Trouble migrating Contacts (2002) to People (2013)

[Uncle Scotty]

I tried to move my contacts from Outlook 2002 on XP to 2013 on Windows 8, and to do so- I used Outlook's import/export tool using the .pst format to do the port.

For those familiar with Outlook 2013, Contacts are now called People. After the import was completed, I created a new email message and, in that Window, clicked on the 'To:' field to add recipients. Much to my surprise, only two contact sublists were imported, Contacts and Students, despite my request that subfolders be included. I can verify this, because my old address book in 2002 had hundreds of Contacts, whereas my People list has less than 50 entries.

Is there more to importing People than just a simple export to file (old), import from file (new)? I am just wanting to figure out how to get all my Contacts into People.

Thanks, Scott

 

[Karl Timmermans]

#1 - There is no real need to export to a new PST file. You could simply copy the original PST file on the XP system to the Win8 system and then just open the newly copied file from within O'2013 (done via File --> Open & Export --> Open Outlook Data file. At this point, you can use the contact folders in this PST file or copy the folders to default PST file for the profile. If you decide to keep using the original PST file then see item #3

#2 - From your description about what does and doesn't appear when clicking on the TO button - that sounds like the various contact folders you were expecting to appear have not been set to "Show this folder as an e-mail addressbook" which is done by right clicking a specific contact folder --> Properties --> Outlook Address Book

The AddressBook is not the place to determine whether a folder was or was not imported. You need to check what contact folders appear under <People> in the '2013 Navigation Pane.

#3 - O'2002 maintains PST files in ANSI format (which can be read/opened in all later versions). However, it would be better to convert to the current UNICODE format by either
a) create a new PST file and copying/moving the folders from the old PST file to the new one (once done - you can close the original PST file) or
b) do a PST2PST export the from within '2013 to include all sub-folders which will result in a Unicode PST file which you will need to explicitly open in '2013 once the export has completed.

 

[Uncle Scotty]

Thanks for your reply, Karl. Just a few followups on that.

1. Where does O'2013 store the PST file? I couldn't follow your comment, 'copy the folders to default PST file for the profile.' Can you say more?

2. The folders I expected to see did not appear in the O'2013 Nav Pane. Does that mean what I did in step 1 didn't work? Is that where I need to go next?

3. Not sure how to do step 3, neither a nor b. Could I trouble you for more clarification?

Thanks, Scott

 

[Karl Timmermans]

RE: item #1 - in this particular case, where the PST file is stored is not relevant. What you need to do is open the old PST file from wherever it was copied on your machine via O'2013 menu --> File --> Open --> Open & Export --> Select the old pst file (this process assumes you have copied your old PST file to the new system).

After the above is completed - you will see a new set of folders in the Nav Pane. What is included depends on whether you copied the original old PST file (which would contain the <Inbox>, <Contacts>, <Calendar> folders etc) or the exported PST file which will contain whatever was set during the export. If there is no Contacts folder OR the Contacts folder is empty - simply means that there is no contact data in the PST file you just added to the profile.

On the other hand - if there is a Contacts folder with data in it - just click on this folder to open it - highlight all the contacts via Ctrl-A and <Copy> them to your current default contacts folder.

Re: "The folders I expected to see did not appear in the O'2013 Nav Pane" - can't answer your question since don't know what you expected to see but suspect that likely has something to do with the "type" of email account that has been configured - one system likely is POP3 and the other is Imap.

Re: Point#3 - will leave that for now until the above is determined in terms of whether or not you even have the contact info in the PST file.