How to Transfer Microsoft Outlook Emails to Outlook MAC 2011?

Do you want to import Outlook emails into Mac machine? And confuse that how to accomplish it, since both the versions of Microsoft Outlook platforms create distinct file formats to save the email.

Yes, Microsoft Outlook (for Windows) and Outlook 2011 (for Apple Mac) use two different file formats to save their emails or related database and an Outlook user should familiar with these data file formats.

MS Outlook 2013, 2010, 2007, 2003 (Windows Platform): PST

Outlook for MAC 2011 (Mactinosh Platform): OLM

Although, Microsoft Outlook has developed an Outlook for Mac 2011 but there are still some common functions which can be found in all the versions including Outlook MAC 2011. Import and Export wizard is one instance from those common functions which is mainly used to export and import data from Outlook and into Outlook.

Steps to Import PST File in Outlook 2011

• Start Outlook Mac 2011 and click on "File" button.

• Now click on "Import" option under the "File" menu list.

• Choose the "Outlook Data File" option in the new pop up screen and click on next Arrow.

• Select the specific data file (PST) that you want to import in Mac machine and define a location to save it. At last, click on the "Import" button and begin the process.

Note: Outlook for Mac 2011 also provides an option to import OLM file with their "Import" feature.

• Finally, you can see the imported PST File on your Outlook for Mac profile.

Work Around2:

There is another workaround where a user can import outlook emails into Outlook Mac using an IMAP connection. IMAP is fast and endows effective online synchronization and this is one of the reasons that makes it most recommended while synchronizing email address with email clients.

How can an IMAP Account Transfer PST to Outlook MAC?

It has been cleared from the above paragraph that IMAP is the protocol which directly synchronizes email client to the server and this is also a core method to move PST data into Outlook Mac 2011.

Steps to Import PST File in Outlook 2011

• Create or establish a connection between Outlook and Web Server (like Gmail) using the IMAP protocol, which will move the entire data of PST file on the server. Means, now your entire Outlook emails have been transferred onto a server.
• At last, use the same Gmail email address to configure a new account in Outlook for Mac 2011 (with IMAP connection). And it will automatically download all the emails from the web server on your local Mac machine in an OLM file.

Pros & Cons of Workaround 1 and Workaround 2:

Every technology and related methods come with a list of pros and cons which portrays their concise image. Similarly, the above defined solutions are appropriate up to an extent, but can't be considered perfect for most of the scenarios.

Outlook for Mac 2011 "Import" features can import outlook emails into MAC within a few clicks, but it has also been discovered that importing does not give excellent results as it is not capable of dealing with corrupted or damaged PST File.

This is one of the biggest demerits of the "Import" feature that it does not transfer PST to Outlook MAC perfectly whether its about Windows environment or Mactionsh.

The second method which is quite helpful in the case of transferring only emails. Using an IMAP connection to synchronize Outlook emails to web server and then to Mac Outlook 2011 is really a good idea, but it can't transfer the varied items of Outlook Data File such as Notes, Contacts etc.

In conclusion, both Importing or IMAP based methods can hamper the transfer of Data and at some point they do not give positive results either.

Now, the question is "Is it Possible to Access Outlook PST File Data into Mac Without any risk of data loss?"

My answer would be "Yes" as there are some alternative applications which provides an advance and straightforward solution to resolve such tasks.