Load Windows Live Mail emails into Windows 10 Mail

How do I access (with my new Windows 10 Home [version 1903] computer using Windows Mail) the many thousands of Windows Live Mail (WLM) emails on my old Windows 7 computer.

I use yahoo mail, and I am able to get new yahoo mail using Windows 10 Mail on the new computer, and I can still get yahoo mail using WLM on the old W7 computer.

So I can get rid of the old computer, how do I load all the existing emails from the old W7 WLM folders into new folders in the new W10 computer that uses the Windows Mail program?

Hi Girobob, and welcome to Tenforums!
As you can probably tell from the lack of responses to your query, there is no way to merge WLM folders into the Win 10 Mail App. I think you have two options:
1. Install a copy of WLM onto your Win 10 computer and transfer the WLM files from the Win 7 machine to the Win 10 machine. You can find info on the internet on how to do both of these. Not totally recommended since WLM went out of support many years ago.
2. Install eM Client on your Win 7 machine and transfer your WLM account files into eM Client. Then export the eM Client files to an eM Client system installed on your Win 10 PC. eM Client is free for up to two accounts.

Hope this helps.

If you manage to do it, you might ask yourself how you would ever transfer the Windows Mail emails anywhere else in the future - that might help you decide whether to rely on it for emails you want to keep.

garyb0125 said:

Hi Gyrobob, and welcome to Tenforums! ...
2. Install eM Client on your Win 7 machine and transfer your WLM account files into eM Client. Then export the eM Client files to an eM Client system installed on your Win 10 PC. eM Client is free for up to two accounts.

I have been hearing a lot about emclient over the past few days.
--- Is it reliable? Do they support it well?
--- Is it easier to set up than the Windows-based email software packages I've endured over the past decades?
--- I've had so many "issues" with email over time, I am very concerned about some newer app taking over all my email activity.
--- Is the company actually headquartered in Czechoslovakia?
--- How complicated will it be to transfer all of my thousands of WLM emails in 40 or so folders to a new install of emclient (on the old W7 computer) and then move all those folders/emails to the new W10 computer? You make it sound like child's play. I am not a genius or a geek.

Thanks for the assistance.

Bob

Further to my (admittedly) unhelpful answer, I could offer this: the location of W10 Mail emails appears to be unclear - you will find references on the web to:

Code:

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Packages\microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps\LocalState\Indexed\LiveComm\Mail

and

Code:

C:\Users\Your User Name\AppData\Local\Comms\Unistore

Whichever it is (and that may depend on whether you are using IMAP or POP), you may see .EML files stored there. Now it seems that WLM uses .EML files for messages (I don't use it or Mail, so can't confirm right now). So I suggest you start using Mail, then check if any emails you create/receive appear in either of those locations (or maybe elsewhere - use something like Everrything or Agent Ransack to find .eml files). Once you find the location, simply copy your WLM .eml files (wherever they are stored - see Just a moment... for info) to the new Mail location - try just one or two to start to see if Mail finds them.

If you know you are using IMAP, this may all be completely unnecessary - al your emails may be stored by your mail provider - I have no idea what Yahoo uses/used - unless you have created local folders stored only on your PC. You will have to check this out.

hth a bit more, Martin

You can transfer all Emails from WLM to the Windows 10 Mail App, no problem.

On your Windows 7 computer with WLM installed:
In WLM copy all your locally stored 40 folders and Emails to a folder within your Yahoo Account so that they are all on the Yahoo mail server rather than stored locally on the Windows 7 PC with WLM.
Probably using the Yahoo Archive folder.

Open your Yahoo Account with the Webmail interface to check that it has been done.
This will be the most tedious part of the process.

New Windows 10 PC:
Setup Windows 10 Mail App with the Yahoo Account using IMAP. You already seem to have done that.
Once that Yahoo account has synced then all your Emails should appear under the Yahoo Archive folder in the Windows 10 Mail App.
Again check that this is the case.

That is it basically. I would do 1 of your folders first to check the principle before doing the others.

The instructions are given on the MS website help pages if you search for them.

Hi there

I had a slightly different problem. My ISP (Vodafone) said they were going to stop being a mail provider and I needed to make other arrangements. I was running WLM (pop3) at the time.
I joined up with Gmail (web) and advised my contacts of my new address.
To be able to go back to my previous WLM Vodafone emails I went to (in Windows 7)...
C:Users/yourname/AppData/Local/Microsoft/ and saved the Windows Live Mail folder in there.
That contained all my accounts/messages etc.
I then went to ... https://www.softpedia.com/get/Intern...L-Viewer.shtml
and downloaded their portable eml viewer.
Create a folder .. Portable EML Viewer .. and extract the downloaded files into it.
When you want to view an old WLM email just use the viewer to read it.
This suited me just fine as I rarely have cause to refer to them.

DaddyG

Helmut said:

You can transfer all Emails from WLM to the Windows 10 Mail App, no problem.

On your Windows 7 computer with WLM installed:
In WLM copy all your locally stored 40 folders and Emails to a folder within your Yahoo Account so that they are all on the Yahoo mail server rather than stored locally on the Windows 7 PC with WLM.
Probably using the Yahoo Archive folder. ...

New Windows 10 PC:
Setup Windows 10 Mail App with the Yahoo Account using IMAP. You already seem to have done that.
Once that Yahoo account has synced then all your Emails should appear under the Yahoo Archive folder in the Windows 10 Mail App. Again check that this is the case.

... the instructions are given on the MS website help pages if you search for them.

you said: "In WLM copy all your locally stored 40 folders and Emails to a folder within your Yahoo Account so that they are all on the Yahoo mail server"

How do I do this? I can't find a way to actually copy emails from WLM to the Yahoo account.

I do not have WLM installed anymore, but you could copy the Emails in to Folders created in the Outlook Account in my case. Yahoo for you.

It was 5 years ago so I do not recall the exact method, but likely to be selecting Emails and right clicking for Copying to, or dragging and dropping, or menu selection, in to the Outlook/Yahoo Account.

From memory the Folders had to be created in the Outlook Account first as the folder could not be copied whole, it had to be the actual Emails in the Folders.

It means manually creating your 40 folders in the Yahoo Account. Then copying groups of Emails. Tedious, but it can be done.