Post by Rick HodgsonI want to transfer my email folders from MSN Premium to Windows Live Mail.
Anyone know how this can be done????
There is an easy way and a tedious way.
The easy way is to move all mail in MSN Premium from Folders on my computer to
folders in MSN Premium for the account(s). All of the folders can be accessed at
www.hotmail.com when logged in with your MSN LiveID. Any folders stored locally
only - folders on my computer - can only be accessed on that computer. Once you
have moved the messages, they will sync to the server. You can confirm that they
are there by signing into Hotmail.
Then, configure Windows Live Mail and the folders will sync with the local
computer in Windows Live Mail.
The hard and tedious way is when you no longer have access to MSN Premium, but
the mail store is still there.
The email files are all stored within the user profile folder. For 9.0/9.1 and
9.5/9.6/10 they are slightly different. In 9.0/9.1 they can be found here:
C:\Documents and Settings\{userID}\Local Settings\Application
Data\Microsoft\MSN\db\
In 9.5/9.6/10, change \db\ to \db30\
In order to see the folders and the files within them, you need to set the
Windows Explorer options to show hidden files and folders and possibly system
files.
Inside this db30 folder, you will find files with an extension of .sdf - ignore
these. You're interested in the ones that look like: username-msn-com.1a0, 1a1,
etc.
and also within the folders \Mail(MSN user ID)\ with extensions of .000,
starting with stm0x...
You can copy and rename these files to have an extension of .eml.
Double-clicking them will open them in Outlook Express, Windows Mail or Windows
Live Mail, depending on what's installed. You can then move them to a folder in
OE/WM/WLM if desired for future access or import into MSN mail, or you can send
them back to yourself for filing within the MSN client program.
On 10/5/07, "ComputerGuy" posted this tip in the MSN Discussion newsgroup:
"...here is one little piece of advise. After renaming about 50 of the thousand
plus emails it hit to me to just go into windows explorer, tools, folder options
and add file the file extension of .000 and give it the same properties as a
..eml file thus saving me hours of having to rename all the files. Not really
needed when it is only a couple of messages but when there are hundreds or even
thousands of files, this will save much pain and suffering."
And, Earle H. offered an additional tip:
Open a Command Prompt (Start/Run/cmd) and navigate to the folder that you copied
the contents of the \db30 folder to and type the following command -
REN *.000 *.EML
And then press enter. This will rename all files in that folder with an
extension of 000 to now have an extension of eml.
-steve
--
Stephen Boots
MVP Windows Live
Windows Live OneCare/Live Mesh/MSE Forums Moderator
***@mvps.org