PC > Mac - Outlook --> Mail - conversion (also pop3 vs imap)

[masraum]

Folks, what's the best/easiest way to get mail from Outlook on a PC (.pst file) to Mail on a Mac?

I've seen that there are apps online that will convert. I'd rather not have to buy an app just for that. There's gotta be a way.

Maybe some third party that can import .pst and then export to .mbox or something like that.

Also, I'm still using pop3 on my personal email. I know that my wife's Macbook defaults to imap. I'm assuming mail can do pop3. Any reason to go with one over the other?

Thanks

[RANDY P]

Imap gets your email faster- push to inbox, almost instantaneously, and saves your email on a server so if your computer dies you're not SOL. POP requires setting an interval to check, it pulls email.

Looks like there's freeware to convert .pst to mbox out there.

[masraum]

Yeah, looks like Thunderbird isn't going to work. I guess I'll have to get a purpose built app for the conversion.

[RWebb]

you have all the mail in one big .pst file right?

I vaguely recall doing this (or maybe it was giving up on it) 15 years ago, but don't recall how I did it. Maybe I exported the file and then read it in again. I use Office on my machine, but not the cloud version.

[RWebb]

or...

Install Google Mail Migration for Outlook (GAMMO) from Google (free tool). And just run it. It is pretty straight forward. It will import all mails in your pst into your gmail account.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by RWebb

you have all the mail in one big .pst file right?

I vaguely recall doing this (or maybe it was giving up on it) 15 years ago, but don't recall how I did it. Maybe I exported the file and then read it in again. I use Office on my machine, but not the cloud version.

Two files, but yes.

Originally Posted by RWebb

or...

Install Google Mail Migration for Outlook (GAMMO) from Google (free tool). And just run it. It is pretty straight forward. It will import all mails in your pst into your gmail account.

But I want to migrate to Mac Mail, not gmail.

I bought PST Converter Pro Apped, $29. It converted the .pst files to .mbox files in seconds. Those then imported right into Mail.

I haven't bothered checking into the pop3 setup in Mail yet, but I probably will.

[masraum]

They (Apple Mail) make it a real beyotch to manually setup a mail account!