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Summary: Moving Microsoft Outlook mail from one machine to another involves copying a single file once the new copy of Outlook has been set up.
I've done this countless times back when I was using Microsoft Outlook. My approach turns out to be extremely easy, though the steps may not be quite as obvious as you might hope. • This technique assumes you have two machines. One I'll call it the "old" machine, that has Microsoft Outlook up and running and on which you currently receive email. The other that you're setting up I'll call the "new" machine. Your plan is to move your email and your email access from your old machine to your new one. Almost everything you need to copy is in a single file, your "PST" or "Personal Store". Step 1: Install Outlook on your new machine. Set it up as completely as you can, including email account definitions, but don't download any email. Not yet. Step 2: Determine the location of the new PST file on the new machine. Where is my Outlook "PST" file located? will show you how. Step 3: Determine the location of the old PST on the old machine. This is the PST file that contains all of your current email, contacts, and calendar. "Almost everything you need to copy is in a single file,
your 'PST' or 'Personal Store'."
Step 4: Save your rules to a file if you use Inbox Rules. Step 5: Shut down Outlook on both old and new machines. Step 6: Copy the old PST from the old machine to the new, replacing the new PST on the new machine. If required, rename the PST in the process to match the name of the PST on the new machine. (Typically copying is done via a network connection, but burning your PST to a CD or DVD is also quite common and a good way to create a backup of the file at the same time. Be sure to reset the read-only attribute when you copy the file to your new machine.) Also copy the file containing your Inbox Rules if you created one earlier. Step 7: Fire up Outlook on your new machine. It should come up with your email, contacts, and calendar, all transferred from the old one. Step 8: Finish configuring Outlook on the new machine. Particularly if you have Inbox Rules, this would be the time to import them and make sure they're working properly. Step 9: Never use the Outlook on the old machine again. Doing so might cause some email to be downloaded into that old PST and if you're using your new machine to download email that's not where you want it. There's no simple way to transfer just "some" of the email from one machine to another. It's possible, but the steps are definitely more involved. Related:
Article 11906 | Posted October 14, 2007 |
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After reading all of the Microsoft Outlook articles, there is still one task I would like to do and I cannot find any reference to it: My wife and I have separate computers with "almost identical" contact lists. She would like me to make them absolutely identical. Is there any way to synchronize our contact lists so that I only have to maintain one list (I sometimes forget to update both). Thanks for the help.
Posted by: Richard Phariss at October 20, 2007 6:47 AM-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
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I'm not aware of any way to do that in an automated fashion.
Sorry.
Leo
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Posted by: Leo A. Notenboom at October 22, 2007 11:07 AMrIpqhGvcj/nsyoeZ2qlFwzM=
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Thanks! This was very helpful. It worked beautifully, and was easy to understand.
Posted by: Mike at January 28, 2008 11:56 PMWhen you copy the .pst file to tne new computer it sounds like the contacts and calendar, etc all come over. Is there any way to copy only the email? I have already cleaned up the contacts and calendar on the new computer and just need the email. Thanks
Posted by: David Armendariz at March 30, 2008 7:15 AMHow do you create a brand new default PST File
I have a corruped PST file. It opens and I can send mail, but it crashes every once in a while.
I cannot back it up unless I am in safe mode (it will not let me change it as my default mail...)
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
For Richard Phariss question regarding address book sync.... Yahoo Sync has a great option to keep address books updated. It works great. I have my work pc and home pc always synced, with all the address. change anyone computer and it syncs. then i use Yahoo go on my BB and have the into there also. always up to date.
Posted by: Scott Stilley at April 18, 2008 11:37 AMwe have several computers with the same email address and of course, the "Leave a copy of messages on the server" is checked.The main computer is set to have them removed from the server after 10 days. I am trying to move all of my email from one computer to another. i have set up the new computer with the same address and it has already downloaded the email that the server was holding. Should i delete all of the email from the new computer before i transfer the mail from the old one? Is there a setting that i should be aware of before I transfer so that it does not reload and duplicate the newly transferred mail? i would like to use the "old" machine again for email and using the same email address, is it possible?
thank you for your time...
Posted by: Theresa at April 29, 2008 12:08 PMLeo - your instructions are very helpful... but I still can't access some of my email. Here's my situation:
I had to temporarily set up my email account on a second PC. When I did so, all of the messages in my Inbox moved over to the second PC. Now that I've got Outlook up and running again on my original PC, I'd like to move the original Inbox messages back to the original PC.
I've created a .pst (off of the 2nd PC) and saved it in the same folder as my other .pst on the original PC. How do I get Outlook to reflect the files in that .pst? Note that because this email account is enabled on both PCs, I'm currently receiving messages on both, but I can't get the old messages (from my Inbox) to move back to the original... and until I do, I'm hesitant to remove the account from the second PC.
Thank you for your help! Your directions on creating and moving psts were great.
Posted by: Lisa at June 19, 2008 1:48 PMI have already used Outlook for a week. How can I move the stuff from my old computer without losing the messages on the new computer?
Posted by: Jim Stiber at September 10, 2008 7:02 AMLeo:
I was using Outlook 2003 and have upgraded to Office 2007 PRO. I exported my messages and contacts from my personal folders in my OUTLOOK 2003 to a PST file. I deinstalled Outlook 2003 then completed the installation of Office 2007 with Outlook 2007.
I wanted to create a personal folder in Outlook 2007 - NOT - load all of my personal messages onto my company Exchange server.
It appears that I did just that.
So I know I can delete the folders that were imported easily enough, but before doing so I want to import the old Outlook2003.PST into Outlook Express but can't seem to find an option in the IMPORT utility to allow me to choose the old PST file I had exported earlier.
What am I doing wrong?
Posted by: Jerry Calio at October 21, 2008 6:27 PMif I am using isp. I don't have exchange server to access the outlook mail then how will i get my address book.
Posted by: kamlesh at November 7, 2008 3:40 AM