Importing email, rules, signatures and settings into Entourage 2004 from Entourage X
You can import mail messages, settings, filters, address book, etc from Entourage X into Entourage 2004 easily. This can be done after you have set up your Entourage 2004or during the setup process. Please note that if you have set up Entourage 2004 as IMAP you should not import the old account settings!
Also, be aware that if you have several years worth of emails (tens of thousands of messages) the impoprt process may take a very long time, even several hours! You can run the import process in the background while doing other things on your Mac but you won't be able to use Entourage 2004 during the process. Don't use the older Entourage X as well as it may cause errors in the import process. Generally speaking if you have updated to Office 2004 you should delete Office X from your Mac.
Instructions
Both Entourage X ad Entourage 2004 keep email messages and account settings in a folder called Microsoft User Data in your Documents folder. There are separate folders inside there for Office X and Office 2004. They're called Identities. You need to be aware of this location as you may have to point Entourage 2004 to it during the importing process.
Open Entourage 2004 and select Import from the File menu as shown on the right.
The Import dialog box will open. Click the radio button next to Import information from a program. DO NOT check the Import information from an Entourage archive button! This is use for other purposes.
Click the right arrow to continue...
Select Microsoft Entourage X from the list of the programs to import from.
Click the right arrow to continue...
Select the items you want to import from Entourage X. If you have already set up Entourage 2004 for checking your email, that is you have created an email account, you don't want to import accounts! Import accounts only if this is the first time you're setting up Entourage 2004 and you're literally srating from blank.
However, if you are going to set up Entourage 2004 as IMAP and your old Entourage X account was set up as POP you don't want to import the accounts even if you are opening Entourage 2004 for the first time. In such case, set up Entourage 2004 for IMAP first by following these instructions and then come back here and import your mail messages, signatures, etc
Click the right arrow to continue... .
Entourage 2004 should detect your old Entourage X identities by itself, unless they were moved to another location. However, it may fail to detect it for other reasons and you will need to point it to it.
Click the right arrow to continue... and Entourage will import your selected items. You will see a progress message as shown below(skipping the next two steps)...
If the location wasn't automatically detected click the Browse button and follow the next two steps.
Select the location of your Microsoft User Data folder or another location you have copied it to...
Select the Office X Identities folder, then the Main Identity folder and click the Choose button.
This is the import progress box. If you had several years worth of messages in Entourage X this process can take even several hours! If you stop this process you will need to start over from the beginning.
Once the import process is complete you will be notified with the Ready to Go! message :)
