How to keep mac Outlook 2011 folder structure after reinstallation

March 7, 2016 2:53 PM

I will be reinstalling mac OSX Yosemite because of constant problems with it but I am looking to retain the folders that have been previosuly created to organise my mails. I am using Outlook 2011 as my mail client. Does using: File - Export - selecting outlook for mac data file (.olm), when imported back, retain the previous folder structure that I have used to organise my mails? If not could anyone suggest how I could keep the existing folder organisation? Many thanks!
posted by conrad101 to Computers & Internet (1 answer total)

Best answer: I use Outlook 2011 Mac at work and have about a gig of locally-stored mail (under the "On My Computer" grouping of my Outlook inbox. When transferring my local mail to a new computer I tried exporting to .olm and, after the incredible length of time it took to export, got some weird failures for a few folders. The helpful response I got from our support folks was ".olm export is hokey".

Rather than try to diagnose the issue all I did instead was to make a backup of the "Office 2011 Identities" folder within ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data. I copied that to an external drive, copied it back into the same folder (making sure no Office processes were running) after updating my OS and all messages/hierarchies transferred over just fine.
posted by homesickness at 3:15 PM on March 7, 2016