# Transfer lots of Outlook email to a DIFF. Outlook acct.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transfer-lots-of-outlook-email-to-a-diff-outlook-acct/784938>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 21, 2017, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transfer-lots-of-outlook-email-to-a-diff-outlook-acct/784938 "2017-04-21T18:26:50Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Lee\_Q](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/aeb1de/32.png) [@Lee\_Q](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lee_Q)\
**Post date:** [April 21, 2017, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transfer-lots-of-outlook-email-to-a-diff-outlook-acct/784938/1 "2017-04-21T18:26:50Z")

</div>

Computer geniuses, help please. I want to transfer about 5 years worth of email from an existing Outlook account to a different Outlook account on a different computer. I’d like the emails to remain sorted into folders as they currently are (not a lot of folders, maybe 5 or 6). Current Windows machinery. How complicated is this, and how long should it take? I think I tried to do this a few years ago and ran into a snafu with pst files or something? Don’t know if it’s the sort of thing I should pay a technician to do correctly. I want to avoid losing or corrupting any files or, of course, messing anything else up on either computer. Thoughts?

Mods, if this is IMHO rather than GQ, please move. Thanks!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\
**Post date:** [April 21, 2017, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transfer-lots-of-outlook-email-to-a-diff-outlook-acct/784938/2 "2017-04-21T18:44:21Z")

</div>

You need to be a bit clearer about what you want to do here. When you say Outlook, are you talking about actual Microsoft outlook email accounts, or the Microsoft Outlook email client software on your computer, or both?

Also, if it’s an actual Outlook email address, are we talking about two different email accounts? For example, are you trying to move all the email from (for example) [Lee\_123@outlook.com](mailto:Lee_123@outlook.com) to a new email account called [Lee\_456@outlook.com](mailto:Lee_456@outlook.com)?

Or are you talking about moving all the emails from a single account to a different computer? Because that would work a little differently.

I’m sorry if these questions seem insulting or too basic, but i’ve learned from helping people like my mother that some people don’t quite understand the difference between email accounts and email client software.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\
**Post date:** [April 21, 2017, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transfer-lots-of-outlook-email-to-a-diff-outlook-acct/784938/3 "2017-04-21T19:08:13Z")

</div>

In addition to all the above…

if you are talking about the Outlook client software, not the [outlook.com](http://outlook.com) email service, then which versions of the Outlook software are on the two computers?