Moving/Transferring Email to Another Computer

With most people upgrading computers every few years there is a requirement to move email between computers.

In addition email clients become obsolete and so it is also necessary to move/transfer email between email clients.

Although I've been using the terms move and transfer, I prefer the term transfer as a move implies that we delete the old in the process which we don't. However if you are going to trash the old system it is a good idea to delete sensitive information from it.

The transfer involves three steps on the old computer to export the necessary files:

  • Export email accounts
  • Export contacts
  • Export  emails

To make it easy before you start create a new folder on your desktop to hold the export files.

Step 1- Transferring Email Accounts

Open outlook express select tools>accounts

Highlight the email account you want to transfer and then click export. Select the location for the export file (.iaf file) to the desired location.

 

Step 2- Transferring Contacts

Click file>export>Address book

Select the text file csv format and give the file a meaningful name and click the browse button to select the directory on the desktop to store the file.

The default fields are enabled check any other fields that you want to export and click finish to export the address book.

Step 2- Transferring Messages

You cannot use the export messages feature of outlook express unless you want to export the messages to outlook or Microsoft exchange so we need to do this manually.

This means that you will need to copy your data files. To do that:

1. Open Outlook Express. Click on "Tools" in the menu bar, then
click on Options.


2. In the Options window, click on the Maintenance tab.



3. On the Maintenance page, find the button that says "Store
Folder…" and click on it.

4. A small window will appear that is named "Store Location". This  is the path that leads to the location of your Outlook express data files.




5.  The location should look something like this:

C:\Documents and Settings\steve\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\{F5A5CFB9-3DA6-4BFD-964B-1DADD869492D}\Microsoft\Outlook Express\

You will need to navigate to this folder that holds your OE files highlight the folder in my case called outlook express, right click and copy.

 

Place a copy of the folder in the folder on your desktop.

 The folder on your desktop should now look something like this


6.Now copy this folder onto a memory stick and take to the new computer.

Video- Transfer Email

This video cover the export of account information, contacts and messages

This video covers the import of account information, contacts and messages. It also covers the affect of leaving email on the mail server and how it can save you the trouble of having to transfer email messages by copying the data stores.

 

 

 

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