After countless months (heck YEARS) I’ve been trying to wean past clients and especially family off of Outlook as their main client. Many of them use it out of habit because “it came on my system” usually, or “it’s Microsoft, so I know it’ll work”.
Listen… first off you know you’re speaking in the poo-poo tongue when you respond or think that “if it’s Microsoft, it works”. If that was the case then why the heck are you always complaining about quirky error messages and unexpected errors with Outlook every couple weeks or months? Why do you panic every time you have to reinstall Outlook on a new machine and migrate your contacts and emails over but have no idea where to look?
If you are using Outlook Express… DOUBLE shame on you… oh how many times, how many times must I warn people…
XEI’s Theory of “Unfortunality”
I have a theory. It’s my belief that some people actually enjoy having these applications fail them so that they have something to complain about… constantly. I mean, they must, otherwise why wouldn’t they do something about the increased stress levels?
Trust me, I’ve been there for many a day where all I wanted to do was eat my computer in frustration. This, amongst other very frustrating computer experiences, have led me to discover alternatives–FREE alternatives! Having an unfortunate relationship with computers and their software can be avoided with positive action and proactive choices to seek out less frustrating alternatives.
Thunderbird to the Rescue!
One of these searches for peace led me to finally install and try Thunderbird. It’s not only FREE, but works better, runs faster, is less buggy, easier to backup, easier to update, and, AND, it’s created by the amazing people who give us the extrodinary FREE browser Firefox (Version 3 just released, setting a record breaking highest number of downloads in a 24 hour period, passing 8 million in a day… get it!!!).
Here are a couple points of why you should migrate your mail client to Thunderbird:
- It’s lightwieght and easy to use and/or easy to learn
- It’s free
- It’s not a Microsoft product
- It’s not illegal to download or a pain-in-the-ass to crack (you know what I’m talking about, don’t wave your peg leg at me)
- It’s free
- It’s an open source platform with community support via plugin extensions
- It’s awesome
- It’s the chosen mail client of ninjas
I’m serious about the ninjas. They come to me in my sleep riding dinosaurs while their robot monkey sidekicks inject the knowledge into my cerebrum. True story.
Backup Your Email
The first step to blissful existence is to grab a backup of your Outlook PST file or your Outlook Express DBX files. This ensures you have a backup of all your emails in case something goes wrong (or you do something wrong) during the migration process. A PST file (.pst) stands for “Personal Store” and are complex databases that store your emails, calendar, contacts and more. The DBX files (.dbx) are similar but there will be multiple files, one for each mail folder you have created in Outlook Express (ex: Inbox.dbx, Outbox.dbx, etc).
You’ll need to set your Windows Explorer “hidden” folders to visible in in order to get the PST or DBX file(s).
If in WIndows XP:
- Get into Windows Explorer
- On the top menu select Tools > Folder Options
- On the new window, select the View tab
- Under the “Hidden files and folders” option, select the radial button labelled “Show hidden files and folders”
- Click Apply button and then click OK
If in Windows Vista:
- Get into Windows Explorer
- You’ll notice there is no menu! No alarms yet, hold down the ALT key on your keyboard and it’ll appear!
- Select Tools > Folder Options…
- On the new window, select the View tab
- Under the “Hidden files and folders” option, select the radial button labelled “Show hidden files and folders”
- Click Apply button and then click OK
Time to get the PST or DBX file(s)! In Windows Explorer, start expanding the file tree until you find the following, based on what option applies to you.
If Microsoft Outlook on WIndows XP, the default location is:
\Documents and Settings\user_id\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\
–> user_id is your Windows login username
–> Back up the PST files
If Microsoft Outlook on Windows Vista, the default location is:
\user_id\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\
–> user_id is your Windows login username
–> Back up the PST files
If Microsoft Outlook Express on WIndows XP, the default location is (something similar to):
\Documents and Settings\user_id\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\profile_name\Microsoft\Outlook Express\
–> user_id is your Windows login username
–> profile_name will look something like: {B5881F49-C800-41FF-9540-732B011690FD}
–> Backup the entire Outlook Express folder
Microsoft Outlook Express doesn’t exist on Windows Vista, it is now called Windows Mail. IT also uses a different file extension for its mail (mbox and eml). I have no idea how to help you here! Hopefully you haven’t used Windows Mail for very long but one solution online that seems to work for people is a Thunderbird plugin called ImportExportTools. It’s a little complicated, but I’ll leave it to you unfortunate souls to figure it out if you’re really desperate to migrate over.
Migrating to Thunderbird
If you have Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express still installed keep it set as your default client. If Thunderbird asks you to set Thunderbird as your default email client–ignore it–for now…
This is the easiest way possible to migrate from either Outlook to Thunderbird, consider yourself lucky that this will be a painless transition!
To get your Address Book:
- On the Thunderbird top menu click: Tools > Import
- click the “Address Book” radial button
- On the next dialogue box, select “Oulook” or “Outlook Express” whichever one YOU have, not either or!
- Click Next
- If you get an error message saying Outlook is not set as your default mail client, either learn to pay more attention to the text above
, or relaunch Microsoft and set it as your default email client
- Once that is done, try to click Next on the Import dialogue box again
- If all goes well you’ll get a message telling you that the import of your contact list was successful
Lets get your emails now! To get your Mail:
- On the Thunderbird top menu click: Tools > Import
- click the “Mail” radial button
- On the next dialogue box, select “Oulook” or “Outlook Express” whichever one YOU have, not either or!
- Click Next
- The next box will show you a summary of all the messages the were successfully imported
- Click Finish
You should be all set! Congratulations! Now for me to help those with the mixed blessing of having let go of the combersome Microsoft Outlook and are only left with their backup files. The blessing is that you’ve already cut the cord. The curse is that you aren’t done dealing with it yet…
You have to reinstall Microsoft Outlook Express on Windows XP. Thunderbird can not import PST files and it can not without the help of the plugin mentioned earlier deal with Windows Mail. You need to import your backed up PST file from Microsoft Outlook to the reopened/reinstalled Outlook Express. Follow the steps above for Impoting emails and address books from Outlook Express to Thunderbird and you’ll be good to go!
Immediately uninstall Outlook and never, ever, never-ever-ever go back.
Why Will You Life be More Awesome Now
Remember how I pointed out that Thunderbird was free and released as an open source program? Remember how I said Mozilla is behind it, the same guys that do Firefox–also an open source application? These applications being open source means that the community of fans can create new plugins and programs to make your life even MORE stress-free.
One program in particular that I just discovered helps you make backing up Mozilla profiles a piece of cake! Whether it’s Thunderbird or Firefox, this little application called MozBackup takes care of the whole process for you. You may have guessed it already, but yes, it’s also free!
See, isn’t the sun shinning brighter already? Everyone loves things that are free, right? So why the hell are some of you supporting Microsoft who changes its mail program versions and default standards around like they’re dirty underwear?
If you want a manual, hands on approach to backing up Thunderbird, that’s also fine and dandy, and peachy sweet:
Windows XP Thunderbird folder location:
\Documents and Settings\user_id\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\profile_name\
Windows Vista Thunderbird folder location:
\user_id\AppData\Local\Thunderbird\Profiles\profile_name\
–> user_id is your Windows login username
–> profile_id will look something like this: 25ve0lz5.default
All you do is copy the entire profile_name folder onto a backup drive or burn it on a CD/DVD. If you ever reinstall Thunderbird on a new machine and need to migrate EVERYthing from you old Thunderbird over including mail accounts, contacts, notes, anything I say, this profile_name folder is all you need! When you re-install the application, do not setup any account info, exit Thunderbird, and just copy this entire folder back into the folder location mentioned above after you re-install Thunderbird.
I hope I’ve covered everything! Please leave comments below if I missed something to help others make the move to free themselves of their Microsoft-burden. You can also contact me and I’ll update this post! Pass on this post to family and friends if you seriously love them. Good luck!
Downloads
Thunderbird Download
Firefox Download (while you’re at it)
MozBackup
Twitter Updates for 2008-06-28
I can’t even express how much I respect this guy. How often can I say, “Wow this whole album frigging rocks my clean socks off!” to a pro-released album nowadays? It’s rare as unicorn poop. (OK maybe not that rare: aka IMPOSSIBLE… since unicorns don’t exist and all… 
A month ago the NASA’s Phoenix Lander touched down perfectly on the surface of Mars. I sat at my desk, eyes glued to 
