How can I convert Mac Outlook 2001 PST files to Windows Outlook 2003 PST files?

October 10, 2006 9:48 AM

Is there a way to convert a .PST file created by Outlook 2001 for the Mac into a .PST file that can be read by Outlook 2003 on the PC?

Our company's e-mail is run on Exchange. Our marketing department uses mostly Macs. Up until now, we've been using Outlook 2001 in Classic mode. The new Intel Macs won't run Classic applications though.

So, I have some options. I can migrate the department to Entourage, or we can run the Windows version of Outlook using Parallels or some other option that I don't know about that you all can tell me about.

Entourage is Microsoft's recommended upgrade path, but it doesn't really work for us. The mail server admin doesn't want to enable a few critical services. As a result, we can't send mail. Also, I'd need a way to get access to 6+ years of past e-mail archives. I've tried Microsoft's PST import tool that is supposed to convert 2001 PST files into files that Entourage can use. In the past, it lost the full name of the senders in favor of the user name which I didn't like. Now, it's telling me that my 2001 PST files are corrupt or that they weren't created by Outlook 2001. Outlook 2001 still reads the files with no problem. Is there some way to repair them as far as PST Import is concerned?

Parallels seems to work (although it's sort of a resource hog, and I can't figure out how to do it over wireless. It connects to our network with no problem if I'm wired, but the router seems to get in the way if I'm using wireless -- despite the fact that the Mac can see the corporate network without a problem over wireless). However, I still need to find a way to get my archived e-mail into a format that works on Windows. Is there a tool out there that will do that? I'd hoped I could just copy the PST files over and it would work, but they seem to be different formats for some stupid reason.

As an aside, is it possible to use the same install of XP for both Parallels and Bootcamp? I suspect not, but it would be sweet if it was possible.

Or, is there a better method for using/archiving Exchange based e-mail on a Mac that won't run Classic?

posted by willnot to computers & internet (4 comments total)

Entourage 2004 supports PSTs. *But you gotta download all the updates from the www.microsoft.com/mac page. Export your PSTs out of Outlook 2001 in Classic, then pop them into Entourage.

Entourage with Exchange still doesn't work as well as Outlook 2001. Looks like marketing's gotta use OWA!
posted by k8t at 10:26 AM on October 10, 2006

Not sure if this would work as I haven't used Outlook 2001 on the Mac - but - could you create a new Outlook 2001 identity, and then import the archival pst files that you have into that identity? Then in Entourage, Import -> From Program -> Outlook 2001 and then choose the identity that's holding the archival messages?

If that doesn't work, I have had some luck with Paul Berkowitz's Export-Import Entourage scripts - see if they would work for your situation.

p.s. good luck!
posted by wearyaswater at 10:52 AM on October 10, 2006

I'll second the good luck; I recall having to export to thunderbird from outlook, then importing a dbox file from thunderbird to entourage.
posted by AllesKlar at 11:19 AM on October 10, 2006

OK - I seem to have sorted through this. The problem was that the PST files must have had some subtle corruption that Outlook 2001 was able to deal with, but other programs couldn't.

To resolve that, I created new PST files for each archive, and copied the mail messages from the old PST files into the new PST files. Outlook 2003 on the PC was then able to read the new PST files with no problems. For those trying to get the files into Entourage instead of into a PC version of Outlook, PST Import Tool from Microsoft can now read the PST files as well.

k8t - I was unable to find a way to directly import PST files into Entourage without first converting them. The software is fully up-to-date, so I'm not sure what you mean by Entourage now being able to read PST files directly. If you can give me a step by step breakdown of what needs to happen, I can try that.
posted by willnot at 3:37 PM on October 10, 2006