HELP!! Moving old emails from Outlook Express (OS9) to Entourage OSX / Entourage Upgrade Problem

I have 2 problems.

I am trying to move all emails from my old Mac OS9 (Outlook Express
5.0.6) to Entourage X on my new(ish) Mac which runs on 10.3.9. What
is the quickest, easiest and cheapest way to do this?

The next problem is more serious. I've been working on my new Mac
after setting it up. After sending and retrieving a bunch of emails
today I noticed that Microsoft had a new update (10.1.9) for Mac OSX.
I downloaded the update and after running it Entourage was wiped
clean. All my emails disappeared and I have no back-up copies. How
do I get them back?

I'm not very technical so I need a "dummy's" guide to solve these
problems. Please help!!!!

William
Sat Sep 22 16:15:57 PDT 2007

toygal88 wrote:
> I have 2 problems.
>
> I am trying to move all emails from my old Mac OS9 (Outlook Express
> 5.0.6) to Entourage X on my new(ish) Mac which runs on 10.3.9. What
> is the quickest, easiest and cheapest way to do this?
>
> The next problem is more serious. I've been working on my new Mac
> after setting it up. After sending and retrieving a bunch of emails
> today I noticed that Microsoft had a new update (10.1.9) for Mac OSX.
> I downloaded the update and after running it Entourage was wiped
> clean. All my emails disappeared and I have no back-up copies. How
> do I get them back?
>
> I'm not very technical so I need a "dummy's" guide to solve these
> problems. Please help!!!!

Your information is probably safe. Somehow, Entourage may have lost its
way to your "identity", which is where your mail is stored.

I'm not very familiar with Entourage X, but I think the directions here
should still apply <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/get_started/tip009.html>.

Hope this helps!

--

bill

William M. Smith, Microsoft Interop MVP - Mac/Windows
Entourage Help Page <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>

favabean
Wed Jan 23 12:58:03 CST 2008

Diane, <br>
One good work around is to import from the Apple mail program. Under file, import and then do the same in Entourage. <br>
Apple seems happy to import fom anywhere.

Diane
Wed Jan 23 18:42:20 CST 2008

On 1/23/08 10:58 AM, in article ee7c2dc.4@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw,
"favabean@officeformac.com" <favabean@officeformac.com> wrote:

> One good work around is to import from the Apple mail program. Under file,
> import and then do the same in Entourage.
> Apple seems happy to import fom anywhere.

Thanks!! It¹s hard to understand why they dropped the old applications from
import options.

--
Diane, Microsoft Mac MVP (MVPs are not Microsoft Employees)
Entourage Help Page <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>

Forest
Sat Feb 02 14:20:02 CST 2008

I have basically the same problem, except I'm trying to import Outlook Express 5.0 (from an old Mac with OS9) emails into Entourage 2008. The Entourage 2008 import menu does not show Outlook Express among the formats it will import (just Mac Mail and Eudora).<br>
<br>
I have a long history of emails in OE 5.0 that I'd like to retain.<br>
<br>
Thanks in advance.

Diane
Sat Feb 02 17:27:28 CST 2008

On 2/2/08 12:20 PM, in article ee7c2dc.6@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw, "Forest"
<Forest> wrote:

> I have basically the same problem, except I'm trying to import Outlook Express
> 5.0 (from an old Mac with OS9) emails into Entourage 2008. The Entourage 2008
> import menu does not show Outlook Express among the formats it will import
> (just Mac Mail and Eudora).
>
> I have a long history of emails in OE 5.0 that I'd like to retain.

Entourage 2004 did have the option to import from OE. You might try
downloading the demo for 2004 and import from there. Then use 2008 to import
your emails.

Option 1)

Select Import
Information from another application
My application is not listed

You will have to export your OE data as MBOX files and your contacts as a
tab delimited file

Option 2)
Set up a Gmail account as IMAP
Copy over all of your emails to your Gmail account.
Since you have to export your contacts as CVS or tab delimited to upload to
Gmail, there is no need to do this as it's the same procedure as importing
into Entourage.

How to:

MBOX files are made by dragging each folder to the desktop. Subfolders have
to be dragged individually. You can try this script that's quicker and gets
subfolders, but I'm not sure it works in Classic.

For MBOX files: Run this script on your messages: Export folders (this gets
subfolders too). The script will fail on a folder with corruption.

<http://scriptbuilders.net/files/exportfolders1.1.html>


--
Diane, Microsoft Mac MVP (MVPs are not Microsoft Employees)
Entourage Help Page <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>

Forest
Wed Feb 27 16:33:22 CST 2008

Dragging folders from OE 5.0 does not seem to work. I drag any folder or subfolder from the Outlook window to the desktop, but nothing gets onto the desktop. A little shadow of the folder runs back to the origin folder whenever I release the mouse button.

I don't know how to run scripts.

Diane
Wed Feb 27 17:51:20 CST 2008

On 2/27/08 2:33 PM, in article ee7c2dc.8@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw, "Forest"
<Forest> wrote:

> Dragging folders from OE 5.0 does not seem to work. I drag any folder or
> subfolder from the Outlook window to the desktop, but nothing gets onto the
> desktop. A little shadow of the folder runs back to the origin folder whenever
> I release the mouse button.

This sounds like problems on your computer. Could be a drive too full,
folder too large to export. How large is your database? How large is your
HD? How full?
>
> I don't know how to run scripts.

Drop the Export Folder script in the Script Menu Items folder. Select the
script from the application. It runs just like selecting a menu item.

--
Diane, Microsoft Mac MVP (MVPs are not Microsoft Employees)
Entourage Help Page <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>

Forest
Wed Mar 05 13:28:59 CST 2008

I have Outlook Express 5.0.6 running on a Mac with OS 9.2.2. I have 1.62 GB free on a 6 GB hard drive. Even small folders with a few emails will not drop onto the desktop. The mouse carries a shadow of the folder, but when released it scurries back to the folder icon.

Nor will they drop into another folder on the desktop. One of my mail folders had subfolders, so I eliminated those and restarted. No improvement.

Diane
Wed Mar 05 18:23:08 CST 2008

On 3/5/08 11:28 AM, in article ee7c2dc.10@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw, "Forest"
<Forest> wrote:

> I have Outlook Express 5.0.6 running on a Mac with OS 9.2.2. I have 1.62 GB
> free on a 6 GB hard drive. Even small folders with a few emails will not drop
> onto the desktop. The mouse carries a shadow of the folder, but when released
> it scurries back to the folder icon.
>
> Nor will they drop into another folder on the desktop. One of my mail folders
> had subfolders, so I eliminated those and restarted. No improvement.

AGAIN, it sounds like your drive is too full. You can't use every GB of
drive space and expect your computer to work. The OS uses HD space for
virtual memory.

Can you burn your mail to a CD?

--
Diane, Microsoft Mac MVP (MVPs are not Microsoft Employees)
Entourage Help Page <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>

Forest
Thu Mar 06 18:12:02 CST 2008

Since I've already moved most of my documents to the new computer, I just went through and deleted most of the documents folder on the old computer (the one with OE 5.0.6 on it). That cleared up space equal to more than 6x as much space as all of my OE folders take up, combined.

I emptied the trash, and restarted. I only opened the OE application and again tried dragging the folders to the desktop. No difference from before. None of them, not even the small folders, will place anything onto the desktop that way.

I also tried dragging them to an empty 4GB flash drive. They won't drop into that, either.

Clearly, it's not an issue of drive space.

Thanks for trying.

Diane
Thu Mar 06 18:57:18 CST 2008

Are any of the export features in OE still working?

--
Diane


On 3/6/08 4:12 PM, in article ee7c2dc.12@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw, "Forest"
<Forest> wrote:

> Since I've already moved most of my documents to the new computer, I just went
> through and deleted most of the documents folder on the old computer (the one
> with OE 5.0.6 on it). That cleared up space equal to more than 6x as much
> space as all of my OE folders take up, combined.
>
> I emptied the trash, and restarted. I only opened the OE application and again
> tried dragging the folders to the desktop. No difference from before. None of
> them, not even the small folders, will place anything onto the desktop that
> way.
>
> I also tried dragging them to an empty 4GB flash drive. They won't drop into
> that, either.
>
> Clearly, it's not an issue of drive space.
>
> Thanks for trying.

--
Diane, Microsoft Mac MVP (MVPs are not Microsoft Employees)
Entourage Help Page <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>

Forest
Fri Mar 07 09:19:18 CST 2008

The only export it shows in the menus is to export contacts, which works fine. Those exported from OE 5.0 and imported into Entourage easily enough.

Diane
Fri Mar 07 15:41:59 CST 2008

On 3/7/08 7:19 AM, in article ee7c2dc.14@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw, "Forest"
<Forest> wrote:

> The only export it shows in the menus is to export contacts, which works fine.
> Those exported from OE 5.0 and imported into Entourage easily enough.

Try asking on the MacOSXHints forums. You get a really wide audience of
experts that might be able to offer a solution.

<http://forums.macosxhints.com/index.php>

You will have to create a profile first. Ask in "Applications" forum.

--
Diane, Microsoft Mac MVP (MVPs are not Microsoft Employees)
Entourage Help Page <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>

Mickey
Sun Mar 09 18:26:26 CDT 2008

This is expected behavior. The ability to drag folders out of the program
and create MBOX files from them only appeared in Entourage 2001, which came
after Outlook Express 5.0 for Mac.

One way you can move mail is to create folders on your Desktop and drag all
of your messages directly from the message list to those folders. That will
save them as EML files that you can drag into Entourage folders.

On 3/6/08 7:57 PM, in article
C3F5D2EE.16CDC%diane@invalid.entourage.mvps.org, "Diane Ross"
<diane@invalid.entourage.mvps.org> wrote:

> Are any of the export features in OE still working?
>
> --
> Diane
>
>
> On 3/6/08 4:12 PM, in article ee7c2dc.12@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw, "Forest"
> <Forest> wrote:
>
>> Since I've already moved most of my documents to the new computer, I just
>> went
>> through and deleted most of the documents folder on the old computer (the one
>> with OE 5.0.6 on it). That cleared up space equal to more than 6x as much
>> space as all of my OE folders take up, combined.
>>
>> I emptied the trash, and restarted. I only opened the OE application and
>> again
>> tried dragging the folders to the desktop. No difference from before. None of
>> them, not even the small folders, will place anything onto the desktop that
>> way.
>>
>> I also tried dragging them to an empty 4GB flash drive. They won't drop into
>> that, either.
>>
>> Clearly, it's not an issue of drive space.
>>
>> Thanks for trying.
>
> --
> Diane, Microsoft Mac MVP (MVPs are not Microsoft Employees)
> Entourage Help Page <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/>
> Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>
>
>

--
Mickey Stevens (Microsoft MVP for Office:mac)
Office & Mac Resources: <http://home.earthlink.net/~mickey.stevens/>

Forest
Wed Mar 19 10:57:43 CDT 2008

Thanks Mickey!

That seems to be working. I have not imported yet.

Interesting bugs in OS9 are arising. When the files are all copied over to a folder on the hard drive, they are named for the email title. If two emails had the same message title, they get the same file name (some cases, not all). I'm pretty sure this is supposed to be impossible in any OS, but there it is, several files with the same name in the same folder. At least I don't recall ever seeing it before. Then when I copy them over to the USB flash drive (my means of transport to the new computer where they will be imported) it catches the error, and stops the copy until I change them to unique file names (I just manually append 1,2, 3 etc to the file name). Another bug is when it catches that error with one file, it says it cannot copy that file and asks me if I wish to stop or continue. Both selections cause it to stop.

Forest
Wed Mar 19 12:03:42 CDT 2008

Whoops. Small problem at the import end of this.

Outlook did not add .EML file extensions. They will drop into Entourage folders only if they have the .EML extension.

I can append the filenames manually, but there are 3,500 email files.

Is there a way to append .EML extensions to 3,500 file names in one step?

Lisandro
Wed Mar 19 12:30:17 CDT 2008

My problem is the following. I made an update of de Entourage and all my contacts disappear. I tried to reach them with the import tool, but I don't know where to find the mailboxes with the information. Sorry if there is some mistakes but I am writting from Argentina and I am doing my best for you to understand. I'm a Mac user.

Diane
Wed Mar 19 21:28:17 CDT 2008

On 3/19/08 10:30 17AM, in article ee7c2dc.19@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw,
"Lisandro" <oban@oban.com.ar> wrote:

> My problem is the following. I made an update of de Entourage and all my
> contacts disappear. I tried to reach them with the import tool, but I don't
> know where to find the mailboxes with the information. Sorry if there is some
> mistakes but I am writting from Argentina and I am doing my best for you to
> understand. I'm a Mac user.

When you add your question to a thread, it makes it harder to get help. Are
you moving from Outlook Express (OS9)?

I will try to give you an easy way to get your contacts over. If you still
have problems please reply with the answers to the questions at the end of
the message.

In your old Identity, export contacts as a tab delimited file.

Import this file into Entourage 2008 using File --> Import.

Details can be found here:

How to manually move your data:

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/install/manual_install.html>

----------------------------------------
What version Mac OS X are you running?

What version Microsoft Entourage are you using? Including update if any. How
to find version info:

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/version/index.html#find_version>

What version did you import?
--
Diane, Microsoft Mac MVP (MVPs are not Microsoft Employees)
Entourage Help Page <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>

Barry
Thu Mar 20 03:49:51 CDT 2008

On Fri, 7 Mar 2008 00:12:02 +0000, Forest wrote
(in article <ee7c2dc.12@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw>):

> I only opened the OE application and again tried dragging the folders to the
> desktop. No difference from before.

I don't believe that OE will allow you to create a MBOX file by dragging a
folder to the desktop - that's Entourage functionality.


--
Barry Wainwright
Microsoft MVP

Mickey
Thu Mar 20 20:46:44 CDT 2008

Use Automator (in the Applciations folder). Make sure all the e-mail files
are copied into a folder on your hard drive. Try a workflow like this:
1. Ask for Finder Items / Type: Folders
2. Get Folder Contents
3. Rename Finder Items / Add Text: Add eml as extention

Then, press the "Run" button on the toolbar. In the dialog box that
appears, select the folder with the e-mails and then click "Choose". Then
they should all be renamed automatically.

On 3/19/08 12:03 PM, in article ee7c2dc.18@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw, "Forest"
<Forest> wrote:

> Whoops. Small problem at the import end of this.
>
> Outlook did not add .EML file extensions. They will drop into Entourage
> folders only if they have the .EML extension.
>
> I can append the filenames manually, but there are 3,500 email files.
>
> Is there a way to append .EML extensions to 3,500 file names in one step?

--
Mickey Stevens (Microsoft MVP for Office:mac)
Office & Mac Resources: <http://home.earthlink.net/~mickey.stevens/>

Frank
Thu Mar 20 22:29:03 CDT 2008

I have Microsoft Entourage on my MAC BOOK PRO OSX 10.5 and I'm using the mail that comes with the mac pro. The problem is is that when opening up Entourage I receive 2 of the same e-mails That I get with mail as 1 e-mail that you are suppose to get can you tell me how to fix this problem and please use lay mens terms for me so that I can understand.
Thank you

Forest
Sun Mar 30 15:13:38 CDT 2008

Thanks Mickey! The Automator worked great (I then used it to add extensions for some other files I brought over).

Problem solved. All of my old OE 5.0 emails are now in Entourage 2008.