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Transferring Your Outlook and Quickbooks Data to Mac OS X?
rollthelosindice asks: "I recently picked up the new 1GHZ eMac with Superdrive with the intentions of it being purely a video editing machine, but of course I changed my mind once I started using it, and wanted to import my email over from Outlook and my business accounting over from Quickbooks, however Apple's Mail can't import form Outlook, only Outlook Express. The same goes for Quickbooks, where they can only migrate over Quicken. I've tried all sorts of importing and exporting to/from different file formats (CSV, etc) to try and make it work, but there seems to be no solution other than running both machines right next to one another. I even tried VNC for a few days, but that got frustrating. Has anyone come up with a successful work around for these importing short falls? I'm sure there are others like me in this or a similar situation."
I was going to load up Outlook Express and use that to convert everything to OE format and then use my new Mac to then transfer it all over. Seems kind of overly complicated, but whatever works! Note: I have't tried it yet, but I can't see it not working.
Totally Life!
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Best read in good ol' Monaco 9 point.
I've been suggesting this for years, and have done it several times myself.
:)
Export from Outlook/Outlook Express into Eudora, and from Eudora into Mail.
I used Eudora for a looong time exactly because it was cross compatible across platforms and versions. My mailboxes from 1996 are still readable in Eudora in 2003
But Mail is just too darned convenient, so I switched last year; same with Mozilla/Safari.
GPL Deconstructed
For the Outlook side of your problem you might want to consider Outlook2Mac by Little Machines. I used this app to successfully get my cousin to switch over... The time is saved me was well worth the $10.
Try libdbx from :
libdbx on freshmeat. It includes a utilty that will convert from Outlook to mbox. Then import it in your mac... works fine for me...
MLT - simple and robust open source multimedia framework for Linux
Import your mail from Outlook into Mozilla for Windows. Mozilla stores all email in the mbox format, which is easily imported into Apple Mail. You obviously still need to transfer the files to your Mac, but that should be easy. Look for the mbox files in C:\Documents and Settings\user\Application Data\Mozilla\Profiles\default\some weird string\Mail.
If you want to spend money, try Outlook2Mac (http://www.littlemachines.com/).
I switched last year, and moving from Quicken '99 on Windows to Quicken '03 on OS X was the most painful part of the process.
Now given, you asked about Quickbooks, not Quicken, but based on my experience, you'll have to jump through some hoops to get there. I had to export my Quicken data to QIF, in the process losing my loans, memorized transactions, scheduled transactions and some other minor stuff. Then I imported this file into Quicken Mac and had to go back and fix everything.
QIF isn't Quicken's native file format. It's simply for transactions. One would think that after a decade of Quicken, Intuit's Windows and Mac engineering teams would share as much code as possible, but it just doesn't seem that way to me.
Quicken Mac '03 itself is an awful product. It lags the Windows '99 product feature-wise, lacks polish and has many bugs. Most of them are of the irritating UI variety, but I've had it crash on me several times and it can't seem to keep track of my home loan without getting the balance out of whack.
Unfortunately, momentum is keeping me with Quicken for now. I'm hoping that '04 is a big step forward. Otherwise I may look at switching to something else, like Moneydance.
Can Quickbooks export a QIF or OFX file? If so, you might want to look at GnuCash for your finance package. It takes a bit of work to get all the dependent packages taken care of, but using fink, or fink + FinkCommander, it's not too bad. I ended up not using the QIF import, though, and just started cold-turkey, inputting data into GnuCash. Worked fine for me.
I can't say much for MoneyDance, the other main financial package option.
I had the same problem the other day .. just got my girld friend to switch to an ibook and also got a old G3 myself :)
:-p pocket mac isnt too good (and costs $$$) and synce isnt done yet. Sigh i guess it is missing sync then
we both used outlook. The way i got her mail over to eonturage was by copying it to imap folders.
now theonly problem is how to get the calendar data and contacts (using csv was a pain)
also anyone know a good way to sync a pocket pc
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/19817
http://www.quickbooks.com/support/index/win2mac/ma nual_download.html
Try this...
It is of course a piece of lame commercialism that make M$ choose to make Exchange and IMAP connectivity mutually exclusive in Outlook.
Regards... Greg
If your ISP or job *ahem* doesn't provide you with access to an IMAP server, then you can use Fink to install a copy of UW-IMAPD, and just run that on localhost or somewhere on your home network -- sudo fink -y install uw-imapd
If you had other questions, I'm sure some sysadmin at work *ahem* would be willing to answer any questions... :-)
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
Gosh, that seems like so much trouble. Why do you need to keep all that email anyway? Is it really that important?
If you really what to keep it safe, I suggest printing it out and renting a security deposit box at your local bank.
There's a nifty lil' shareware Java app out there called Emailchemy that's practically a Rosetta-stone of email data. It's not free, but it works quite well [and is cross platform].
http://www.weirdkid.com/products/emailchemy/
For QuickBooks data, why not just use QuickBooks? There is a Mac OS X native version.
http://www.intuit.com
Oh - man, after about 6 months out of being telephone support for apple I am forgetting everything... but, I do remember this little script inside the scripts folder (you mighs search for scripts in the nifty finder) there is a applescript that will parse through your outlook address book and perhaps (memory fails me) it does the mail too? Again, its been a while.. but you should have some luck looking into that script, maybe you can edit the script to do what you want it to do? Hope that helps... maybe applecare support can help you, but they will probably tell you to go FYS, but then again I helped someone do it once. I am pretty sure this was 10.2/jaguar only thingy...
Convert your email account to IMAP vs POP3. That way all the content sits on the server. Then access the account from Mail. All will be downloaded to the Mac. Convert back to POP3.
As far as contacts, drag them out of outlook into a folder. This will create VCF files. They can be burned to CD and dragged right into Address Book on the Mac. Do not try to Export the contacts because this will create one large text file only readable by M$ clients. You want a bunch of little VCF cards, instead.
Very simple solution that you would have found out in a heartbeat had you called Tech support or even browsed he K base @ Apple.com
Done
You're screwed.....Intuit wants you to pay for the change or if you want you can do it yourself through a copy of 2003 for windoze....but you'll have to buy that if you don't already have it...which you probably don't since you bought the Mac version instead.....
/ in dex.html
http://www.quickbooks.com/support/index/win2mac
Go MYOB. I love it. Much better and all the conversion from QB to Account edge Pro is done for you. You even get a copy for windoze or Mac free for your accountant.
www.myob.com
Before fussing with importing QuickBooks accounting data into the Quicken personal checkbook product, I would buy a copy of QuickBooks for OS X (Click the "Products" tab and then "Pro 5.0 for Mac" on the left side).
.Mac and then you can access the mail from any computer and where, via IMAP or the Website.
As for importing mail, the best thing to do is use an IMAP (not POP) mail solution, like
Buy Macs for the Karma
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
well maybe not, but its great that you posted this link. I had signed up to intuit's "we'll email you when we have this product" list, but funny, i didnt get the email.
Long ago, I transferred e-mail from a tired old Windows laptop to an OS 9 laptop via IMAP. This seemed to be a pretty universal solution, so it could work for you.
First get access to an IMAP e-mail account (if you don't have one already, you might be able to run an IMAP server on OS X). Then access the IMAP account from your Windows PC. Create appropriate folders within the IMAP account using your Windows mail client (I'm pretty sure Outlook can do this). Then drag messages into those folders. Outlook should copy the messages over to the IMAP server. Then connect to the IMAP server using Apple Mail, and transfer all the messages onto your eMac.
This worked for me using a Windows 3.1-era e-mail client from Microsoft (I think it was Mail and News or something like that), and Outlook Express on the Mac. I haven't tried it with Outlook and Apple Mail, but "in principle it should work." It's pretty bandwidth-hungry if you have a lot of messages, though.
Here's another method I think I used once: First, I dragged messages out of Outlook (or something similar) into folders on the Windows Desktop. In my case, the e-mail program created plain text versions of all the messages. Then I transferred them to the Mac, changed the creator type to match Outlook Express and dragged them into Outlook Express (which accepted them quite happily). Somewhere in there, I think I ran an Applescript to add a "Received" date header in the plain text files, since Outlook Express uses that instead of the "Sent" date. I got lucky in making this work, so it may not work for you, but it's worth a try. You may also be able to import plain-text messages straight into Mail.
Good luck!
I'm still waiting for M$ to release their update to entourage, which is supposed to handle the Exchange/Outlook thing. In the meantime, I've had some luck with Outport ( http://outport.sourceforge.net/ ) for moving calendar information around. There are a couple of things I found I had to clean up for iCal to take the calendar from Evolution to iCal, but that's the beauty of OSX. Perl is right there for you.
I dont know if you just want to transfer your email from outlook but if you want to transfer your contacts there is a program the can help you that I used. It's called outpod and is made for exporting contacts to the iPod. But it can also be used to export contacts to the adressbook.
You can get it at http://www.stoer.de/ipod/ipod.htm
Good Luck.
A while ago, I found out a way to try out different mailers without having to migrate my mails:
I have an IMAP server running on my system. Its inboxes are being filled using perl scripts that get the mails from my POP3-accounts, sorting spam, mailing lists, etc. via POPFile.
Just took me an evening to set up, and now I can use any IMAP compatible mailer I desire. (As a bonus, I get complete access to all my mails from both my dektop and laptop.)
MissingSync looks promising. Due out soon.
I have also read the reviews of PocketMac and am disappointed and frustrated that it seems to be expensive and worthless at the same time. The concept of Missing Sync is different and appears to be more Mac orientated. let's hope it works.
I'm on a whisky diet. I've lost three days already.
Quicken for OSX is pathetic at best.
It is years behind the windows version and if you have been using the windows version for a while you will have to start from scratch when you run the mac version. Also there is a good chance that your financial company may not support the macintosh version.
I am currently running the windows version on vpc, slow but it works.
Here is a quick how-to for those of you that need to bring over e-mail from a Windows PC running Outlook to Mail.app on Mac OS X.
m l and extract it to a temp folder
.dbx files that contain your e-mail (should be same name as folder in Outlook Express) to the temp directory with DbxConv in it
.mbx, rename these to .mbox
.mbox files to your Mac.
t ent-Type::
I have only tried this with the source mailbox being Outlook 2002 SP2, with Outlook Express 6 (build 2800) being used in the conversion process (on Windows 2000 Pro SP3), and the target being Mail 1.2.5 on the Mac (10.2.5). It will most likely work on older/newer versions, so try it out.
Steps on Windows PC:
--------------------
1. Open Outlook Express, click File on the menu bar, select Import, choose Messages.
2. Select Microsoft Outlook from the list, click Next
3. Choose the Outlook profile you wish to import from, click OK.
4. Verify the import worked, then close Outlook Express
5. Download a free tool called DbxConv from:
http://people.freenet.de/ukrebs/dbxconv.ht
6. Open Windows explorer and browse to:
C:\Documents and Settings\\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\\Microsoft\Outlook Express\ and copy the
7. Open a command prompt, change to your temp directory, and type: dbxconv *.dbx
8. The resulting files will be
9. Transfer these
Steps on Mac PC:
----------------
1. Launch Mail, create your folder structure to match Outlook if you want
2. Click File on the menu bar, select Import Mailboxes
3. Choose Standard mbox files, click the next arrow
4. Browse to the location of the mbox files, click Choose, the mailboxes should be selected
5. A folder will appear in Mail called Imported Messages (expand this), drag the e-mail from these folders to your desired folders in Mail.
Notes
-----
This method will bring over the e-mail messages with attachments, and only these headers:
From:
Date:
To:
Subject:
Mime-Version:
Con
Content-Transfer-Encoding:
X-Priority
X-Msmail-Priority:
X-Mimeole:
This should be acceptable for most people, as I figured e-mail that you are importing usually would be considered old or 'archived' e-mail where only the content is important.
My own system uses a separate Linux box running sendmail to download the mail, then a separate imap daemon to allow access to the mailboxes, but I don't think that you will need to have the sendmail part for your purposes. I'd suggest just setting up the IMAP part, and using Mail or Outlook to do the mail download from your existing server, then just file the messages on the IMAP machine, using it purely as storage. Since both mail clients can support multiple servers you shouldn't have a problem doing this. This should allow you to migrate from Outlook by setting up the new folders on the server and just copying the files over from the local Windows folders - i.e. Outlook will do the conversion for you.
IMAP is available for the Mac - I don't use the Mac version myself, but I think you'll have to install it from Fink as I don't think it's part of the standard Mac distribution.
On the financial side, I use GnuCash but don't have enough experience to recommend it. It will import QIF. A major consideration is that most banks will not allow download to anything other than IE on Windows.
Here is a quick how-to for those of you that need to bring over e-mail from a Windows PC running Outlook to Mail on Mac OS X.
m l and extract it to a temp folder
.dbx files that contain your e-mail (should be same name as folder in Outlook Express) to the temp directory with DbxConv in it
.mbx, rename these to .mbox
.mbox files to your Mac.
t ent-Type::
I have only tried this with the source mailbox being Outlook 2002 SP2, with Outlook Express 6 (build 2800) being used in the conversion process (on Windows 2000 Pro SP3), and the target being Mail 1.2.5 on the Mac (10.2.5). It will most likely work on older & newer versions, so try it out.
Steps on Windows PC:
--------------------
1. Open Outlook Express, click File on the menu bar, select Import, choose Messages.
2. Select Microsoft Outlook from the list, click Next
3. Choose the Outlook profile you wish to import from, click OK.
4. Verify the import worked, then close Outlook Express
5. Download a free tool called DbxConv from:
http://people.freenet.de/ukrebs/dbxconv.ht
6. Open Windows explorer and browse to:
C:\Documents and Settings\\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\\Microsoft\Outlook Express\ and copy the
7. Open a command prompt, change to your temp directory, and type: dbxconv *.dbx
8. The resulting files will be
9. Transfer these
Steps on Mac PC:
----------------
1. Launch Mail, create your folder structure to match Outlook if you want
2. Click File on the menu bar, select Import Mailboxes
3. Choose Standard mbox files, click the next arrow
4. Browse to the location of the mbox files, click Choose, the mailboxes should be selected
5. A folder will appear in Mail called Imported Messages (expand this), drag the e-mail from these folders to your desired folders in Mail.
Notes
-----
This method will bring over the e-mail messages with attachments, and only these headers:
From:
Date:
To:
Subject:
Mime-Version:
Con
Content-Transfer-Encoding:
X-Priority
X-Msmail-Priority:
X-Mimeole:
This should be acceptable for most people, as I figured e-mail that you are importing usually would be considered old or 'archived' e-mail where only the content is important.
These data files are nothing but formatted text files. Zip them up if you have to.
Dolemite
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Hey Baumi, Your solution sounds the best. Do you think you could contact me in regards to those perl scripts? Thanks, Roll