export from Outlook (.pst) to anything 'open'?

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forum.query

In other words, is there a recommended and robust way to export from
Outlook (.pst) files to anything 'open' (i.e, non-MS proprietary)?
Most of the folks I work with store everything in flat, ASCII-text
files, and use a bunch of utilities to search/manage/parse files
looking for particular strings (i.e., have 10+ GB of compressed text
files I've output from Eudora and T'bird, which covers about 95% of
the email I've sent over the past 5 years or so...).

My institution is moving to an Outlook/Exchange setup, and while I
could probably learn to live with Outlook for most things (learning
curve to do most things was <45 minutes), a lack of some way
(freeware, commercial even) to output the contents of .PST files to
non-proprietary text files will make Outlook a complete non-starter
for me (and a whole lot of other people I work with who tend to react
to the word 'proprietary' the way some people respond to 'root canal
surgery').

Any suggestions appreciated - I'm guessing this is a FAQ at some
level, but I've not found simple solutions.

Thanks in advance...
 
In other words, is there a recommended and robust way to export from
Outlook (.pst) files to anything 'open' (i.e, non-MS proprietary)?
Most of the folks I work with store everything in flat, ASCII-text
files, and use a bunch of utilities to search/manage/parse files
looking for particular strings (i.e., have 10+ GB of compressed text
files I've output from Eudora and T'bird, which covers about 95% of
the email I've sent over the past 5 years or so...).

My institution is moving to an Outlook/Exchange setup, and while I
could probably learn to live with Outlook for most things (learning
curve to do most things was <45 minutes), a lack of some way
(freeware, commercial even) to output the contents of .PST files to
non-proprietary text files will make Outlook a complete non-starter
for me (and a whole lot of other people I work with who tend to react
to the word 'proprietary' the way some people respond to 'root canal
surgery').

Any suggestions appreciated - I'm guessing this is a FAQ at some
level, but I've not found simple solutions.

Thanks in advance...
Click to expand...

Export to a .csv file. That had field names that are common enough for
most other e-mail clients to understand. If the other e-mail client
doesn't understand the field names (so which fields are used for what
type of data in each record), you may have to do some remapping (i.e.,
change the field names during the export to match up with those your
e-mail client uses). This isn't an Outlook shortcoming since it is
never known what all other e-mail clients might use for their own field
names in their own records in their message database.
 
Here are several methods, there may be others: export to CSV and other
formats, select several messages and use File, Save as text file, if you
have acrobat you can save a pdf package, or you can copy and paste into any
application that accepts paste.

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]



Outlook Tips by email:
mailto:[email protected]

EMO - a weekly newsletter about Outlook and Exchange:
mailto:[email protected]

You can access this newsgroup by visiting
http://www.microsoft.com/office/community/en-us/default.mspx or point your
newsreader to msnews.microsoft.com.
 
Export to a .csv file.  That had field names that are common enough for
most other e-mail clients to understand.  If the other e-mail client
doesn't understand the field names (so which fields are used for what
type of data in each record), you may have to do some remapping (i.e.,
change the field names during the export to match up with those your
e-mail client uses).  This isn't an Outlook shortcoming since it is
never known what all other e-mail clients might use for their own field
names in their own records in their message database.
Click to expand...

Thanks - but I think there is some partial misunderstanding (my
fault). I have no interest in importing into another mail client. I
simply want to create an archive of all my email in a simple flat,
ASCII (or equivalent) text file, so that I can (i) open the file and
read it, or (ii) search over multiple files without having to open up
Outlook.

By analogy, what I'm looking for is something analogous to taking a
Word file, and saving it as .txt, or RTF (at best). The objective is a
resulting file that can be opened, read, and searched, without
anything more advanced than a simple text editor. At present, I can
open up every email I've ever received in Eudora, or T'bird, with
nothing more advanced than Notepad (not that I'd choose Notepad). For
Eudora, or T'bird, no work is needed, because they both store their
files as simple text files. In fact, Outlook is the only mail client
I've used that stores things in a non-open, proprietary way. I'm
simply looking for a way to export from proprietary, closed, can't
read it outside of Outlook, to something open.
 
Here are several methods, there may be others: export to CSV and other
formats, select several messages and use File, Save as text file, if you
have acrobat you can save a pdf package, or you can copy and paste into any
application that accepts paste.
Click to expand...


Thanks - I'll give that a try.
 
Export to a .csv file.  That had field names that are common enough for
most other e-mail clients to understand.  If the other e-mail client
doesn't understand the field names (so which fields are used for what
type of data in each record), you may have to do some remapping (i.e.,
change the field names during the export to match up with those your
e-mail client uses).  This isn't an Outlook shortcoming since it is
never known what all other e-mail clients might use for their own field
names in their own records in their message database.
Click to expand...

Just tried it - partial success, with fatal flaw - dates don't get
exported. Following the steps, I get a text file with all the contents
(great!) but not a single date (boo!!).

I'm not impressed so far - I want to output my email - and any useful
output allows you to output everything: sender, receiver, client,
dates, contents - heck, even full headers if I want it. Outlook export
seems to do none of those.
 
Yeah, if you need dates you either need to use the copy and paste method or
a 3rd party archive tool.
There are several tools listed at
http://www.slipstick.com/addins/housekeeping.asp that will save in universal
formats and include dates.

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]



Outlook Tips by email:
mailto:[email protected]

EMO - a weekly newsletter about Outlook and Exchange:
mailto:[email protected]

You can access this newsgroup by visiting
http://www.microsoft.com/office/community/en-us/default.mspx or point your
newsreader to msnews.microsoft.com.
 
Ummm if you are already USING Outlook, and your institution is moving to
Outlook/Exchange, WHY do you need to export to a csv in the first place, or
am I missing something here that you haven't told us?
 
Ummm if you are already USING Outlook, and your institution is moving to
Outlook/Exchange, WHY do you need to export to a csv in the first place, or
am I missing something here that you haven't told us?
Click to expand...

Simple...

1) I generate 150-200 emails a day, every day, and need to be able to
archive them all. I now currently have somewhere between 12-15 Gb of
compressed emails (in text format), that I peridocially need to search
for something (e.g., I sent an email to X about Y on June 3, 2004 - I
need to find it). Our Exchange setup handles 30000+ accounts, with
individual MAPI disk limits of 5 Gb, which won't work if you want all
your email available (plus attachments...). So, I routinely use a pop
approach (or equivalent) and download everything - in Outlook, it
seems as if the equivalent is outputting to personal folders - but
they're all proprietary .pst. Hence, the original question.

2) no good archival system stores *anything* in a proprietary format.
In fact, there are a whole slew of legal issues about formats
necessary for archival records - when in doubt, use straight text. If
I have to open up the file in a specific application, then said format
isn't satisfactory.

My institution went to Outlook/Exchange. It wasn't *my* choice. I'm
now simply figuring out how to live with it.
 
Simple...
Click to expand...
1) I generate 150-200 emails a day, every day, and need to be able to
archive them all. I now currently have somewhere between 12-15 Gb of
compressed emails (in text format), that I peridocially need to search
for something (e.g., I sent an email to X about Y on June 3, 2004 - I
need to find it). Our Exchange setup handles 30000+ accounts, with
individual MAPI disk limits of 5 Gb, which won't work if you want all
your email available (plus attachments...). So, I routinely use a pop
approach (or equivalent) and download everything - in Outlook, it
seems as if the equivalent is outputting to personal folders - but
they're all proprietary .pst. Hence, the original question.
Click to expand...

You might like to have a look here:
http://www.techhit.com/outlook/save_email_plain_text_format.html
 
You should try HTML Email Archiver for Outlook:
http://www.mapilab.com/outlook/email_archiver/

This plug-in for Outlook can create an HTML or CHM version of your .pst file.

An archive created in this program reproduce the structure of Microsoft
Outlook folders, can contain messages or other elements in any language and
with any types of attachments, support sorting by several criteria and can be
searched with advanced options.
 
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