Well I can safely say I have broke the record for the amount of time spent copying email between computers! So far, 15 hours and counting. Thats right, 15! Why? Well partly because the guy I am doing it for has literally thousands of emails dating back to 1999 (there all over the place, fortunatly organized, but to a point where there are so many folders!), and partly because Entourage is crap.

Entourage, if your not familiar with, is the Email client that comes with Mac versions of Microsoft Office Packages, something I have never understood! I think it falls so short on the mark compared to Microsoft’s Outlook, and I would personally use Outlook on the Mac as I have an Exchange account setup with my work.

The whole reason behind this transfer was because the company I work for had just installed a Server and as a result all the users were put onto Exchange Email. Previously, Email had been coming in using POP3, so there was no possibility of downloading all the email straight onto the Exchange. I located the Email from Entourage which Microsoft store in a folder called ‘Microsoft User Data’ within the User Documents folder. In here each folder is stored in a .mbox file, which suprise suprise Outlook doesn’t like.

Next I searched for a method of transferring .mbox into a format that Outlook would take kindly, but it soon became apparent that I was fighting a lost cause! So I decided I would enable IMAP (Entourage 2001 doesn’t allow Exchange accounts) on the Exchange account and setup the new email address straight into Entourage at which point I would begin transferring files straight over, simple right? Not exactly! It wouldn’t allow me to drag the folders from the POP account into the IMAP one, meaning I had to do create each folder and copy its content manually. Here are my steps that I took to ensure mail was properly transferred from a POP account in Entourage 2001 to an Exchange Account in Outlook:

• First, enable IMAP on the server Exchange Account
• Next, Add the IMAP account into Entourage as an additional Mailbox
• Under the IMAP account folder list, right click and add relevant Folders and Subfolders, as it looks in the POP account (for example, if the POP account has folders ‘Work’ and ‘Personal’, then these will need to be created in the IMAP account)
• Select one folder at a time, highlight all the emails within that folder and drag onto the same folder in the IMAP account, this was very sluggish for me, especially folders with several thousand emails in.

This method is very time consuming and possibly not the most efficient way to get the mail transferred but it was the only way I could assure the whole of the mail content would move across in tact. If anyone knows of an easier method I would love to know! Till then we have to deal with the fact that Entourage is not friendly to Outlook even though they are both Microsoft! Daft I know!