I use gmail for everything else but this old comcast.net email account is plugged into so many places I can’t drop it cold plus sometimes I need to find emails that are years old. Outlook’s searching is now broken by the multi gig size of the index files.
I’m using 2007 Outlook. Is there a superior email pop3 client out there that I can replace it with?
Mozilla Thunderbird is a very capable open-source mail client - I use it at home and I’ve never had a problem with storing large amounts of messages stretching back a long time.
It’s also got the same kind of pluggable architecture as Mozilla Firefox, so you can add features and components.
+1 Thunderbird. No, not the booze.
ISTM all the email astro is searching through are in OST/PST files on his PC. He needs to be able to retain those files; those are his only archive.
Does Thunderbird or any other thick POP3 client import Outlook 2007 OST/PST files?
For that matter, is there a way to upload OST/PST files into gmail or outlook.com and thereby put all his history in one place?
I’m dealing with a somewhat similar situation myself in that I’ve got ~25 years of old email in several generations of offline OST/PST files. Which I’d prefer not to have to leave in that form UFN.
It’s kind of clunky process, but you can configure both your old email account and your gmail account in outlook and actually drag/drop emails from one account to the other. So you can essentially move your old emails to your gmail account (and label them as “old email account” to boot).
It’s kind of slow though. And don’t try to move your entire mbox at once, outlook will flip.
Yes precisely I should have been more clear re the PST conversion requirement. As to your particular issue I did do a work around to do email searches by creating a gmail address and then importing the 6+ year worth of .pst files into the gmail account.
This free conversion tool will migrate pst files into a gmail account. It’s not a perfect solution and it’s only as up to date as to the point of conversion but for searching across years it worked quickly and accurately once the files were in gmail. Be aware that this importing and conversion to gmail may take hours or days depending on your net connection speed.
You can also (using gmail options) roll the incoming POP3 account email into this gmail account to keep it updated but you need to change the option in Outlook that takes the email off the server when it’s downloaded or if the POP3 account gets it first (if you continue to use it) it will take it off the server before it can roll to the gmail account.
Thanks for that tool. It might be relevant to my next evolution.
Given that you’ve already done all that work, I’m not sure why you want to mess directly with the Comcast email account. Just have gmail grab the contents then you deal directly with everything through gmail. Unless that’s one you like to send from.
Likewise, why do you want outlook in the mix at that point? gmail via browser isn’t great, but it’s free. And you’ve already got all your history up there.
FYI, you can also get outlook.com for free which gives you a web-based Outlook-ish UI. Or just spring for $150 and have Office 2016 with Outlook 2016 both cloud-based and installed on up to 5 devices.
The Comcast.net address is the issue. If have some floating clients that only have that address and I can’t afford a comcast-gmail sync glitch. I may just bite the bullet and get 2016 or maybe 365.
Go to the comcast account settings and have them forward all the email straight to your preferred Gmail address.
Stop checking your Comcast email with Outlook.
In gmail, set up a bundle or rules to group all the emails that arrive from the @comcast.net address. When you reply to those emails, you can choose to respond either from the @comcast.net address or the @gmail.com address.
If you get notices from anyone on the comcast address, tell them to update their infos to the new prefered addy.
I have 365 and I’m very happy with it. I use it mostly for OneNote, which I live by, and OneDrive. But I stopped using Outlook and switched to Gmail for everything precisely because .pst files always become unmanageable.
Using the above steps, probably within a year you’ll transition off the comcast address altogether.