all my backups. I took Taza's advice regarding installing Firefox, importing my OE mail and then exporting that. I used Firefox for a couple of weeks and no problems, exported the whole (Thunderbird) folder and no problems.

I'm now trying to restore my mail and this is where problems are occuring. I can get thunderbird to import my address book, since I can tell it to import from a file but for mail and settings I can only choose to import from: Eudora, Communicator 4x, Outlook and Outlook Express.

I tried copying the backed up folder into the new thunderbird folder and the folders appeared but I could neither see nor access any mail in them. I also tried creating a new mail account, and was able to retrieve new messages to my inbox, but I was not then able to copy my old messages to this new account.

Does anyone know precisely how to import a backed up Thunderbird folder?