Export Windows Live Mail to Microsoft Outlook and Grab More Advantages

Windows Live Mail, formerly known as Windows Live Mail Desktop, is an open source email client offered by Microsoft. Its predecessors, Windows Mail (Windows Vista) and Outlook Express (Windows XP), in comparison, lack some features and utilities. Nonetheless, despite offering great features, Windows Live Mail could not create as much stir as MS Outlook. As a result, users do not find the email client worth it, when compared to MS Outlook. Below mentioned are few points where Windows Live Mail lacks:

Windows Live Mail is provided free, hence, of course, does not feature full functionality. MS Outlook instead, offers a long list of features along with great functionality. When it comes to professional use, MS Outlook is chosen owing to its integration capability (It integrates emails, calendar, contacts etc.). In business environment, staying connected with Exchange Server is considered better, and MS Outlook can do it.

In addition, from migration perspective, MS Outlook is far better than Windows Live Mail. Outlook actually stores all emails and other data items in PST File (Personal File Folder), which can easily be migrated from one machine to another. Whereas Windows Live Mail does not offer an easy way to migrate.

You possibly might think that everything is stored on the server via IMAP; in this case, migration must not be an issue. To illustrate, calendar and contacts do not sync via IMAP, rather you need to export the information.

Following steps provide a way to export email messages from Windows Live Mail to MS Outlook:

Step 1: Start MS Outlook

Step 2: Start Windows Live Mail

Step 3: In Windows Live Mail, click on ‘File’ button and select ‘Export’

Step 4: Select ‘Email messages’

Step 5: Select the format as ‘Microsoft Exchange’ and click on ‘Next’

Step 6: Click ‘OK’ when the following message displays

“This will export messages from Windows Live Mail to Microsoft Outlook or Microsoft Exchange.”

Step 7: You can use ‘Select folders’ option if some specific folders are to be exported.

Step 8: After selecting, click on ‘OK’ and wait till the export process gets completed

Step 9: When you see ‘Export Complete’ window, click ‘Finish’

However, the given method is not fair enough in some specific cases. And during the process, you may encounter data loss.  To handle it, software developers have been doing in-depth analysis, resulting in development of competent ‘Windows Live Mail to PST’ applications that efficiently convert Windows Live Mail mailboxes to PST. You can also perform selective conversion, and more of it, these software provide preview of items, such as emails, attachments, notes, sent items and maintain log of the conversion process.