Import email from Outlook 2011 for Mac into Zimbra

Hey Friends…

I decided to post a short & sweet HOWTO on importing mail from Outlook 2011 for Mac into Zimbra. As you probably would have found out by now, Microsoft has just taken few steps backwards, by changing the format of the mail database in Outlook 2011 (Mac) from PST to OLM. Hence, the usual PST import Zimbra wizards are useless ( Until Zimbra gets down to creating an OLM import utility)

Step 1: From within your Outlook, click on any of your root folders (eg: Inbox) and drag it onto your desktop, or any other open folder. This will create an .MBOX file containing all the email from the specific folder. Mbox is more of a standard format, so this will be easy to work with. You can do the same for any other folders you require to import, and a separate .mbox file will be created in each case.

Step 2: Copy these mbox files onto a Windows PC, either through the network or USB drive.

Step 3: Next you will need a free utility called Imapsize which you can download here. This will be required to convert the Mbox files to .EML format which Zimbra understands.

Step 4: Install Imapsize, and under the Tools menu, you will find an Mbox to EML convert utility.

Select the Mbox file to convert and choose the destination folder for the .EML files

Step 5: Once the conversion is complete, you will require an archiving utility to create a .tgz zipped archive for Zimbra. You can use Peazip, which can be downloaded here. From within Peazip, choose "Add" to create a new archive as illustrated. Choose the folders to include in the conversion. Make sure you choose .gzip and "tar before" as the archive format. Click OK - and then wait while the archive is being created. Once it is complete, rename the extension to .tgz as opposed to .tar.gz

Step 6: From within Zimbra, navigate to Preferences, Import/Export and choose the .tgz file to import. VOILA! If all goes well, your mail from Outlook 2011 should be importing into Zimbra! Hope this has helped you along the way!

--- Update : 24 Dec 2011 ---

After completing the above method, everything went smoothly, though I hit one snag. The import into Zimbra, had changed all the imported email's received date to the day of the import. This is not acceptable for most people, me included.

I checked the individual .EML files created with Imapsize, and they all had the correct dates intact. So obviously the Zimbra import of the .TGZ file had screwed up somewhere along the line. Off I went to Dr Google, and did some research. I came across another utility, from http://www.outlookfreeware.com. They have a neat free utility that imports eml files into Outlook, and after doing a test run, the original dates were imported as well. AHHH - Progress. To get this to work though, you will need to install the Outlook connector for Zimbra, connect to your Zimbra server via Outlook, and do the import. This will synchronize all imported emails onto your Zimbra server, and when you next log on either via the web interface or Zimbra Desktop, all your old email's should be there.