Transferring Email to a New PC
By Wayne Maruna
The job is a snap when the computer owner uses web-based email
like Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hot Mail, or even AOL. That is also true
where a Suddenlink or CenturyLink customer (the primary ISPs here in
New Bern, NC) only uses the provider’s browser-based webmail
system. That’s because all the email and contacts (address book)
are retained on the provider’s server. There is really nothing on
the home computer itself to be transferred over other than some links
to the web service through a favorite browser like Internet Explorer,
Firefox, or Google Chrome.
However, many
people, myself included, prefer to use a dedicated email program on
their home computer to view and store emails and contact lists. I
feel that a dedicated email program gives me greater control and
flexibility and a friendlier user interface without the constant
barrage of ads. On the other hand, using webmail through a
browser does give one the flexibility to access their email from
virtually any computer anywhere at any time, though you rely on the
provider to safely protect your saved email.
When transferring data and email from an old machine to a new
one, the worst case scenario I run into is someone like me….someone who
keeps their email in a dedicated program, seemingly never deletes any
email, and in an attempt to organize all that saved email has created
more inbox sub-folders than there are crayons in the big box of
Crayolas. To be fair, I do delete email – lots of it - but
obviously I get more than I delete.
Outlook Express - XP's Default Email Handler
Each dedicated email program saves individual emails in a
different manner. With Windows XP, the default email program is
Outlook Express (OE for short). For every folder in the program’s
email ‘tree’, e.g. Inbox, Sent Items, Outbox, etc., there is a
corresponding data base file hidden in the bowels of the Windows
system, and all emails in each folder are compressed into its
corresponding DBX file. The problem is that OE is not supported
by anything newer than XP, and getting the emails to export out to a
different program is very difficult. The OE export feature works
well to copy address books to take to new machines, but I have never
successfully exported emails. The only way I have found to do
that is with an old program called DBXtract which has mixed success
reading the contents of the DBX files and outputting individual emails
in a file type that can be carried over to a new machine. If the
user has created a great number of email sub-folders, each of those DBX
files has to be extracted individually, and usually the owner wants
them brought forward in the same folders. That can significantly
impact the time requirement and cost of the project.
Outlook Express is not Outlook
Just to confuse things, Microsoft has another email program
called Outlook which is part of Microsoft Office and is totally
different from Outlook Express. In Outlook, everything having to
do with the user’s email account is kept in one big fat PST file
(Personal STorage file). This is a bit easier to migrate forward,
if the person has invested in a Microsoft Office version with Outlook
for the new machine. The problem with Outlook’s PST file is that
you have all your eggs in one basket. If it gets corrupted and
you don’t have a backup, you stand a chance of losing all your email
and contacts in one fell swoop.
A few people
use Mozilla Thunderbird for email. It is similar to Outlook
Express in usage, and it keeps each email folder in a separate file,
but unlike OE it can run on all newer Windows systems, so it is fairly
straightforward to migrate forward by copying one’s Thunderbird
profile, which is another hidden folder.
People who do not use web mail and run on Windows Vista, 7, or 8,
commonly use Windows Live Mail for their dedicated email program.
Because it works on all versions that followed XP, it is possible
to export email into a newer machine, through again the number of
folders can be problematic.
Move OE Mail via Thinderbird Import
In theory, one should be able to install Windows Live Mail onto an XP
machine, and use WLM's import function to easily pull in everything
from Outlook Express. I've tried a couple of times and failed.
Oh, the process looks like it's working, as you can see each
inbox sub-folder being processed and the numbers of imported emails
flash by, but when it was all done, I was left with a whole lot of
nothing. I have no idea where all those imported emails were
hidden. Actually, the easiest way I have found to move large
amounts of emails from an Outlook Express installation to a new machine
is to install Mozilla Thunderbird on the XP machine. T-Bird has
successfully imported everything from OE except for the email account
password which must be added. Once the import is
done, install T-Bird on the new machine, and do a web search for a
program called MozBackup which makes the process of backing up the
T-Bird profile from the old machine and restoring it to the new machine
a piece of cake.
Extract Emails from Outlook with MessageSave
As I said earlier, I do use Microsoft Office's Outlook
program for email. In addition to backing up my Outlook PST file
regularly, I also purchased a program called MessageSave, which reads
the contents of the big fat PST file, and creates and stores individual
files for each email. These files can easily be read by or dragged into
Windows Live Mail. I feel safer this way, since only Outlook can
read the contents of a PST file. I’m still using Microsoft Office
2007 on my Win8 machines. Office has since been ‘upgraded’ to
version 2010 and now 2013. There is going to come a day when
Office 2007 will no longer work on whatever operating system I move to,
and I don’t want to be hung out to dry with a proprietary email
format. That is the main reason I invested in MessageSave.
When that day comes, I will probably just go with webmail and accept
the compromises.
Email Hoarding
Running MessageSave was a real eye opener. Not counting the
standard email folders like Inbox and Sent Items or my Purchases folder
tree, I had 43 sub-folders which contained a total of 6,736 old
emails. That’s embarrassing. At least with 43 sub-folders,
I might actually stand a chance of finding something I went looking
for, but still, nearly 7K emails? While my garage could use some
selective dispositioning, thank goodness I pretty much limit my
hoarding to virtual things like emails which have no physical
substance, and can be thrown away with the click of a DEL button.