Import mails from Apple Mail.app to Microsoft Outlook.app

First of all, why I wanted to move from Apple Mail.app to Microsoft Outlook?

Personally I like Apple Mail.app very much for its simplicity and clean UI. But using it for work has some hick-ups:

1. There's at least a minute delay in receiving emails. So when there's a very active conversation happening via email, my response sometimes gets delayed.
2. The main problem is that I had to rely on many other internal portals to a) check for availability and room booking, b) view members of a delivery list, c) view a person's contact details.
3. Also I like the Lync (MS Communicator) integration in Outlook. I can see if a person is available on Lync before I send any email.

Basically I feel Mail.app is efficient only for emails.

Though I've already decided to move to Outlook.app, I couldn't switch immediately because I had to move my seven years of work emails (> 6GB) properly to Outlook before I start using it actively.

I had serious problem importing the native mailbox (.mbox) file format used by Mail.app. There were a lot of work-arounds I found on the web, but nothing worked perfectly for me. Finally I had almost made up my mind to purchase the software emailchemy, which was recommended by many people for this mail migration. But I was a bit hesitant to spend $50 for a software that I would be using only once.

Then the great google guided me to a Microsoft forum where I found a perfect solution for my problem. Here's how I migrated my emails from Mail.app to Outlook.app

Converting the Mail.app's .mbox packs to the .mbox format that's understandable by MS Outlook

• Download a small app called emlxconvert located here: emlx to mbox
• Your Mail.app mbox folders will be in /Users/<your user name>/Library/Mail/V2/Mailboxes
• Go to that directory in Finder and then search for all .emlx files in that directory.
• Select all the .emlx files in that directory and drag them into the emlxconvert window and click 'Save Mbox'
• After choosing a destination for the .mbox file the email messages are saved as a single .mbox file that can now be imported in to Outlook 2011

Now importing the mbox to Outlook

• In Outlook 2011, go 'File' -> Import -> Select 'Contacts and messages from a text file' and click the right arrow at the bottom of the window.
• In the next step, choose 'Import messages from an MBOX-format text file' and click the right arrow at the bottom of the window.
• Now select the mbox file that we earlier saved using emlxconvert and click 'Import'
• Outlook then will import all your old email in to a folder called mbox. You can then rename the folder or move the emails to a different folder.

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Spotlight Indexing Search Disabled - Solution

Having changed my office laptop to a MacBook Pro, I noticed that there were quite a lot of options that were disabled for some internal IT reasons. One such feature, which I like and use the most in Mac is the Spotlight feature.

Here's the steps that I followed to enable the feature, without having to reach my very busy IT team.

The first thing to check if SpotLight is enabled is to look at the file /etc/hostconfig

Check if the highlighted property "SPOTLIGHT" is enabled in this file. If not, add it.

 AFPSERVER=-NO-
 AUTHSERVER=-NO-
 TIMESYNC=-NO-
 QTSSERVER=-NO-
 SPOTLIGHT=-YES-

After you have verified the hostconfig, check if the file ".metadata_never_index" is there in the root directory. If the file exist, delete it. This is a ZERO byte file but exist just to disable the index functionality.

d--x--x--x   8 root  wheel          272 Oct  3 07:22 .DocumentRevisions-V100
drwxr-xr-x   2 root  wheel           68 Jul 26 02:20 .PKInstallSandboxManager
drwx------   5 root  wheel          170 Oct  1 14:15 .Spotlight-V100
d-wx-wx-wt   3 root  100035085      102 Oct  1 14:23 .Trashes
drwx------   5 root  wheel          170 Oct  1 14:21 .com.apple.NetBootX
----------   1 root  admin            0 Jun 21 03:17 .file
drwx------  27 root  wheel          918 Oct  4 15:15 .fseventsd
-rw-------   1 root  wheel        65536 Oct  1 14:15 .hotfiles.btree
-rw-r--r--   1 root  wheel            0 Oct  1 15:26 .metadata_never_index
drwxr-xr-x@  2 root  wheel           68 Jun 21 04:13 .vol
drwxrwxr-x+ 51 root  admin         1734 Oct  2 23:02 Applications
drwxr-xr-x+ 63 root  wheel         2142 Oct  3 09:19 Library
drwxr-xr-x@  3 root  wheel          102 Oct  4 09:19 Network
drwxr-xr-x+  4 root  wheel          136 Oct  1 14:48 System
drwxr-xr-x   7 root  admin          238 Oct  2 21:29 Users
drwxrwxrwt@  3 root  admin          102 Oct  4 11:32 Volumes

Just to be on the safer side, I moved the file to my desktop.

 $sudo mv .metadata_never_index ~/Desktop/

Now, having removed all the configurations that blocks indexing, just start the indexing using the below command:

 $sudo mdutil -i on /

That's it, now I could see the Spotlight already started indexing :)

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iPhone 4 - The cool gadget. But I still love my HTC Magic.

Since when Apple announced iPhone 4 model, I was waiting to hold that. In fact, this eagerness came in me since when Gizmado revealed the (argumented) iPhone prototype.

Fortunately, all three Telco's in Singapore launched iPhone 4 on the same day - unlike the earlier launch of iPhone where M1 and Starhub started distribution after a long time since SingTel was the sole distributor. I have a M1 connection for ~3 years and I don't like to move out of M1 as I had never faced any problem with M1.

On July 30th iPhone4 was released in Singapore. I had the invite from M1 to collect the phone immediately after the release (i.e., 12am of July 30). But I know I can't be the first set person to collect iPhone 4 as I can't find any reason to go out of home at midnight. Also I wanted to buy the iPhone 4 for my wife as a surprise gift. Also I know Singaporeans are so gadget-savvy and I expected too much crowd. Just as I expected, the next day I read the news that the queue stretched along the orchard road from M1 Shop @ Paragon.

Besides my tight schedule at work, I found some time to collect the iPhone 4 at M1 Shop @ Plaza Singapore.

Okay.. stories aside, let me compare iPhone 4 with my 1.5 years old HTC Magic (HTC Android).

• First thing I love about iPhone 4 is it's retina display. What a crystal clear text and pictures that it displays. Marvelous.
• Size: I like my HTC Magic. I think magic is sleek and easily holdable than iPhone.
• Connectivity: I don't see any difference. Both phones provide good connectivity.
• Apps: Definitely iPhone has a lot of apps available. Though there are not as many apps for Android as iPhone, but I could find android app for all my needs. So I am quite happy with android.
• Communications: like Mail, Messages, chat, etc., I definitely love Android. Though iPhone is comparable with android, for some reasons I love to use communications tools in my Android phone.
• Entertainment: I don't think anyone can beat iPhone (~ iPod) when it comes to entertainment. In fact I still stick to iPod touch for music or movies on the move. Onething I really like to get for my android phone is an application similar to iTunes. I wish I don't copy any music or movies manually. I like the way how iPod / iPhone syncs with iTunes. I am looking for such a tool for a long time.

So as to conclude, I like, in fact love, my HTC Magic rather than the new iPhone 4. Still iPhone 4 is real cool gadget for sure.

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