Joe Tan at Tan Tan Noodles has written up a way to switch from Outlook to Mail.app using the open source utility, libpst , which was originally developed for Linux but runs fine on Mac OSX.

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.