Converting Internet messages to Microsoft Exchange or Microsoft Outlook
August 29, 2005 - This page was last updated in the late 1990s and is substantially outdated. Use it at your own risk. There are now several tools that can convert Internet messages, including:
Converting messages from Internet e-mail programs,
such as Eudora, to Microsoft Exchange or Microsoft Outlook requires
an intermediate conversion to Microsoft Internet Mail. Once you have
the messages in Internet Mail, you can move them to Microsoft
Exchange or Microsoft Outlook folders.
Microsoft Internet Mail (version 4.70.1162 and
later) can import messages from Eudora Pro or Light (through version
3.0) and Netscape Mail (version 2 or 3).
Outlook Express can also
import from Netscape Communicator (v4). If you don't have either IM
or OE, you can still convert messages with the aid of a third-party
program (see Step 3 below):
If you have upgraded to Netscape Communicator and have only
Internet Mail, not Outlook Express, drop back to Netscape 3 mail
and do a "Compress Files." (Thanks to Mike Callihan for this
tip.)
If you have a recent version of Microsoft Internet Mail (or Outlook Express), use File |
Import | Messages to import the messages from the
Eudora .mbx file or Netscape mailbox.
If you have an older version, use
E2M or
EUD2IEM to convert
the Eudora .mbx file to a Microsoft Internet Mail/Outlook
Express .mbx file.
Apply Hal's Method #1, exporting the
messages from Internet Mail to Exchange/Outlook.
E2M
is a program for converting Eudora messages to Microsoft Internet
Mail. EUD2IEM also
converts Eudora messages to Microsoft Internet Mail, but via a
command-line interface that lets you convert several files at once.
Cleaning up the Eudora
.mbx file
This information on the conversion process has been
provided by Paul McIlfatrick, author of EUD2IEM and
VMS2IEM.
When importing e-mail messages from Eudora, Microsoft
Internet Mail doesn't get the correct 'Sent' or 'Received' dates
for those messages that were sent or forwarded from Eudora -
messages that were received are OK.
I have investigated and found that for these types of
messages Eudora uses the date after the 'From ???@???' separator
in the .mbx file.
To get these messages imported by Microsoft Internet Mail so
that the 'Sent' and 'Received' dates are correct, the .mbx file
must be edited and a 'Date: <date> <time from GMT offset>' and a
'Received: ; <date> <time from GMT offset>' line added after the
Eudora message separator. For example, a message sent from
Eudora has the following:
From ???@??? Tue Nov 19 14:16:20 1996
To: Joe Bloggs jbloggs@xxx.yy.zz
From: myself me@aaa.bb.cc
Subject: This is ...
This must be changed to:
From ???@??? Tue Nov 19 14:16:20 1996
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1996 14:16:20 +0000
Received: ; Tue, 19 Nov 1996 14:16:20 +0000
To: Joe Bloggs jbloggs@xxx.yy.zz
From: myself me@aaa.bb.cc
Subject: This is ...
Note: that the +0000 part must be included but modified to
suit your own time zone.
I have also found that some messages cannot be imported by
Microsoft Internet Mail from Eudora because of the line:
in the Eudora .mbx file. When this line was deleted the
message was imported OK.
Hal's Method #1:
Hal Hostettler, a fellow
Microsoft MVP, has moved several hundred messages out of
Netmanage's Chameleon mail client into Microsoft Exchange by
converting
messages to Eudora, running E2M to convert them to Microsoft
Internet Mail, then exporting from Microsoft Internet Mail to
Microsoft Exchange or Microsoft Outlook Personal Folders. He offers
two methods. The first is easier, but doesn't preserve addresses in
a way that they can be added to the Address Book.
I've discovered a cute trick that will allow you
to move mail messages from just about ANY mail client into
Exchange/Windows Messaging via Microsoft's Internet Mail (the
mail part of Internet Mail & News). A neat utility called
E2M will
convert a Eudora mailbox into an IM&N mailbox. [NOTE: You could
also use EUD2IEM.]
It turns out that this utility only needs the .MBX file and
doesn't use the Eudora .TOC file. What's even cooler is that a
Eudora .MBX file is *very* easy to synthesize by saving your
mail messages to text files with headers, adding a Eudora 'start
of message' line to the beginning of each text file, and
concatenating them all together! The exact process is as
follows:
Use your existing mail client to save
messages to be moved as text files with headers. This should
be done on a 'by folder' basis and the files should be
placed in a temporary directory.
Insert the line "From ???@??? Tue Jan 23
18:04:27 1996" (without the quotes) into each message before
the first line of the header using your favorite text
editor. This is the Eudora 'Start of Message' marker that
the E2M utility looks for; the date in this line is
unimportant and isn't used.
Open a DOS window in this temporary
directory and type "copy /a *.txt (filename).mbx", again
without quotes, where (filename) is whatever you want the
mailbox to be called. This concatenates all the separate
messages into a single mailbox file.
Start E2M, point its input at the .mbx file
you just made, the output at your IM&N mail folder, and hit
the convert button. This writes the new IM&N mailbox.
Start Internet Mail. Choose File, Folder,
Compact, and select the new mailbox. You'll get an error
message stating that the mailbox is damaged; click OK to
repair it. This is because you have a .mbx file without a
companion .idx file. When you click OK, IM will rebuild the
.idx file and BINGO!, messages are moved, headers,
attachments, and all! Too COOL!
Now choose File, Export, Messages to copy
the messages from IM&N to your Exchange/Windows Messaging
folders.
CAUTION: When you
export messages from Microsoft Internet Mail to Microsoft
Exchange in this way, the underlying e-mail addresses are not
transferred in any way that makes them easily accessible. (Dates
are also not transferred.) About the best you can do is set
Exchange to include the text of incoming messages on replies.
This will put at least SMTP addresses into the text of the
reply, and you can then copy it into the To box. It's probably
best not to delete your old Microsoft Internet Mail messages if
you think you'll need to refer to those e-mail addresses.
Alternatively, try the other method below.
Hal's Method #2:
Instead of using File, Export, this method
involves forwarding messages to yourself.
Set Internet Mail so that it does not
immediately download new messages and delete them from the
server. You can do this two ways, all on the Options dialog
box (Mail, Options.) Either check Send Messages Immediately
and uncheck Check for Messages Every XX Minutes, or, on the
Server Advanced settings, check Leave a Copy of Messages on
Server. In any case, you need to ensure that the message
you're about to send can be retrieved by Microsoft Exchange.
Select the Internet Mail folder that you
want to move, click on any message, then choose Edit, Select
All.
Choose Mail, Forward and send all the
messages to yourself. (If you're sending a single message,
choose Mail, Forward as Attachment.) You could also select
messages in batches, rather than sending them all together.
From Microsoft Exchange, Windows Messaging
or Microsoft Outlook, retrieve the message you just sent.
Open the message and drag the attachments --
all the messages forwarded from Microsoft Internet Mail --
to the appropriate folder(s).
When you open any message transferred in this
fashion, you still won't see an Internet header on the
Properties dialog box. However, From, To and CC addresses will
all be available when you right-click on any name in an open
message, and you'll be able to add them to the Personal Address
Book or Contacts list.
Copyright Slipstick Systems. All rights reserved.
Send comments using our Feedback page
RSS
