Migrated to Lotus Notes – Now Need to Access Legacy Mails from PST files

Recently my company have migrated mailboxes to Lotus Notes from MS Outlook. Now we also have got many OLD PST archives for many users with us, which we have not converted to Lotus Notes. These PST files are BIG in size, some are even 16 GB in file size. Now we are looking for a solution  which can help our users  access their legacy emails stored within the .pst files. Can your team suggest us a way to do so.

Also can you recommend a good tool for migrating to and from Lotus Notes. We have got an upcoming email migration project, where we are looking for a solution for

• Lotus Notes to Outlook
• Microsoft Outlook to Lotus Notes

We have heard a lot about your expertise, so need a recommendation from your side for such tool’s.

Your query was delivered to us by the Technical Team. First of all let me introduce myself to you, before we get on to the solution. Myself James, working as a Messaging Server Migration Specialist from the past 12 years. I can surely help you by answering all your queries step by step.

Viewing Archived Outlook PST File Emails

First of all, considering your situation where:

• You have migrated from Outlook to Lotus Notes
• And yet have some of the PST archives with you

The situation clearly states that neither your organization nor any of its employees are currently working with Microsoft Outlook. Thus, there is no way the archive and its legacy emails can be accessed at least not without applying a workaround or a third party applet to work.

Secondly, PST files are a proprietary of Microsoft Outlook and therefore its contents can only be read using the respective client of any version (except for Outlook 2011). Therefore, the only option left here is of using a third party application that can let your employees open and read PST files of any Outlook version and any given size.

Outlook PST Viewer: The best thing about this utility here is that, it is – easy to download, safe to install, and absolutely free of cost! You can get the tool up and running within a matter of clicks and read any size of PST files on it without encountering any limitation or complication.

Being a standalone makes the application worth keeping handy for reading PST files. Some of the key features:

• No file size limit is imposed by the software on the PST files to be viewed
• Supports opening & reading contents of severely corrupted PST files too
  
• Separate data preview tabs offered each for emails and corresponding attachments
  
• All components of the selected data file supported; contacts, calendar, tasks, etc.
  
• Email arrangement changeable via sorting attributes upwards down or vice versa

It provides a complete solution to view all Outlook PST files without installing Outlook on your machine. Download demo version from here – http://compsc.com/d/l/pst-viewer-2/?wpdmdl=25

Migration Solution for Lotus Notes and Outlook

Transferring data from Lotus Notes to Outlook is a little bit tricky and not possible by any manual means. However, migrating data of Outlook into a Lotus Notes supported database format is possible both; via a built in utility provided by IBM and also via commercial solution. Nevertheless, the excessive manual input required by end user makes the inbuilt program non-desirable solution to deal with the migration.

To and From Migration of Lotus Notes Database – The Third Party Way

As long as recommending a migration solution for Lotus Notes is concerned, you have to go for a commercial solution. Export Notes is the one I would prefer to suggest in your case to migrate emails from Lotus Notes to Outlook. Features of this application justify the reason I am advising it for migrating Notes mailbox database to Outlook PST:

• Convert selective or all email folders and components to Unicode type PST
• Split resultant PST automatically after it exceeds specified file size (MB/GB)
• Date based content filter applicable on all components for selective export
• Duplicate contacts removal supported with multiple filter options
• Removal of message level encryption offered for convenient experience

Plenty more advanced facilities are featured in the tool besides the mentioned ones. These qualities in a combination support a smooth migration of Notes database contents to Outlook PST. (Know more about the tool, http://www.systoolsgroup.com/export-notes.html)

Similarly, for the migration of Outlook data to Notes the application I would advise is the Outlook to Notes program. The software is built with appropriate features supporting a precise process of migrating mailbox from Outlook to Lotus notes. Some of the highlighting features can be referred below:

• Migrate Outlook emails components to Lotus Notes database format
• Component category selection offered by the tool for selective migration
• Deleted items folder exclusion provided for speeding up the conversion
• Date based filter featured for emails, calendar, & tasks for selective migration
• Generates a detailed report regarding the complete migration and saves to CSV

For Detailed information, refer here – http://www.systoolsgroup.com/outlook-to-notes.html

Conclusion: The applications suggested (excluding PST Viewer) are tested and work absolutely fine in fact way better than the manual workarounds available, if any. Each utility comes with a purchase license (according to the purpose of use) that adds up an advanced range of facilities to it to enhance the migration. Get in touch with us if any confusion persists or to know more about the solutions suggested here.