Migrate Outlook into Thunderbird?

[Bo Berglund]

On Mon, 10 Jul 2023 03:01:38 +0800, Bret Busby <bret at busby.net> wrote:

>> Hi Bret,
>> did you ever migrate to ThunderBird from Outlook?
>> 
>> I have a ton of old emails in my Outlook PST files and the fact that I have not
>> yet found a way to migrate them to some non-proprietary format acceptable to
>> Linux mail clients has forced me to continue using Outlook 2019...
>> And Windows too.
>> 
>> 
>
>Hello.
>
>No, I have not migrated email messages (and filters, configurations, 
>etc), from any "brand" MUA, to a different one; what I have done, in 
>each occasion, is simply discontinued use of one, and, set up, and used 
>instead, another one.
>
...

>You had asked "Where can I ask such questions and be on topic?", so, I 
>had pointed you to the Thunderbird email list of which I am aware (and 
>subscribed to); migration from one MUA to another, may be able to be 
>done, but, I have no experience of it.
>

Thanks, I had a look at the mail list link and it seems to be downgraded and not
very active. Additionally I am not really comfortable using email for things
like this. That is why I am using GMANE so I can use a newsreader rather than
email for my communication here...

News or a web forum is what I need, I think.

But I found that the Mozilla Support pages cover a bit of what I am looking for
and they seem to have realized that there are a lot of Outlook users to help
migrate.
So there seems to be a *built-in* migration tool within Thunderbird which now
also handles Outlook PST files:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/thunderbird-import#w_how-to-import-settings-and-data-with-the-import-tool

It was not existing when I last changed laptop and had to set it all up back in
2019, so I had to get MSOffice 2019 with Outlook in order to still have access
to my old email store.
But the 2019 version seems to be the last MS-Office that is a regular install
locally on your PC, from then on you are supposed to go on-line and have
Microsoft handle all of your data in the "cloud" using a subscription! Not ever
for me! My data stays with myself.

I have a couple of last (I hope) questions here:

1) Do I need to install Thunderbird on the Windows laptop in order to do the
migration? It might be a hidden requirement that Outlook is installed on the PC
where the migration is being done, but I can't find that info.
Or kan I copy the PST files over to Ubuntu and let the migration be handled by
TB on Ubuntu?

2) If I have to migrate on Windws, then in order to go to Ubuntu, can I just
copy the TB profile to the correct place on Ubuntu and point TB to it there and
it will work? I.e. are file formats etc compatible Linux/Windows?


-- 
Bo Berglund
Developer in Sweden