Re: Outlook to GNU/Linux mailbox conversion is possible with exis ting tools
A similar process worked great for me:
(1) Get Outlook Express working on the same computer as your corporate
Outlook/Exchange system.
(2) Create an Outlook Express account pointed to an IMAP server on a Unix
box.
(2.1) If the corporate firewall blocks IMAP port 143 (mine did), but leaves
open more-common ports like 80 (telnet) or 443 (https), then put an sshd
server on the same box as the IMAP server, and run it with 'sshd -p 80'.
Then you create a port-forwarding "tunnel" using a ssh client on your work
machine, like VanDyke's SecureCRT, which forwards "localhost:port" to
"remote-unix-server:port". Finally, you can then define your Outlook
Express account with an IMAP server of "localhost:80". (You may want to
create a second tunnel for port 25, ie SMTP, so that you can also send mail
from Outlook Express if your local sysadmins also have SMTP blocked...ugh!)
Anyway, you can now hit "Send/Recieve" on Outlook Express, and IMAP and SMTP
will both be securely tunnelled to the remote IMAP server, right through the
firewall. Sweet!
(3) As with Dan's instructions below, use Outlook Express's existing
"File/Import" function to import mail from your Outlook/Exchange folders.
This will import the mail into "local" (non-IMAP) Outlook Express folders.
(4) Drag-n-drop the messages from your "local" Outlook Express folder into
your IMAP account. This will actually create a Maildir (if that's how your
IMAP server is configured) file on the remote Unix server, for each and
every message, in proper RFC822/MIME format. Perfecto!
Mark Zieg
mark@zieg.com
---- Original Message --
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: Outlook to GNU/Linux mailbox conversion is possible with
existing tools
From: Dan Jacobson <jidanni@kimo.FiXcomTHiS.tw>
Date: 07 Mar 2001 09:01:15 +0800
Sender: jidanni@hotmail.com
User-Agent: Gnus/5.0808 (Gnus v5.8.8) Emacs/20.7
How I got my mail out of Outlook 2000 and Outlook Express 5 into GNU/Linux
without special tools By Dan Jacobson 3/2001
---------------------------------------------------------------
Below is me commenting on my earlier [D>] discussion. Below I've left
the steps a little loose... maybe somebody will polish this up. I
didn't try the IMAP thingy. I did try lots of windows programs
mentioned on webpages, that didn't work...
---------------------------------------------------------------
They say one needs fancy tools to extract ones Outlook 5 mail files
into say a Unix mbox format or whatever. However, I have found a
obscure passageway out.
D> Preliminary results on getting one's sent netnews messages [and
D> perhaps any other stuff in a .dbx file] out of the clutches of
D> Outlook and Outlook Express 5:
D> Goal: stop using M$ and get on GNU/Linux. Problem: I've got
D> several hundred of my brilliant netnews posts that I must take with
D> me if I want to keep my record of never having lost a byte of my
D> precious golden keystrokes intact. Email too, sent & received.
Can you believe were about to move our stuff from Outlook into Outlook
Express then into GNU/Linux.
Indeed, seemed like they sealed up plain Outlook2000 pretty good, but
wait, in Outlook Express I noticed I could "import" my plain Outlook
folders! Ah ha! Be sure to rename any Outlook Express folder of the
same name before you do this, else plain Outlook messages will be
copied into it alongside your original messages. Yuck.
Import steps were: [using the letter symbols, because I don't know
what the original English names are because I use the Chinese
version.] File (F)>I>E, select 'Microsoft outlook' (S), Messages,
select the plain Outlook folder to integrate or all, note that you will get
you messages intermingled with Outlook Express messages unless you first
renamed you Outlook Express folders. Yuck.
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