Moving from Outlook 2003 to Thunderbird

[Triassic]

As no doubt a few of you have read I've had a few computer issues of late but with the help of @Onoff I've managed to breath life back into my 15 year old Dell. 

 

My next task is to move from the Windows OS to LunuxMint and then reload Outlook 2003 (thanks to @JSHarris for his help here) and then  move my mail files from Outlook 2003 onto Thunderbird. I had a quick look at doing this yesterday and I don't think it's a straightforward task. In Outlook I've got years worth of mail filed under various folder headings and I'd like to preserve the file structure following the move. Has anyone done this and if so, how? 

 

 

Edited March 31, 2017 by Triassic

[Jeremy Harris]

I managed to transfer all my emails (several years worth) from Outlook to Thunderbird OK.  I can't remember exactly what I did, but there's some advice on the Mozilla site, here: https://support.mozilla.org/t5/Install-Migrate-and-Update/Switching-to-Thunderbird/ta-p/14582

[DeeJunFan]

Is your email account IMAP of POP?

 

If its IMAP all your folders should be backed up on the server.  

 

All depends though.  

[Roundtuit]

I moved email from four Outlook (express) accounts on an old pc, including folders and sub-folders, to Thuderbird on a new pc earlier this year with no problems.  As per JSH, I can't quite remember what I had to do, but I can tell you it was all done by following instructions found online, with no prior knowledge and certainly no aptitude!  You'll be fine...

[Triassic]

It's POP, so no folders backed up online. 

 

I've now got my old Outlook2003 up and running again having just reloaded the software. I'll take a look on line for a tutorial and we will see how I get on! 

 

As a result of my 14 year old PC failing I've learnt a few things. The first is to back everything up, luckily I had the documents and photos backed up, but not the mail ( I had backed up the mail files, but not in a format I could do anything with). I've just sorted that problem out. Another thing, don't give up on a failed computer, following advice from onoff I cleaned the dust out and reseated all the cards and cables and the thing sprang back to life. Windows XP is no longer supported and much of the software I use daily is no longer supported, things like Firefox and Thunderbird (I don't actually use Thunderbird, but looked to loading it but can't due to the ago of the machine it won't). Finally, once I'm happy I've got everything backed up and moved to a spare PC, i'm going to dump Windows OS and move to Linux Mint.

 

edit.  One final thought, my 250MB hard drive is nearly full, so I might treat myself to a new (reconditioned) PC at £300 as I've found one complete with a 1TB drive.

Edited April 1, 2017 by Triassic

[Onoff]

"Reconditioned".....probably means they've cleaned it and reseated the cards and leads!

 

I always wonder when I go down the tip how many of the duff pcs down there would be perfectly serviceable with a bit of tlc.

 

For £300 you could set up a nice 2 bay Synology disk station (NAS) with your data spread over two drives for redundancy. All your media would be accessible on any connected device.

[Triassic]

To be honest, I'm quite attached to my old Dell PC and I'm a tight wad, so would be loathed to get rid of it. But my close shave with data Armageddon has got my worried. To be honest the hard drive is nearly full, so I do need to replace it. I also need to understand how to do a backup to an external drive, I use the wizard, but I'm not convinced it the best approach. Is there some software I could/should be using, particularly as I move to Linuxmint? 

 

 

Edit. Just read up on the Disk Station - just what I need! I could up all my files on one of these and as I update something on my PC it would automatically back it up to the NAS box.

Edited April 1, 2017 by Triassic

[Jeremy Harris]

I back up to a 1Tb USB 3 external disk every evening.  Under Linux you can set up a chron task to do this using rsync, but it does mean getting to grips with the command line (nowhere near as daunting as it first seems).  Under Windows you can use Synctoy (free from Microsoft) and then set up a scheduled task using the task scheduler that's included with Windows.

 

Synctoy has to be set up with folder pairs, so a folder on your main PC is synced to a folder on the backup disk.  I had mine set up to "contribute", which meant that the sync was one-way, from the PC to the external drive.  Once folder pairs are set up, you can then set up a task in the task scheduler to run Synctoy at a specific periodicity.  The PC needs to be on or in standby for the task scheduler to work (it will wake up a PC from standby OK).

 

There may well be similar tools available for Linux, I didn't really look as I wanted to get to grips with the command line and some of the built in features in Linux.

[Onoff]

Crashplan works on all platforms and the free one backs up once a day ( whereas the paid for one backs up continuously). 

 

If you backed up to a 2-disc Synology (with two 2TB discs) you could set up for Raid 1 if you're really worried about losing data. Less than £300.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

[Jeremy Harris]

I've just had a look around, and it seems that fwbackups gets good reviews, is open source and works on different platforms.  It's also in the main Linux repositories, so easy to install.  It has a pretty straightforward GUI interface, so should be easy to use for those that don't want to write scripts or delve into the command line.  There are more details here: http://www.diffingo.com/oss/fwbackups

Edited April 1, 2017 by JSHarris
Cross posted the above with onoff

[Triassic]

I've tried a number of ways (via Thunderbird and other software off the net) of moving my Outlook 2003 .pst files into Thunderbird and all have failed. 

 

Has anyone got any suggestions as to how to move my mail off Outlook 2003 and on to something more modern?

[SteamyTea]

I seem to remember that @JSHarris downloaded an older version of Thunderbird and managed to transfer to that, then upgraded.

Think the details are here:

 

I am just giving SeaMonkey a go (again).  It has Thunderbird built in and was pretty easy to set up.  Not got around to transferring my old email to it yet as I need to work out how PGP works in SeaMonkey first.

 

I still recommend using Portable versions of applications of you can.  They are dead easy to back up, just copy the whole folder over.

They tend not to 'clog up' Windows in my experience too.

[Triassic]

1 hour ago, SteamyTea said:

I seem to remember that @JSHarris downloaded an older version of Thunderbird and managed to transfer to that, then upgraded.

Ah right, I'm have to do a bit more searching. The one thing which is clear is that the current version of Thunderbird will only transfer mail from Outlook Express, the Outlook 2003 box is greyed out.

 

I also used the export function in Outlook and am only able to create a .pst backup file, which, from what I've read can ony be opened by Outlook.

 

Why is nothing IT ever simple!?

[Jeremy Harris]

Yes, I did install an old version of Thunderbird, imported all my old .pst files, backed up the Thunderbird imported files, then installed the current version of Thunderbird as a portable app on a USB stick.  It took a bit of time to sort things out, but now I have all the archived emails organised Thunderbird seems to work well. 

[Triassic]

So I'm ready to buy a NAS box, I was wondering if I could take the 1TB hard drive out of my old PC and slot it into a NAS box. Would it slot straight in or would I need to re-format it in some way? 

 

Thinking about it, I have three perfectly good hard drives, could I buy a three bay box and slot them in?

[Triassic]

I was wondering if anyone had any experience of using a NAS box on a lump rural supply, one which is prone to momentary power cuts, we had three yesterday! Should it be powered via a UPS, if so any recommendations?

 

I Read  that most NAS box s are empty, I have four HDDs, does it matter which ones I plug in, do they have to be all one make?

Edited May 28, 2017 by Triassic

[Jeremy Harris]

One way is to fit a UPS, but it's not that efficient, as the battery voltage from the internal UPS battery is converted up to mains voltage, and the NAS power supply then converts that back down to a DC voltage that's probably close to the battery voltage.

 

What I've done is build a battery-backed DC power supply, that supplies the modem, router, switch and a small file server.  I'm using a 12V DC power supply, adjusted to run at 13.4V, connected directly to a 12V 100Ah battery, that was bought second hand; it came from a server farm back up supply, and they get changed every couple of years just to be certain they will still have full capacity.  I tested mine and it still seems to be close to 100Ah, and being a sealed gel type battery it's OK indoors.

 

The DC from the battery is fed, via a latching relay*** to some switched mode DC-DC voltage regulators.  I have a couple of 5V, 5A ones, plus a couple of 12V boost/buck ones.  These give me two 5V supplies and two 12V supplies, that are then fed directly to the bits of kit needed to keep the network and internet connection up during a power cut.

 

*** The latching relay is driven by a small power monitor circuit, that disconnects the battery when it's voltage drops below about 11.5V.  This is to protect the battery from over-discharge.  In practice, the battery will run the entire system for around two days, which I think is enough for an emergency backup.