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Merging Outlook Express files

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by james_randy 1 view

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I use Outlook Express for our office e-mail. It downloads people's e-mail (from our ISP)directly onto their local hard drives. It does not store the e-mails on our proxy server. On rare occasions, a single e-mail account may be set-up on two different computers. E-mail could be downloaded onto one or the other, but not both. Outlook Express saves all the e-mail information in files with the extension .mbx and .idx in the Outlook Express Mail folder (Windows95, by the way). My question is this: Is there a way to merge those files from the two different computers into one common file (or common files, I should say) so that all of the data (inbox, outbox, etc..) could be put onto and accessed from the same computer?

7 replies

by bill cassada

Try changing the options such that Outlook does not erase the downloaded messages from the server. Then as each person downloads he/she will get all messages that are not currently in the inbox. This method is higher maintenance, but I'm not awareof any way to merge the two boxes. Alternatively, if the ISP can make the box HTML-based, the user could simply access the "mail.whatever.com" address and view the mail through their browser. This would ensure each user had full access to the email.

by dragon

I'v edone this at home a long time ago, but should work OK. From the primary PC, start Outlook Express, then go to File, Import. You will have to copy the files from the second PC to a place with mutual access, then import the messages.
Sorry, I can't give more detailed info, like I said, it's been a while since I've used Express.

by james_randy

Sorry it took me so long to reply. I didn't try your solution in practice, but in theory it looks like what I've asked for. Before you mentioned it, I didn't really look into the file options - which I should have done in the first place - but it does look promising. I'll try it out the next time I have the need. Don't spend all your points in one place, now.

by salexiev

Hello,
It depends from your e-mail protocol (the protocol, supported by your ISP). If you are using POP3, you might choose ?keep copies on server?. If you are using IMAP or HTTP ? the folders might be shared between all that know the password. My suggestion is to try the different protocols and if your ISP supports IMAP, stick on it.
Good luck.

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