How do I import my Outlook .pst files into Evolution?

(Last modified: 17OCT2003)

issue

As my previous email client, I used Microsoft Outlook. How can I import my old email and contacts from Outlook?

fix

Evolution cannot import these files directly into Evolution because the 

.pst
format is a proprietary format, and access to it requires the use of the 
MAPI.DLL
library, which can only be read by applications running in Windows. However, there are two applications that can convert the files for you: Outport and Mozilla. You will be running these applications under Windows and we cannot guarantee that they will work, nor can we support them. You can also export address information to CSV format and then convert it to a format that Evolution understands.

To Use Outport: Visit http://outport.sourceforge.net and download the Outport application. From Windows, install and run the application according to the instructions on the web page. You will need to know the location of your Outlook .pst files. Remeber where you place the exported files. They should be somewhere you can access them from your Linux or UNIX system. From your Linux or UNIX system, run Evolution and import the files by selecting File-->Import.

Note: It may help to have Outlook running while using Outport.

To Import Mail with Mozilla: Install and run Mozilla for Windows (See mozilla.org for more information). Start the mailer and open the import tool by selecting File-->Import. Select "Import Mail from Outlook." If you cannot mount your Windows partition under Linux or UNIX, copy the Mozilla mail files to a directory you can access. From Linux or UNIX, run Evolution and start the import tool by running File-->Import.

Note: If you are the only user on Windows, the Mozilla mail files will be stored in 

C:\Application Data\Mozilla\Profiles\default\XXXX\Mail\imported.mail\
. 
XXXX
will be some collection of numbers and letters ending in 
.slt
. If there is more than one user, the file will be in 
C:\Profiles\
USERNAME 
\XXXX\Mail\imported.mail\
where USERNAME is your Windows username and XXXX is some collection of numbers and letters ending in 
.slt

For each mail folder in Outlook, Mozilla will convert the folder into one mbox file. To import all your mail, import all the files without a 

.msf
extension.

To Import Contacts:

First, you will need to use Outlook to export all of your contact to a 

.csv
file. To do this:

Click on 
File --> Import and Export..
.. Choose "Export to a file" and click [Next]. For the file type choose "Comma Separated Values (DOS)". Click [Next]. For the folder to export choose "Contacts". Name the exported file 
contacts.csv
(no quotation marks) and place it somewhere you can get to it from Linux or UNIX. Click [Next]. Click [Finish].

From your Linux/UNIX system, you will then need to convert 

contacts.csv
into files that Evolution can understand by you running it through the Perl script 
csv2vcard.pl
. The program is normally installed with Evolution, but if you don't have it, you can download it from the bottom of this page. Put it in your home directory and make the it executable by running the command: 
chmod +x ~/csv2vcard.pl

Then, run the script to convert your 

contacts.csv
to 
contacts.vcf
. Use the command: 
csv2vcard.pl contacts.csv contacts.vcf

Note: If you did not have csv2vcard installed with Evolution, and downloaded it instead, the command will be 

./csv2vcard contacts.csv contacts.vcf

Once you have 

contacts.vcf
, you can import it into Evolution:

Run Evolution Click File --> Import. Click [Next]. Click on "Import from a single file" Click [Next] again. For file type choose "VCard...". Click [Browse] and select your file. Click [Next] then [Import].

To download Mozilla for Windows, visit mozilla.org or download.com.

Document Title: How do I import my Outlook .pst files into Evolution?
Document ID: ximian59
Creation Date: 17OCT2003
Modified Date: 17OCT2003
Novell Product Class: Evolution
Novell Product and Version:

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