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by Kevin Altis.
Original Post: Moving Outlook data to Mac OS X
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Last September I bought a 15-inch PowerBook and started working with both Windows 2000 and Mac OS X day-to-day. On Windows, I still use Outlook 2000, mostly due to sloth, but slowly and surely I'm moving most of my daily computer activities to the Mac. The most difficult transition besides all the PC programs that of course don't run on the Mac - more on that later - are email and contacts. Somehow I needed a simple and reliable way to move half a gigabyte of mail, notes, contacts, etc. So, I looked at what Outlook could export and the Mac apps could import. I did some searches to find out what Apple and Mac enthusiasts recommended. I thought this would be a top question of the Apple Switch program, but apparently somebody forgot to cover that part about switching contacts and email. Note to Apple, most people at home don't use Exchange server.
After chasing down various Google threads I finally took a chance on a program called Outlook2Mac made by Little Machines. Here's a partial feature list:
Exports Your PC's Microsoft Outlook Email, Email Attachments, Contacts, and Calendar Appointments to Portable Macintosh-Compatible Files You Can Import Into Apple Mail, Address Book, iCal, Microsoft Entourage, and Other Third-Party Programs
Compatible with Microsoft Outlook 97, 98, 2000, and 2002
Creates Industry-Standard mbox, vcf (vCard), and ics (iCal) FormatsEasy-to-Use Wizard Lets You Choose Folders to Export, Export Options and Filters, and More
Attachments Can Be Saved into Emails, Separately as Detached Files, or Stripped Out Entirely
Preserves Disk Space — Attachments Can Be Filtered Out by File Type and/or Size
Performs Incremental Exports — Specify a Date Range of Emails or Calendar Items to Export
Details of Each Export Are Clearly Captured to Log File
Compatible with Stand-Alone PCs or PCs Using Microsoft Exchange Server
You can download a trial version and export a few emails and contacts to see how it works, but the program only costs $10 so I went ahead and bought it. It did a fantastic job, so all I had to do was move the exported vCard and mbox files over to the Mac, which I did in one big zip file, and then I was able to import the data into the Address Book and Mail apps. Outlook2Mac worked like a champ and now even more of my daily life is spent on the PowerBook.
In short, Apple should just license Outlook2Mac and make it available as a free download to PC users as part of their Switch campaign.
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