Re: readpst

[Kent West <westk@acu.edu>]

Angelo Bertolli wrote:

> Stephen R Laniel wrote:
>
>> I've just been handed a couple of Outlook PST files to
>> convert to any other usable format. I installed readpst,
>> but it really didn't get anywhere with the PSTs that I have.
>> Instead I got the sequence of errors below. It may be
>> because the PSTs are a very recent version; I know very
>> little about these files, so that may very well be.
>>
>> Openpst created a whole set of email folders, and apparently
>> named them all correctly, but dropped a lot of messages. Has
>> anyone gotten PST-to-mbox conversion to work, using any tool
>> at all?
>
No, but it's been a few years since I've tried. At that time, I came to
the conclusion that Outlook is very easy to get into, and very hard to
get out of.

>>
> I'm not sure what PST files are, but I'm going to guess they're mail.

PSTs store EVERYTHING in Outlook, not just email. They have your
attachments, and your calendar appointments, and your ToDos, etc etc
etc. They can be HUGE. This makes it quite difficult to repair things
when things go wrong; we all know the benefits of modularization;
apparently Microsoft does not.

>   If I were you, I'd probably try setting up an Outlook account that
> uses IMAP on a server that stores mail in mbox format, transfer my
> mail to that account, and grab the files off of that server.
>
I agree with Angelo. A temporary IMAP email server is probably your best
bet.

-- 
Kent West
Technology Support
/A/bilene /C/hristian /U/niversity