Importing Outlook 2007 PST Files to Thunderbird 2.0

Well, it is not the easiest journey.  Especially if you, like me, no longer have access to your Outlook 2007 Media.  But here is a way to pull it off. No guarantees, but hope it saves you some time:

1.0 YOU NEED OUTLOOK
OK, you can try to do it without Outlook using a plug-in, but I couldn’t get that working.  Other than that Thunderbird can’t recognize PST files without Outlook installed.  If you don’t have access to your media you can download the Trial version from Microsoft: http://www.microsoft.com/outlook

When you install Outlook, it will set up a mail account – be sure to set one up, even if it is bogus.  Because with no email profile, Outlook won’t create a PST file…and with no default PST file, you can’t open a DIFFERENT PST file.  Why? Oh, please don’t get me started…

2.0 OUTLOOK MUST BE ACTIVATED
For me, if Outlook wasn’t activated, I couldn’t point it to my PST file.  It would blubber about it being a “reduced functionality mode.” Activation, luckily, cures this.

3.0 OUTLOOK MUST BE YOUR DEFAULT MAIL PROVIDER
You can change it later, but if you already have Thunderbird as your default, then Thunderbird import will fail.  So, when you install Outlook, make sure it is set to be your default mail program (No, I don’t know how to set it after you install).

4.0 REMOVE PST PLUG-IN (IF YOU INSTALLED IT)
If you installed the PST plug-in from Softpedia, uninstall it and restart Thunderbird.  That thing will block Thunderbird’s default import process.

5.0 OK, YOU ARE READY!!
Once you have set the stage by completing the above steps, you can begin the process of importing your PST files to Thunderbird by doing the following:

• In Outlook, you should have a default PST.  To get to YOUR PST, you use the FILE -> DATA FILE MANAGEMENT menu option, click ADD and point it to the PST  you want to use.
• Then you will point to that file, click the SET AS DEFAULT and restart Outlook.
• If you are paranoid, like me, you will then go back into data file management, remove the default PST file and restart Outlook.  Because Thunderbird creates file-based email folders, I want to make sure it didn’t encounter 2 “Inbox” folders – I don’t know how it would handle that. 
• WARNING: If you have nested folders in your PST and any folders have the same name, I’ve read you can encounter problems with Thunderbird’s import. In Outlook, you will want to review your folder names and make sure there are no duplicates.
• Close Outlook, and start Thunderbird
• Use Thunderbird’s Tools -> Import and select “mail”, then select “Outlook” – it SHOULD, with all the above steps completed, begin the process of importing your data. Mine took about 10 minutes, and was about 480MB of data.
• Repeat the above only select “Address Books” and that should bring in your contacts.

I am far from an expert, here.  Just a computer geek that found the learning curve a bit obnoxious, and thought I would share what I found out.  If it didn’t work, you can try Aid4Mail (i didn’t). Good Luck!