Transfer your email from Thunderbird to Outlook 2013 using GMail in 10 easy(ish) steps.

For the last 12 years or so I have been using Mozilla's Thunderbird application as my email reader. I was also using either OpenOffice or LibreOffice as my office suite. My boss finally got a subscription to the Microsoft Developer's network, meaning that we had access to multiple licenses for Office 2013, which includes Outlook 2013. Since some of the documents I must work with don't format correctly if they are opened in OpenOffice or LibreOffice, I decided to install Office 2013. Coinciding with that, I had a motherboard failure in my work laptop and was presented with a new one. I figured it was as good a time as any to convert to Outlook 2013, since I had been experiencing random freezes with Thunderbird.

Imagine my shock to find that Microsoft had made it all but impossible to import mail from any other mail program -- even Outlook Express. (That right there, I say that right there, is what we call sarcasm, son.)

I did find some commercial applications that claimed to be able to facilitate the conversion, but I just couldn't bring myself to pay $50 for something I'm going to use for less than an hour, ever. So I did what all good geeks do - I saved that $50 by spending $500 worth of my time looking for a free solution.

I didn't find one.

Not to be deterred, I did some thinking. And I came up with a way to move my email over, for free. I would just use GMail.

Here's how it goes:

Step 1: Get a throwaway GMail address.

Step 2: Make sure that your new GMail account has IMAP enabled. Go here and follow the prompts.

Step 3: Configure your GMail account in Thunderbird. You can find those instructions Here. There is also a good discussion of the relationship between Thunderbird folders and GMail Labels.

Step 4: For each folder of archived mail you have in your main Thunderbird account, create an identical folder in the GMail account in Thunderbird.

Step 5: Open each main Thunderbird folder and copy all emails to the corresponding folder in the GMail account. Since the GMail account is set up to use IMAP, when you copy those emails in they get mirrored up to your GMail account. It even preserves the original send date. Be sure the synchronization is complete before proceeding to Step 6.

Step 6: Configure your GMail account in Outlook 2013 and do a send/receive to download all of your email from GMail.

Step 7: Configure your main email account in Outlook 2013 and create your folders.

Step 8: Copy over the messages from your GMail account folders to your main email folders in Outlook. 

Step 9: If you wish, you may remove your GMail account from Outlook and delete everything from your GMail account.

Step 10: Pour yourself a beer, buddy. You're done. For free.

Random Thought: Walgreens

Random Thought: Walgreens Refill Prescription by Scan in their Android application is awesome. Just ordered a refill without having to speak to a human being. My inner hermit is blissfully happy.