There are already a number of tried and true ways to crack open Outlook’s PST files and make the transition, either using Mozilla or (for Outlook Express users) DbxConv.

Or you could use the shareware utility, O2M (formerly known as Outlook2Mac) which only costs USD 10.

Still, some people get a kick out doing this kind of thing for free, and libpst offers another way.

Joe outlines just twelve steps from downloading the source code, compiling (not as hard as you imagine) and running it, to the end result.

If I had a PST file to hand, I’d try it myself. Fortunately, I don’t.mail.app, apple mail, outlook, outlook express, microsoft, pst files, switching, freewareSimilar Posts:

• Importing email from Outlook and Outlook Express
• Importing Contacts from Outlook or Outlook Express
• ABFiller: Importing Outlook Contacts made easy
• OMiC: A plugin to extract winmail.dat files
• Outlook Express to become “Windows Mail”

He reminds his readers that “viewing your e-mail in anything other than plain text mode is asking for trouble on a Windows computer.”

He then proceeds to list some of the reasons why HTML should be avoided, including better protection against phishing attacks, avoiding “spam touting graphic images from adult Web sites” and not seeing your own HTML emails end up in someone else’s spam folder. (See a much more comprehensive list of reasons on the Free Anti Spam web site.)

Instructions are provided on using plain text in Outlook 2003, Outlook Express, Thunderbird and Opera. These might be useful for Hawk Wings readers in a distressing work environment.

Mail.app users have at least three ways to deal with incoming HTML emails—see an earlier Hawk Wings post, “Viewing HTML messages in Apple Mail“).

I am a fan of the first, most brutal option myself, but I am also a realist. See further King Canute (Wikipedia ).

UPDATE: Nicholas takes a different view . “Arguing that email users should not have access to different fonts or colours is much like arguing that they should still be using the word processors of 1987 as well,” he suggests.

[Thanks, Michael]mail.app, apple mail, windows, outlook, html, plain text, thunderbird, opera, outlook expressSimilar Posts:

• Betalogue ponders slow death of plain text
• Viewing HTML messages in Apple Mail
• Setting a minimum HTML font size
• The iPhone: What email client is that?
• Problems with international text in Mail 2.0

If that’s you, the post you are looking for is “Setting a minimum HTML font size”.

This is a work-around that prevents incoming emails written in Outlook and Outlook Express from appearing in a very small, almost unreadable, font size in Mail.app.

It’s worth finding, especially if your mother insists on using Outlook Express.
email, font size, incoming, HTML, unreadableSimilar Posts:

• Setting a minimum HTML font size
• Setting an HTML font tag in a Mail.app message
• The campaign to end HTML email
• Apple revises technote on printing in Mail
• Secrets is back: Clever Preference tweaking

Find the iPhoto picture you want to email, click on the Mail button, and – hey presto – there it is, nicely formatted in a new email and ready to go.

In the spirit of Christmas cheer, here’s an iPhoto hack that gives the same joy to others. iPhoto Mailer Patcher adds the same “optimise and email a picture” support for Claris Emailer, GyazMail, Mailsmith, Outlook Express, PowerMail and QuickMail Pro.

The Mozilla stable, including Thunderbird, miss out because they are not “AppleScriptable” enough for iPhoto to work with them.

iPhoto Mailer Patcher is freeware, comes in various flavours depending on your iPhoto version and is available from the developer’s web site.

Maybe you know some poor soul whose life would be better for finding out about it.Similar Posts:

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• iPhoto Mailer Patcher in iPhoto 5
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• Thunderbird 1.5.0.4: Universal binary!
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Personally, I can’t help thinking that it would easier to use EmailChemy (which is free for a “one off” use) or CosmicSoft’s emlx to mbox converter.Similar Posts:

• emlx to mbox converter 1.0.3
• Moving from Mail 2.0 to Thunderbird
• Switching from Thunderbird to Apple Mail
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It will feature advanced spam-handling abilities and better search capabilities with a “search as you type” function. Windows Mail will also have a new way of storing emails as individual files and a new database for indexing them, which will make searching emails outside Windows Mail itself easier. Sounds just like the sort of things one would want in an email client!

Microsoft has released a 46 minute video about Windows Mail. You can watch it here (and read about it on the blog of the development team head, Bryan Starbuck).

(Thanks, DownloadSquad ).windows vista, outlook express, windows mail, emailSimilar Posts:

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• Screenshot of Mail.app’s Windows Vista rival
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All the same, Emailchemy is a life-saver for people who have been using email for a long time and have moved through many clients and platforms.

Emailchemy will convert emails from popular and obsolete email clients into formats that Apple Mail and other clients can read. It converts email from an astonishing range of formats (listed after the jump):

• AOL for Windows (“PFC” files)
• Claris Emailer 1.x for Macintosh
• Claris Emailer 2.x for Macintosh
• Entourage
• Eudora
• Mac OS X Mail
• Mozilla
• Mulberry
• Neoplanet
• Netscape
• Opera 4, 5, 6 & 7
• Outlook Express 4 and 5 for Macintosh
• Outlook Express 4, 5 & 6 for Windows
• Outlook Express 5 for UNIX/Solaris
• PowerTalk/AOCE for Macintosh
• QuickMail Pro for Macintosh
• QuickMail Pro for Windows
• Yahoo! Mail
• any UNIX-style or mbox-format mailbox

into a useful set of formats:

• RFC-2822 mailboxes (“mbox” format or “UNIX-style”)
• Folders of individual RFC-2822 email files (.txt or .eml files)
• Comma-separated value files (.csv files)
• Maildir (qmail)
• Maildir++ (Courier IMAP)
• Variations of the RFC-2822 mbox mailboxes that are directly usable by:

• Mac OS X Mail (aka “Mail.app”)
• Eudora
• Mozilla (including Netscape and Thunderbird)

It can clean, repair and condense mailboxes and prepare them for archiving or entry into a stand-alone database. It costs USD 25 for a single user and is available from the developer’s website .mailboxes, conversion, mbox, old email clients, Eudora, thunderbird, mail.app, apple mail, Claris Emailer, outlook express, emailSimilar Posts:

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1. Use ABFiller, an app that extracts contact information from your PST file.

2. Buy the Outlook2Mac program for USD 10.00. This costs money but it is also the easy way, although it only works with Outlook. Run the program on your PC and it painlessly converts your contacts, emails and calendar appointments into a format that Macs can understand. Transfer the files and import them into Apple Mail, Address Book and iCal. You’re done.

3. Or you can do it manually. Address Book can import data in CSV, vCard, LDIP or tab-separated formats.

In Outlook (at least in Outlook 2003), open your contact list, and select all the names. Then you have two options:

(i) Email them by clicking the “Forward as vCard” option from Outlook’s Actions menu. Each one will become an attachment in an email that you can then download in Apple Mail after emailing it to yourself. You then drop the attachments onto Address Book to import them.

(ii) Export them as vCards by Selecting the “Save as” option from the File menu. Choose the vCard format and save them to a memory stick or burn them to a CD. Then mount the mem stick or CD on your Mac and drag and drop the vCards onto the Address Book icon in your dock. Or open Address Book (in the Applications folder). Choose File > Import > vCards. Select the addresses you?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢re importing and click Open.

For Outlook Express, Apple outlines one way to do it. Select all your contacts (Tools > Address Book, then select all the names you want to transfer) in Outlook Express and drag them into a folder or burn them onto a CD. Transfer the folder to a memory stick or take the CD and mount it on your Mac. Drag the vCards created by the export from Outlook Express onto Address Book. Or open Address Book (in the Applications folder). Choose File > Import > vCards. Select the addresses you?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢re importing and click Open.switching, outlook, outlook express, contacts, address book, tips, mail.app, apple mail, vcards, CSV, outlook2macSimilar Posts:

• Export Address Book 1.3: vCards, Groups support
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There are a number of ways to get your emails over from a PC to a Mac (e.g. doing “The IMAP Shuffle” or using a program like Outlook2Mac), but you can also do it using an open source utility called DbxConv. Here’s how:

1. Download DbxConv and unzip it into a new folder on your PC’s c: drive (e.g. c:\emails).

2. Locate all your Outlook Express mailboxes (search for *.dbx in Windows Explorer) and copy them over into the same folder (e.g. c:\emails). If you use Outlook, you could try importing all the mail in your .pst file into Outlook Express first and then copying the .dbx files into the folder after that.

3. Open a DOS prompt window (Start Menu > Programs > Accessories > DOS Prompt) or click on Run in the Start Menu, type in cmd and press enter.

4. Navigate to the folder you created (e.g. c:\emails).

5. Type:

6. All your .dbx files will be converted into .mbx format.

7. Transfer all the resulting files over to your Mac and put them in a folder (maybe on your Desktop).

8. Open Mail and select “Import Mailboxes” from the File menu. Select “Other”, then check the “Mailboxes (mbox format)” and tell Mail where you saved the transferred files.

9. Voila! All done.

UPDATE: Or you could try this method using Mozilla to convert Outlook’s *.pst files.importing email, dbx, outlook, outlook express, mail.app, apple mail, mailboxes, dbxconv, switchingSimilar Posts:

• Importing Contacts from Outlook or Outlook Express
• From Outlook to Mail.app with libpst
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