I am a lover of open source, so I really enjoyed using Mozilla Thunderbird and Calendar until we started using Exchange Server in our office and I stopped receiving mail from my CEO and our VCs. Everyone else was fine, mysteriously. So, I had to plug in to the Exchange Server and figured it was a good time to switch to M$ Outlook so I could also start sending an receiving calendar events.
Trouble is, you can’t export Thunderbird mail messages directly to Outlook. The help docs and various menus and screens create the appearance of a possibility, but after some investigation I realized this was all a ruse.
After some web searches for “import thunderbird mail into outlook”, I found this somewhat-informative page on the Tech Guy Support Forums and fiddled my way to a solution.
There seem to be two options:
- Daisy chain a series of compatible export-imports.
- Download and use some freeware from a the poorly named ‘Broobles’ website.
Ever the cynical hacker, I opted for the former option, which took a mere 4 hours to complete, mostly due to failed attempts. Here’s my course of action, in case you find yourself in this unhappy predicament.
Daisy chains work because Outlook can’t read Thunderbird messages, but Eudora can read Thunderbird, Outlook Express can read Eudora, and Outlook can read Outlook express. So let’s line em up and knock em down!
Update: Using Gmail instead
Peter emailed an alternative suggestion:
Um… couldn’t you have:
- Subscribed to a Gmail account
- Set up Thunderbird to read that Gmail account
- Set up Outlook to read that Gmail account
- In Thunderbird, dragged all the mail, folder by folder, from the local Thunderbird folders into Gmail
- Switched over to Outlook and dragged it out of Gmail to something in Outlook?
And instead of Gmail, an IMAP account would let you move multiple folders at once, no? Again, this should work with Gmail or really any IMAP account. Though maybe it’ll munge the dates? Of that I’m not sure.
Thanks Pete!
Setting Up: Prepping the nodes in your daisy chain
- Download a copy of Eudora. You can uninstall it later. Don’t worry, you only need the free version, and it’s fun to see the ads that get run.
- Make sure you have a copy of Outlook Express. AFAIK, you can’t uninstall it, it’s just always there on a Win box.
For both apps, don’t waste time configuring your mail accounts any more than is absolutely necessary for basic import/export functionality – you’ll only waste more time. When the apps launch they’ll try to get pushy and make you enter remote server information, passwords, usernames, and whatever else. Just cancel out of those screens.
This is a good time to unplug your phone and refill your caffeinated beverage.
A Quick Aside: WTF is %AppData%?
Note that as you go searching for various mail files, a lot of system help files will include paths with an unhelpful %AppData% string included.
In most cases, this translates to C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Application Data, where [User Name] is the name you use when you log in to Windows. If your system is configured differently, you can find your %AppData% by:
- Clicking Windows Start menu (lower left of your desktop)
- Selecting the Run… option
- Typing %AppData% into the black window that appears, and pressing the Enter key.
You will see the file path that represents your %AppData%.
Diving In: Wasting the rest of your day
- First, a bit of housekeeping: having more folders in your email client will make this process slower, so I’d recommend consolidating as many of your folders as possible.
- Second, trust no one! Back up a copy of your email. It’s probably located someplace handy like:
C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\[random string].default - Import your Thunderbird messages into Eudora:
- Click on the File menu
- Select Import…
- A dialog box will appear. Click the obscure little “Advanced” button in the bottom left
- Select “Netscape Messenger”
- Click “Browse…” to find your prefs.js file. Mine was at:
C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\[random string].default\prefs.js
I left the LDIF file field blank – AFAIK, it doesn’t exist for Thunderbird (I even did a system search for *ldif* and only turned up some unrelated Sun files)
All this crap starts flying into Eudora, including a *lot* of duplicate folders! As far as I could tell, these folders were actual duplicates.
The first time I attempted this process, it didn’t work. This was because I store all my mail locally (in my C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\[random string].default\Local Folders directory). To fix this, I had to copy all of my Local Folders contents into my mail directory (mine was called mail.[server name].com). In my case, the files were so big that I just removed the mail directory and renamed “Local Folders” to the old mail directory name, rather than waste time with copy/paste.
Once all of the mail is imported into Eudora, you have to make sure it’s all indexed. To do this, double-click on each folder in the left pane of the Eudora UI, so the messages appear in the main pane. This action builds some kind of index file (you’ll notice it hangs a bit on larger directories), without which Outlook Express cannot find the messages. I discovered this after cursing Outlook Express for only importing my Inbox, which I’d opened to confirm that Eudora had imported the messages from Thunderbird.
Once everything is indexed in Eudora:
- Launch Outlook Express.
- Try not to lick your lips in anticipation – they’ll get chapped.
- In Outlook Express, click on the File menu.
- Select the Import option
- Select Messages…
- You’ll see a list of options, with “Eudora Pro or Light (through v3.0)” conveniently listed at the top.
(Don’t be distracted by the presence of “Netscape Communicator” farther down the list, it’s a trap!) - When you click next, you’ll probably see a curiously grey input field, accompanied by nonsensical text. Click the Browse… button and go find your Eudora messages.
- If you’re as unfortunate as me, you’ll have forgotten that Eudora is filed under “Qualcomm”, so here’s a tip: your messages are probably located in a directory like
C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Application Data\Qualcomm\Eudora\Netscape Messenger.fol
(there’s that %AppData% string, coming back to haunt us)
Remember, you’re looking for Netscape Messenger mail, not Eudora’s naturally-occurring mail directories. If you open the directory, you should see some familiar-looking subdirectories (keep clicking around, they’re there). If you’ve indexed the folders correctly in Eudora, you should see a .toc (table of contents?) file for every .mbx (mailbox?) file. - Click import, pray, and hopefully your messages appear inside Outlook Express!
Now launch regular old Outlook, and
- Select the File menu
- Select the Import and Export… option
- In the resulting screen, select Import Internet Mail and Addresses
- Select Outlook Express and click “Next >”
(I got chickeny so close to the end, so I opted to “Allow duplicates to be created”.)
Then, bite your nails and wait. Hopefully, you see a bunch of mail flying into your Outlook, you’re done, and it’s almost time to go home for the weekend.
Some problems I noticed and read about
- Sometimes, one step in the chain fails. My advice is to just fiddle with the settings until you get it right, or try focusing on a single message or subdirectory of mail. Don’t call me.
- Eudora created a lot of unnecessary folders for me. I’d rather have dupes than lose mail, so I just sighed and accepted this as a fact of life.
- I only worked with a single Profile/Account. If you have more than one, it seems that the solution is to import one Profile at a time, then remove the files from Eudora. I have not tested this.
If all else fails, you do have an alternative option: save your messages as .eml files one at a time.