Thunderbird to Exchange

From Provider Notes

For more information about ISC's Exchange Service, visit the Provider Web at [1].

Contents 1 Introduction 2 Important Notes 3 Organize Thunderbird Email and Consider Increasing Quotas 4 Preparing & Backing Up Thunderbird 5 Completing The Migration To Outlook

Introduction

These instructions work whether your email is configured for IMAP or POP. If you have an IMAP configuration, and store the majority of your messages on the server, then the actual import of information into Exchange will take significantly less time than for users that have the majority of their mail stored locally.

The strategy outlined below does not use third party software and also strives to retain a similar mailbox configuration from the user's perspective. This method involves configuring Outlook 2003, Outlook 2007 or Entourage 2004 for both the POBOX Classic and ISC Exchange accounts. Basically, the strategy is to use Thunderbird to upload all messages (even those currently stored locally) onto the POBOX Classic server and then to use Outlook or Entourage to copy them to the appropriate folders both on the Exchange Server and locally to meet the users' needs.

Important Notes

• These instructions make the assumption that the user wishes to mirror their existing mail structure in Outlook, by continuing to store local folders locally and by migrating those currently stored on the POBOX server to the Exchange server.
• These instructions make the assumption that Outlook 2003, Outlook 2007, or Entourage has already been installed, updated, and configured for POBOX Exchange. For configuration instructions, see:

How to Configure Outlook 2003 for Exchange, or How to Configure Outlook 2007 for Exchange, or How to Configure Entourage 2004 for Exchange

Organize Thunderbird Email and Consider Increasing Quotas

1. Organize the email in Thunderbird and delete old email that will never be needed.
2. Compact all folders (File > Compact Folders).
3. Consider having the email administrator temporarily bump up the POBOX Classic and ISC Exchange quotas, until all the mail is in its new position (in general, depending on email and attachment sizes, 4,000 emails use approximately 100 MB, so 40,000 emails would be approximately 1.0 GB) in accordance with the amount of email you intend to transfer.

Preparing & Backing Up Thunderbird

1. Make sure that the client's email is fully synced with the POBOX Classic server and that the current folders are up to date.
2. Make a full backup of the Thunderbird folder.
   1. The path to this folder is usually %AppData%\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxxxxxxx.default\, where xxxxxxxx is a random string of 8 characters. Just browse to C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\ on Windows XP or C:\users\[User Name]\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\ on Windows Vista.
   2. %AppData% is a shorthand for the Application Data path on Windows XP/Vista. To use it, click Start > Run... (use Start > Accessories > Run on Vista), enter %AppData% and press Enter. You will be taken to the "real" folder, which is normally C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Application Data on Windows XP, or C:\users\[User Name]\AppData\Roaming on Windows Vista.
3. It is assumed that most users will want to migrate all mail to Outlook. However, for ease of transition, some users may be ok with retaining very old mail, which is accessed rarely, in Thunderbird and will continue to use Thunderbird on occasion to access those local folders. This will need to be a user by user, local decision.
   1. Take stock of the users quantity of mail, and as noted above, bump up quotas on POBOX Classic and ISC Exchange accounts as necessary to accommodate all the user's mail that they want to access using Outlook. If they have more than 1 GB of mail, you will need to do the process outlined below as many times as necessary to accommodate all of their files.
   2. Create a folder on the POBOX Classic server called "local" (or similar). (POP users will first need to create an IMAP connection on POBOX Classic to store the files.)
   3. For mail in Thunderbird local folders that they want to access with the Outlook client, copy the local folders to the newly created "local" folder on the POBOX Classic server. When copying/pasting the mail, retain the local folder structure on POBOX Classic. Note that even after bumping up the quota, if there is still too much mail in Local Folders to move at one time, this will be an iterative process. After completing the steps below (i.e. downloading mail to either Outlook archives or placing it on the Exchange server), this step will need to be repeated for the additional mail.

1. If applicable, leave the remainder (that which the user does not want to access from the Outlook client) in local folders in Thunderbird and compact all folders (File > Compact Folders). Create another back up of the remaining mail in the Thunderbird folder. (see instructions in step 1 above.)
2. Quit Thunderbird.

Completing The Migration To Outlook

As stated above, these instructions assume Outlook or Entourage has already been configured for ISC Exchange.

1. Run Outlook’s auto-archive feature (File > Archive ... > Inbox and click the OK button). This will set up a local data store within the Outlook client, which will be used to hold all the local folders being migrated from Thunderbird.
2. Configure Outlook or Entourage to connect to the user's account on POBOX Classic using IMAP (see instructions for Outlook 2007 or Outlook 2003).
3. Expand both the POBOX Classic and ISC Exchange mailboxes.
4. For the folders in the "local" folder, move the mail from POBOX Classic to Outlook’s archive folder (created in Step 1 above), by dragging and dropping folders from the POBOX Classic account to the Archive folder. This will put the mail in a local folder rather than storing it on the Exchange server. Dragging and dropping the folders will move them from one account to the other; it will not copy them. If you wish to copy a folder, right-click it and select Copy and then the location you wish it to be copied to.
5. For folders that are created by default by Outlook (i.e. Inbox, Sent and Drafts) manually copy the contents of the POBOX Classic IMAP folders to their Exchange equivalents. Also copy all folders that the user has created on the POBOX Classic server and put a copy in their Exchange mailbox. It is important to move these folders directly from POBOX Classic to the Exchange folder to preserve time stamps. Anything passed to a personal folder and then to the Exchange server will lose original time/date stamps.
6. After moving, launch Thunderbird and delete (if applicable--depends on whether you copied or moved) the mail in the "local" folder and compact the IMAP store. (Do not delete the standard folders like Inbox and Sent).
7. If the client has additional email in Thunderbird local folders to migrate, copy those folders up to the "local" folder on the POBOX Classic server and continue until all email is migrated. (See step 5 above)
8. After all mail is migrated, remove the POBOX Classic account from Outlook. This does not delete the POBOX account, but rather just removes access to it from the Outlook client. To accomplish this, in Outlook select Options in the Tools menu. On the Mail Setup Tab, click Email Accounts. Highlight the POBOX account and click Remove.
9. After all the mail is successfully migrated, send a series of test messages to and from the account to verify that that routing is working appropriately and that mail is being stored in desired folders.
10. After a reasonable time to establish that all is well with the migration, delete the POBOX Classic account from Thunderbird, unless the user still has old mail stored there solely. As an alternative, deactivate the automatic Send and Receive capability within Thunderbird and retain the locally stored information.