how to open and use mac outlook email file on pc
I recently moved from mac to widnows platform. I have my emails exported from mac in a file and now when I try opening the file on windows pc, it simply does not recognize it as a valid file. what shall be done to get emails back?
December 10th, 2014 10:06am

Hi,

Based on the description, you seem to have an olm file? Please note Outlook for Windows can only import emails from pst files, olm files can't be imported into Outlook for Windows directly.

A workaround is to setup an IMAP account in Outlook for Mac - it's better to be an empty new account, we can sign up one from many email providers. Then move all emails you need to migrate into that IMAP account. Outlook will start to sync, all the emails will be uploaded to the email server.

The next step is to create that IMAP account in Outlook for Windows. After the emails are synced, we should find all these emails you need in the local .pst(Outlook 2010) or .ost (Outlook 2013) file.

I hope this makes sense for you, if you have any questions about the steps, feel free to let me know.

Regards,

Melon Chen
TechNet Community Support

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December 11th, 2014 9:13am

Outlook mac does support importing emails in pst format but cannot export them back in pst format. It can only export email data in olm format but outlook windows cannot recognize olm format and that is the reason your windows pc refuses to accept email data in olm format. If you still have access to mac system and a few important emails are there for exporting, IMAP trasnfer will work for you. Simply create a new email account on any of the domains like gmail, yahoo etc and configure it on mac system as well as windows system. Now drop emails from mac system into newly configured IMAP account and it will upload those to the server in next sync. Once uploaded onto server, the email will automatically appear on windows pc as soon as it syncs mail from server.
December 11th, 2014 9:58am

Thanks for valuable suggestions Melon and Nick. Unfortunately I do not have my mac system for performing the IMAP transfer. I arranged one of my friends mac system and imported my olm file into it and then configured my new IMAP account onto it. I then tried moving my email folders into IMAP account but it got stuck indefinitely and I had to force quit outlook. I checked my new IMAP account on webmail but it did not had any of my emails. I have tried this method twice without any results. 
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December 14th, 2014 3:57pm

Hello williams4128,

Please try to transfer one email only (as a test). Any error message?

December 14th, 2014 4:45pm

I tried one email at a time and it worked. I can transfer a maximum of 5-10 emails at a time. Anymore than this and outlook gets stuck. ALso, if an email has attachments even a single email is not transferred then. Isn't there anyway to perform this operation locally as there are a lot of factors involved in online IMAP transfer process.
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December 15th, 2014 8:34am

Hello again williams4128,

On a PC you can run a Powershell script:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/emeamsgdev/archive/2012/04/27/powershell-script-to-move-items-from-one-folder-to-another-in-a-user-s-mailbox.aspx

If you are new to Powershell:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/hh750396.aspx

December 15th, 2014 10:43am

Thanks George for taking time and helping but powershell seems too much complicated and m unable to understand it properly.

The solution by Max doesn't work properly and also many users online have complained about Kernel and it seems like a big no.

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December 18th, 2014 7:11pm

Hello Williams,

You need to ask yourself "What do I want to accomplish"?

Then do it ! No complains!

December 18th, 2014 7:22pm

Hello George,

Thanks again for suggestion. I know what I want to accomplish and I am not complaining regarding your method. I just told that the powershell method seems out of my capacity to execute and I cannot afford calling some specialist to perform the operation on my system. I also went through the paid solution suggested by Max as I am open to paid solution for getting me out of this trouble. However, I have every right to spend my hard earned money after researching well. I simply informed what I found during my online study. Still, if you have tried the Max's solution and recommend me to go with it, I will definitely give it a go.

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December 19th, 2014 2:21pm

If you are willing to spend some amount, there are plenty of converters floating online that might just do the job for you. However, if you wish to get all of your emails from outlook mac, my suggestion would be to try outlook mac database recovery application as it gathers email data directly from outlook identity and converts them into various formats compatible with any available email client.
December 22nd, 2014 1:25pm

As I am a bit cautious when it comes to spending money so I tried contacting the support of software solutions first. The Kernel support didn't respond to any of my emails till date whereas I got quick reply from Gladwev support for Outlook Mac Database Recovery explaining each and every detail of process. I first tried its trial version and it was quite easy to use and within a few steps it converted my outlook mac database to a pst file. After the successful trial I got the full version and was bale to move my emails from outlook mac to windows without any kind of hiccups.

Microsoft should definitely look into the matter as the outlook mac supports pst file but outlook windows does not support olm file making it one way movement from windows to mac. 

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December 24th, 2014 7:06am


For the migration of Outlook for MAC to Windows you can use OLM to PST Conversion Tool. Visit http://community.spiceworks.com/topic/605402-convert-olm-to-pst for the application.
February 18th, 2015 6:56am

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