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Summary: Moving Outlook Express folders from one machine to another isn't obvious. Moving Outlook Express folders involves finding them, copying them, and importing them. And then there's the address book.
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How do I move my Outlook Express folders to my new machine? |
In particular, the person asking had just received a new Windows XP machine to replace her Windows 98 machine.
There are several approaches, naturally, but in a nutshell we'll locate the folders on the old machine, copy them to the new machine, and then import them.
And then we'll do something similar for the address book.
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On the old machine, the easiest way to locate Outlook Express' email store is to ask Outlook Express. Fire it up, and then in Tools, Options, on the Maintenance tab, there's a button labeled Store Folder. Click that and it will tell you the folder containing your email folder.
Copy the entire contents of that directory to a floppy, CD-ROM, or share on your network.
The address book we handle a little differently. Open up the address book either from the accessories menu item on your Start menu, or by pressing Ctrl+Shift+B in Outlook Express. In the address book, select File, Export, and click on Address Book (WAB).... You can now select a location and filename for your address book to be placed. Again, you can copy it to floppy, CD-ROM, or to a share on your network.
Fire up Outlook Express on the new machine, and we'll just reverse the process.
Select File, Import, Messages.... Choose Microsoft Outlook Express 6 and press Next. Select Import mail from an OE6 store directory and press Next. Now on the next screen, browse to the location that you've placed the message store we saved from your old machine. Import, and your messages should now be transferred.
Note: if you've copied your mail folders to a CD-R, you'll need to first copy them to your local hard disk, and then unmark them from being read-only before you import. OE will not open read-only folders.
The process for the address book is similar - even simpler. File, Import, Address Book..., select the address book we exported above, and import.
Finally, you'll want to configure your email accounts in Outlook Express to access your email account from your ISP.
Related:
Why can't I open this file? - The Most Common Reason for failures when copying mail folders from CD-R.
Can I import Outlook Express email into another instance of Outlook Express? It's simple to import Outlook Express email into another instance of Outlook Express.
How do Outlook and Outlook Express relate? Even though they share similar names and do similar things, Outlook and Outlook Express are actually not related to each other at all.
Article C2130 - July 18, 2004
With the purchase of a new computer it was a worry on how I could accomplish the moving of my e-mail information. After check many places I came across Leo's instructions and they were perfect. So easy to understand and complete. Now that is load off of my mine. Thanks Leo!
Posted by: Doug at April 22, 2009 7:09 AMhow do i merge local inbox with the imported inbox?
Posted by: Loise at April 28, 2009 4:31 AMHi Leo and thanks for your help. I have followed the instructions carefully to import the saved message store, and after selecting the store directory get the message **No Messages can be found in this folder or another application is running that has the required files open. Please select another folder or try closing applications that may have files open** The store file does contain data. I don't have any other applications open. Would appreciate your thoughts. Many Thanks
Posted by: Helen at April 28, 2009 6:25 AMHow do I burn INDIVIDUAL Local Folders from Outlook Express to a DVD/CD.None of the above seems to apply?
Regards, Bill.
Posted by: Bill HINTE at May 1, 2009 9:03 PMHow do I move Outlook Express messages from a WIN XP PC to Outlook on a Vista PC that does not have Outlook Express on it.
Posted by: Don Dennis at May 18, 2009 11:47 AMCould not get by the "No messages could be found in this folder..." error and found that no "READ ONLY" attributes were set on any Outlook files even thought the folder showed the "Read Only" green box (not green check) meaning only "some" files were read only... NONE WERE, but still the "No messages could be found..." error when trying to import across the network from the shared drive. I simply started from the new laptop, navigated to the old Outlook "store folder" across the network connection, did Edit/Select All, then Copy... copied them all. Determined the Outlook "store folder" on the new machine, as detailed above, then pasted into that "store folder" replying "YES TO ALL" for all of the "Do you want to replace" messages. Worked like a charm.
Posted by: AJ at May 23, 2009 1:32 PMI transferred the e-mails from Outlook Express on my old computer (XP) to my new computer (Vista). Before I move the Internet cable from my old computer to the new one, how can I be sure that the new computer will have all the transferred e-mails in folders, instead of all just in one big list (1000's of them). The individual e-mails are virtually useless to me if I can't access them by their folders. -- KH
Posted by: Kathy Hogan at June 5, 2009 6:35 PMAbsolutely superb advice. Thanks a million.
Posted by: Steve at June 20, 2009 1:59 AMHow do I retrieve my outlook express 6 folders off of my laptop that crashed, I am able to access incoming mail but the folders don't show up.
Posted by: Tony Siano at June 24, 2009 7:23 AMWill this work with Outlook?
01-Jul-2009
Posted by: Robert Simon at June 30, 2009 9:39 AM