Import/Export - The unofficial Mail for Mac OS X FAQ

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Import/Export - The unofficial Mail for Mac OS X FAQ

Quick Tips

Tip #1 Importing Mail - Go to http://asu.info.apple.com and search for Mail Import Script, then download it. You will see import scripts For Entourage, Outlook Express, Emailer, Netscape and Eudora. This imported my Outlook Express messages (in three batches), all 1,000 of my saved e-mails!! I had to break it up as the scripts has a limit of how many messages? I am not sure. It could of been a few questionable messages.

I backed up my OE data, then ran the script and let it import what it could. I then deleted the mailboxes which did import (minus the last mailbox it stopped importing on). Empty the Deleted Items and went for batch two. Now all of my saved mail is in Mail.

This AppleScript works like a charm! Everything imported coreectly as it should. There are Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X scripts.

Tip #2 Quickly Save - If you want to save your Mail message into a file for later viewing or editing. Select Save As... from the File menu. The default is to save it as a TextEdit RTF document (preserves most formatting options). Macintosh, NeXT and Windows computers can read RTF.

If you want it in a text file, save the message in the step above, Then in TextEdit, perform another Save As... (from the File menu) and you will be given an option to save it as Text. Any comptuer system can read the Text format.

You can select multiple messages and perform the Save As... from the File menu. This will save all selected messages into one file.

Import / Export Q&A

Q. How can I import my addresses from Entourage into OSX address book?

A. I exported a text file from Entourage, modified it a bit to line up better with Address book, and then imported it to Address Book. If you only have names and email addresses, that just works, no prep required.

Import Script with Emailer Tips

Deleted Mail - If you happen to have 3000 messages in your deleted mail folder, they will be imported into a "deleted mail" mailbox. If you wanted to keep them., that's great, but be aware... If you use the Empty Deleted Items command, they will all be gone.

Dates - It can't handle dates in dd/mm/yy format. It swaps month and day and makes any illegal dates today. So my mail from 25/12/1998 shows up as today's mail. The workaround is to use the classic "date & time" control panel to change classic's format to US. OS X's date format is irrelevant.

Attachments - One wonderful thing about Mail is that it stores attachments in the mail items. The import script doesn't do that, but it does something I am in two minds about: it makes a copy of each attachment and puts all attachments in a single "attachments" folder. That means the thousands of attachments I have carefully filed over the years (using emailer) are now all in one folder.

Sent Mail - I store my sent mail in the folder with received mail it belongs to, eg each customer. While I was trying to get the importer to work, I found it couldn't import sent mail in a folder. When I moved all sent mail to the "Sent Mail" folder or the outbox, it worked.

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