Question re: migrating email from Windows Live Mail to Outlook

I've reached the point of having to abandon my longtime-preferred mail client, Window Live Mail (running under Windows 10.0.19045), and move to the MS Outlook email client. According to what I read on the Web, this isn't going to be easy and may take several tries and numerous workarounds to get it accomplished.

My question is: in the process of moving and converting the .eml files to .pst format, will the WLM originals in the their existing location remain intact, or is it possible that messages will be corrupted or lost in the process? In other words, will the .eml files be copied or moved. Ideally, in case of a move/convert failure, WLM would continue to be operational, the unsuccessful transfer could be aborted and started over from scratch. Just nervous attempting this if there's a chance all could be lost. I don't now enough about the .eml file structure and storage to know if those files could be backed-up to a safe location and then restored to WLM in case of such a failure. Thanks for any tips.

Electrojim said:

My question is: in the process of moving and converting the .eml files to .pst format, will the WLM originals in the their existing location remain intact, or is it possible that messages will be corrupted or lost in the process? In other words, will the .eml files be copied or moved.

What happens will depend on the conversion s-w you use. I wouldn't expect the files to be moved, but you can back them up from %UserProfile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsLiveMail first, to be safe - just copy the files & folders using explorer. Worry about how to restore (will WLM recognise and index copied files?) if the need arises.

The conversion process may allow you to convert the backed-up copies.

Thanks much for the tips!

"According to what I read on the Web, this isn't going to be easy and may take several tries and numerous workarounds to get it accomplished."

Not for me, my Emails go back to 2002 when using Outlook Express POP only, around 2014 changing to WLM for a couple of years 4 accounts using IMAP, 2 using POP, after that about 2016 the Mail App for the last 7 years all accounts using IMAP.
In WLM I moved all old POP Emails and some others to a Folder in an Outlook Mail Account IMAP. In the Mail App all 6 Email accounts use IMAP.

More details of the method should still be on the Microsoft website.

1. No Emails were lost.
2. The change to IMAP was accomplished.
3. Never had to deal with any file structures, or things like Email duplicates when dealing with POP type files.
4. You can check by using the Web Interface of the Account that Emails have been moved/copied correctly.

I agree - if you are using, or switching to, IMAP, then you can simply copy all your emails from WLM onto a folder on the email server, then pop them off again (if you want to) using Outlook.

Now that's a clever idea. I wonder if a gmail POP account could be migrated in much the same manner, converting from POP to IMAP in Gmail first of course. One question, will messages in the primary Inbox and Sent folders in the original accounts be double-sent if they are copied and put in a special IMAP folder? Once they are copied there, should they be deleted from the Inbox and Sent folders? If the POP accounts are simply changed to IMAP, wouldn't they populate the fresh Outlook client automatically when linked?

One other thing. I have a work account, which is a Microsoft 360 Web-based Outlook email account. I wonder if it can be IMAPed as well. What you guys have proposed sounds like a solid idea and obviates the hassle and third-party steps.

Electrojim said:

Now that's a clever idea. I wonder if a gmail POP account could be migrated in much the same manner, converting from POP to IMAP in Gmail first of course. One question, will messages in the primary Inbox and Sent folders in the original accounts be double-sent if they are copied and put in a special IMAP folder? Once they are copied there, should they be deleted from the Inbox and Sent folders? If the POP accounts are simply changed to IMAP, wouldn't they populate the fresh Outlook client automatically when linked?

I don't know what is involved in converting from POP to IMAP. But old emails in a POP account are probably not still on the server (depends on settings). I doubt it will work to your satisfaction 'automatically'.

Thanks to all for the tips and best wishes. I wanted to update MS Office's Word and Publisher, so I 'upgraded' to an economical "OEM Version" of Office 2019, only to find that its Outlook has a longstanding problem of not being able to render images in incoming POP messages... lots of questions and complaints about this in newsgroups, and evidently the problem is still there in Office 2021 as well. Bummer, but it made me take another look a Thunderbird, and once I tried the latest version of it, I have become quite satisfied in what it offers and can do. Plus, it can read all my Windows Live Mail 'raw' messages, although it's a one-at-a-time matter, prompting me to save only the important ones. So for now I'm fixed; just hope that Mozilla's spinoff of the Thunderbird project continues to provide support.