Professional Guide to Import Mail from Outlook 2011 / 2016 to Thunderbird

 

Outlook provides a platform to users for emailing, contact management, appointment, task management and many other useful services. Being attracted by the services, many organizations use Outlook as their email clients. MAC Outlook stores the data contents in a nested form of database. It permits the user to export Outlook mailbox content in the form of OLM files. These archive files can only be accessed by MAC Outlook 2011/ 2016. The following section is aimed to provide a clear understanding of the issues associated with the Mac Outlook and methodology to carry out Outlook 2011 / 2016 to Thunderbird conversion.

Use Case 1: Outlook for Mac Stability Issues

 

Anybody else finding Mac Outlook 2016 is rather unstable in managing tasks? Aside from its graphical glitches, it starts crashing frequently while I am working with it. Each input is taking so long time to respond in the UI. My Outlook for Mac 2016 keeps getting the pinwheel of death that constantly needs a force quit. No any other office application has such issues or locks up. Please help!

Just like this user query, there are several Mac Outlook users who are facing the stability issues with Outlook 2011/ 2016. There may be a possibility in which users might not be able to use Outlook due to issues like Outlook shutdown, crash, file corruption etc. So, in such cases migrating to some other email client application is a feasible alternative left out for the users. In order to have a copy of Outlook emails, users export the Outlook mailboxes in an archive file. However, Windows supported email clients such as Thunderbird does not allow to open the Mac Outlook archive files. This is due to the platform and software differences between Mac Outlook and Mozilla Thunderbird. So, in order to view the Outlook for Mac emails on Thunderbird email client, one needs to Import Mail from Outlook 2011 / 2016 to Thunderbird. Apart from this Mozilla Thunderbird is an open source and multi-platform compatibility platform, that comprise all the qualities to meet user’s personal as well as professional requirements.

Steps to Export Mac Outlook 2011 / 2016 to Thunderbird

 

• First, create a dummy email account, which supports IMAP or you can use your IMAP Gmail account
• Now, setup/ configure that email account into your Outlook for Mac client
• Click on Inbox or any other folder of Mac Outlook account from which you would like to copy emails from.
• Select all emails via either clicking on Select All option from Edit drop-down menu, or by utilizing the shortcut key ‘Ctrl+A’
• Drag all the items into your Gmail Inbox or desired folder
• This will transfer/ upload everything to the Gmail server
  Note : This process will take some time and it depends upon the number and size of emails that are being moved.
• When the sync or email uploading is done, add the same email account to Mozilla Thunderbird
• Drag all Outlook folders inside the account folder into any local folder within Thunderbird
• After this, it will sync/ download everything from Gmail server to Thunderbird’s local database
• Now, you can access Outlook 2011/ 2016 emails from your Thunderbird client.

Use Case 2: Orphaned Outlook Mac Archive

Yesterday, while I was working with Mac Outlook, due to an abrupt power cut, my system gets shut down. After that, when I tried to access my archive email file of Mac Outlook, I found that it goes into the inaccessible state. Now, I know this file becomes orphaned because of the system crash. Can someone suggest me any technique to import orphaned Outlook Mac Archive to Thunderbird so that, I can avoid Mac Outlook issues in future?

If the hardware in which Outlook Mac is installed gets crashed or, the presence of bad sectors on the hard drive, make Outlook 2011/ 2016 emails orphaned. Also, if there are some issues with the controller card utilized can lead to inaccessibility of Mac archive file. Sometimes due to human-generated errors i.e., database deletion, wrong partitioning of storage elements, and improper organization of OS makes Outlook archive file orphan. After this, users cannot open or access the orphan Mac Outlook file as they will get an error message while opening Outlook emails. In such conditions, Outlook 2011/ 2016 email client users face difficulty with their Outlook mailbox account. Therefore, importing orphaned Mac Outlook file into an efficient email client like Mozilla Thunderbird is such a great idea. However, the question is how to move orphaned Outlook for Mac archive to Thunderbird? SysTools offers a smart technology to bulk export Outlook for Mac archives into Thunderbird.

Guidelines to Export Email from Outlook 2011/ 2016 Archive to Thunderbird

Step 1: Convert Mac Outlook Archive to MBOX

 

• Download and install SysTools Mac OLM Converter tool to begin the process
• Launch the software and click on ‘Add File/ Folder(s)’ button.

 

 

• Navigate to orphaned Mac Outlook archive file’s location and select the file/ folder
• After adding the file, it will be displayed on the Software user interface
• Hit Next button

 

 

• Now, select MBOX file format as the export option to Import Mail from Outlook 2011 / 2016 to Thunderbird.
  Apply filters:

1. Date filter: To filter out the resultant files as per the specific time period
2. Create files Per Folder: To create separate folders for multiple Mac Outlook archive files

 

 

• Hit Browse button to choose a final destination for exported files
• Click on Choose and select the location for the resultant files
• Selected destination path will be displayed by the software
• Hit Export button

 

 

• The software will show a progress report of the file conversion
• After some time, the export process will become completed successfully

• Navigate to the saved location of exported file

 

Step 2: Import Output File into Mac Thunderbird

 

• Open Mozilla Thunderbird application
• Click on Tools tab and select ImportExportTools option
• Select Import MBOX file from the appeared list of options
• MBOX Import wizard will open now. Click on Import button and select the resultant MBOX file

After this, you can simply access the orphaned Mac Outlook archives via Mozilla Thunderbird email client.

 

Concluding Lines

Importing Mail from Outlook 2011 / 2016 to Thunderbird is not a complex task anymore as this write up comprises a complete solution for the same. Here, we have disclosed different scenarios that can occur the requirements to switch from Mac Outlook to Mozilla Thunderbird. Now, users can pick and implement any solution technique according to their use case.