We get a lot of questions from people asking how to move their mail into Outlook. I understand this can be a bit confusing, since Emailchemy does not write PST files, and Outlook can’t really import anything (though strangely, it does import from Netscape 4 and Eudora 3.2?).
Emailchemy can help you move your mail into Outlook, but you have to use the IMAP ImportServer tool (in Emailchemy) to do it. Here’s how:
1) Using Emailchemy’s conversion wizard, convert your old email files to the IMAP ImportServer format.
2) Launch Emailchemy’s IMAP ImportServer tool, select the folder you saved the mail to in step 1, and click “Start Server”.
3) In Outlook, create a new IMAP email account with the server, username, and password that the IMAP ImportServer tells you to use. Here is a link to a web site that has a walkthrough for creating an IMAP email account in Outlook.
4) In Outlook, (either automatically or after clicking “Send/Receive”), you will see a folder on the localhost IMAP server (the IMAP ImportServer). This folder will have all your converted mail in it. Drag this folder to a local folder in your Outlook browser, or use Outlook’s “Export to File” feature to write the contents of the hosted folder directly to a PST file.
As for “where” you do each step, you have to be running the IMAP server on the same machine as Outlook (security restriction), and it’s usually best to do the actual conversion of email on the target platform. So, if you are moving from a Mac, I would copy your entire mail folder from your Mac over to the Windows PC and run Emailchemy there for the conversion and the import.
Today we’re proud to announce that Uncle Hextor 1.0 is now available for download and purchase. Uncle Hextor is a new kind of hex editor — a reverse engineering hex editor — which was designed specifically for the type of work we do here at Weird Kid Software when we’re reverse engineering the various email storage formats supported by Emailchemy.
Uncle Hextor was developed by Wave Orbital LLC, in partnership with Weird Kid Software LLC, so you’ll see it for sale on both of our web sites (so don’t be alarmed).
It all started with a conversation I had with an old friend about software I needed but didn’t have time to write. I described a new kind of hex editor where I could highlight ranges of bytes and “tag” them as I work with a new file format, rather than working across several different apps (a standard hex editor, an XML editor, a data modeler, and even a pen-and-paper notebook). I really needed a better visual of the structures I’m uncovering as I work with the hex data. Then, the real killer feature would be the ability to dump the visual representation to an XML-Schema as a formal specification.
My friend Patrick from Wave Orbital, without hesitation, said he could build it and the rest is history.
Uncle Hextor isn’t done yet though. Yes, it’s a complete product per the basic specs we laid out that night over a beer, but just wait to see what else Wave Orbital has planned for it. As a programmer, this product and its potential really excites me.
Download the demo and give it a try.
Oh, the name? I don’t remember exactly, but I do remember that it had something to do with Uncle Fester from The Addams Family.
From: Michael Aumeerally
To: contact@weirdkid.com
Subject: emailchemy
Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 11:39:33 +0000
Hi there!
I just bought emailchemy from you a week ago, and it is a godsend!
I had over 5,000 messages on my Windows PC that I wanted to take over to Mac OS X Mail. The Outlook PST file was about 1GB.
I had previously tried Outlook2Mac on the PC itself, and it looked like it was going to take days to convert it all.
emailchemy converted the lot in about 20 mins on my new iMac.
Your program is pretty much the only solution for just taking a .pst from a PC and importing it into any e-mail application on the Mac - and believe me there is a good demand for that.
Just a note about one quirk I had in the process, I don’t think it’s a bug with your program - but a bug with the way Mac OS X Mail imports messages - I’ve seen it when bringing in mbox files created by other programs; basically if there is a hierarchy of folders being imported by Mac OS X Mail, messages in the top level folders import fine, but messages imported in the subfolders appear as blank messages with just the headers and no content. Now I managed to get round this by saving the messages converted by emailchemy as Mac OS X Mail 1.0 format - as they always seem to import into Mail fine - but this problem does affect messages converted into Mac OS X Mail 2.0 and later format which are then imported into Mail. Just to let you know I’m running Mac OS X Mail 3.2 on Leopard.
Just one last thing, it would be really great if your program could extract Microsoft Outlook contacts from the .PST file and export them as .vcf files. I know it’s a lot to ask, but I definitely would be interested in paying for that; at the moment I have to rely on Outlook2Mac to bring the contacts across.
Thanks very much for making this program,
Regards
Mike
[note: We've noted and mentioned weird behavior in Mac OS X Mail's import wizard before. Mike here found a method that seems to work pretty well, though. -- Matt]
From: akag70@xxxxx.xxx
To: contact@weirdkid.com
Subject: Great Software
Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 15:06:41 +0100
I was fighting with my work email (outlook) and my personal computer (mac) since one year.
I tried all the different solutions that forums provide (use thunderbird, export, import) and I waste a lot of time; I tried O2M but it was painful: it took a lot of time and half the time was wasted, because anytime something happened: a problem with windows, lost attachments, and so on.
Finally I reach your website and after an enthusiastic demo experience (just 10 minute to convert a 2.5 gb .pst file) I bought the full version and in 15 minutes I solved all the issues.
I just believe your software is really great and solve terrificly any issues of mail conversion.
(I was looking through a lot of websites and forum before I get into a message talking of you: why you are not so known?)
thank you!
Andrea Gino
Just got a kind note from Mike, a Mac user, saying that Emailchemy was the only Mac-based method he could find to convert his Windows Outlook PST file to Mac OS X Mail. 1GB in 20 minutes, not bad at all.
Anyway, he wrote to also report another quirk in Mac OS X Mail’s import feature. I say “another” because I’ve already noted (and reported to Apple) a few others. The issue he reported was that when importing mbox folders in Mail 2.0 format (Mac Mail .mbox folders are not the same as standard mbox files), Mail will import all the folders but some folders that are deeper in the hierarchy have all their messages show up blank. Mike reported that importing mbox folders in the Mail 1.0 format worked fine, however.
The problem with the Mail import bugs (I’m not calling them quirks anymore) is that they are often hard to reproduce and there may only be a few other users who ever see this issue.
This is why I recommend using Emailchemy’s embedded IMAP server (the IMAP ImportServer tool) if you can. It bypasses the import wizard by providing you a desktop mail server that you download your converted mail from. It’s as simple as creating a new email account and downloading the mail.
Aside from the bugs in the import wizard, I like using Mac OS X Mail. It’s what I’ve been using for the past several years and I haven’t seen anything else I like on the Mac yet.
Today I noticed we had a few customers, Mac users using Mac OS X 10.5.1, who reported odd behavior until they installed the Mac OS X 10.5.2 update.
So if you’re using the latest Emailchemy (v 9.6) and Mac OS X 10.5.1, and you are seeing things like missing file dialogs or conversions that seem to never finish, try installing the 10.5.2 update from Apple.One note on installing Mac OS X updates: I am a Mac user too, and I’ve noticed that with my Macs that I have increased system stability if I install the “combo” update instead of the “incremental” update that comes through the Software Update app.
I can’t explain why, but after I’ve re-installed the “combo” update (available from the Mac OS X Support downloads page) over the Software Update update, most “odd” system issues disappear.
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