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How do I move my Outlook Express folders to my new machine?

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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.

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.

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.

"There are several approaches, naturally... "

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.

Article C2130 - July 18, 2004

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Recent Comments
235 Comments

I printed off the instructions, followed them to the letter and all went perfectly!
TYVM.

Posted by: Ian Roberts at March 3, 2010 10:37 AM

how do you unmark them from being read only?

Posted by: paul mccullough at March 4, 2010 8:54 PM

computer crashed,i now have a new one and am trying to find my outlook express for gm.

Posted by: gail michalek at March 8, 2010 1:20 PM

I have my old HD in a external unit attached to my new computer by a USB.
Having searched through the 24 pages of posted solutions to my problem of retrieving my old outlook express folders, it is now my belief that retrieving OE Message Folders from my old HD is a myth.
I have searched for folders.dbx and .dbx, with the result of no such files exist.
Do I sound frustrated?

Posted by: kal commodore at March 12, 2010 10:07 AM

Is there a way to move or export folders from my Yahoo email account to another account?

Posted by: Daniel Garst at March 15, 2010 11:09 AM

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