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Trying to export my mail and contacts from Outlook into Gmail, but the file extension msnbak which Outlook produces isn’t recognized by Gmail. Is there a way around this or a utility that will do an appropriate conversion?

I’m not sure how you went about doing the exporting, so I’m going to walk you through the process step by step - there is one process for email and one for contacts.

Importing Outlook Email into Gmail

This process has gotten easier since Gmail supports IMAP protocol. It works with Outlook as well as Thunderbird and other providers.

First, you need to be sure that IMAP is enabled in Gmail - it probably is because it is the default, but we’ll give instructions on that anyway.

1. Sign into Gmail. Click on Settings
2. Choose Forwarding and POP/IMAP.
3. Select “Enable IMAP”.

Now, you need to setup Gmail in the client software:

1. Open Outlook Express, go to Tools and then Accounts.
2. Click on Add and then Mail.
3. Enter your name in the “Display Name” field. Click Next.
4. In the email address field enter your Gmail address. Click Next.
5. For “My Incoming Mail Server is a __ server”, choose IMAP.
6. In “Incoming Mail (POP3, IMAP, HTTP)” enter: imap.gmail.com
7. In “Outgoing mail (SMTP) server” field, enter: smtp.gmail.com and click Next.
8. In the account name field, enter your full email address. Enter the password and click Next. Click Finish.
9. Now go to Account and highlight: imap.gmail.com and click Properties.
10. Choose Advanced.
11. Under “Outgoing Mail (SMTP)”, check “This server requires a secure connection (SSL)”.
12. In “Outgoing Mail (SMTP)” enter: 465.
13. Under “Incoming mail (IMAP)”, check “This server requires a secure connection (SSL)”. The port should change to 993.
14. Click on the Servers tab. Check the box marked “My server requires authentication” and click Ok.

Now, for client settings - Go to Tools and then Options and Send tab. Do NOT check “Save a copy of sent messages in the Sent Items folder”. Check “Send messages immediately”.

This will create a Gmail folder structure in Outlook that will match the Gmail labels. Open all your old archive.pst files if you have them. Drag and drop all of your old emails into the new IMAP account inbox folder. If you don’t want to move them, choose “copy”. Do the same thing with the “Sent Mail” folder. It may take a while, depending on the number of emails you are moving.

Copy Contact List from Outlook to Gmail

1. Go to Outlook. Open File and then Import and Export.
2. Select “Export a file”. Click Next.
3. Choose “Comma-separated values”. Click Next.
4. Find Contacts and select Next.
5. Name the file and save it. It should have the .csv extension.
6. Now, get into Gmail.
7. Find the Contacts on the left and select Import.
8. Click Browse to fine the .csv file you created earlier.
9. Click Import” to import the contacts.
10. You should see the number of contacts added, merged, ignored or how many were duplicates.

I hope these directions help you import the files you want successfully. If you need more assistance, please let us know.

My hard drive is going to be replaced tomorrow. How do I save my email addresses on my mail account?

You have several options for moving your e-mail messages off of your hard drive and on to an external source. The easiest option is to use the Import/Export feature of your e-mail client. You can also copy the e-mail message store folder, though that’s a bit more involved. Finally, depending on your data backup situation, you may want to backup your e-mail and data files to an online storage location.

Depending on which e-mail client you have on your computer, the steps may vary slightly. Most have similar processes, so if the steps aren’t exact, they should give you a good idea of where to look. I’ll use Windows Live Mail (which is Outlook Express’s successor) as an example.

Saving E-mail Messages

If you have just a few important e-mail messages, you may want to just save those and discard the rest. To save an individual email message, simply open it, choose File> Save As, give it a name, and select the destination such as a floppy disk, USB stick, or CD-R.

For more than just a few messages, it’s easier to copy the entire contents of the “message store” to a storage device. The message store is just a fancy name for a storage folder that contains your messages. First, you have to find out where that folder is located. To do this, go to Tools> Accounts> Options and click the Advanced tab followed by the Maintenance tab. Click the Store Folder button.

A window will appear with the address of your store folder. In Windows Live Mail, the default is:

C:\Users\User Name\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail

Open Windows Explorer by right-clicking the Start button and choosing Explore. Navigate to that folder and hit Control + A to select all. Next, use Control + C to copy these files. Open the storage medium and use Control + V to paste. Alternately you can use your favorite copy and paste methods including drag and drop.

Later, when you get your computer back, you’ll copy these files back into the message store folder on your new hard drive.

Exporting E-mail Messages

Applications like Windows Live Mail and Outlook Express have a built-in import/export utility for situations like this. Not only can you export your messages, you can also export your contacts. Go to File> Export and choose Messages. Choose the format you want to export the messages as followed by the location where you will store these messages such as a CD-R or USB stick.

Importing E-mail Messages

When you receive your computer with its new hard drive, open the e-mail client and click File>Import. Point to the storage device containing your exported messages and follow the prompts.

Online Backup

I assume that you’ve already backed up your data, photos, and other important files. If not, don’t forget! I use the BeinSync online backup service and swear by it. All files are stored online. Since you don’t have much time, this isn’t the best option for the moment because it takes many hours for all of the files to be uploaded. However, it’s not a bad idea once you have your computer back. What I love about this particular service is that it backs up my documents as I create them automatically. When I change a file, it is immediately backed up. Plus, I can retrieve my data from any Internet-connected computer.