With the growing need of sending/receiving emails day by day, there are various email clients that are competing with each other. However, there are various email providers as well which claims to provide all the latest features for emailing. Some of the common email providers include Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc. However, they are only available when you are connected to the Internet. You would not be able to access the mail items if you are not connected to the Internet. In addition, they are not considered as secured as required.
However, they are ideal for a home users where security is no the prime concern. In business running organizations, where security is the prime concern, these email providers are not reliable. That is the reason why almost all the business organizations use professional email clients like MS Outlook, Lotus Notes, Thunderbird, etc. There could be many more email clients that can be used. All of these provide a secured and efficient way of accessing mails. However, they differ in their file format. The entire mentioned client uses a different file format to store user mail items.
MS Outlook uses Outlook data file (PST) to store user mailbox items. This email client can also be used along with the MS Exchange Server. If the MS Outlook works with MS Exchange Server it uses Offline Storage Table (OST) as the data file. However, there are various versions of MS Outlook being used today along with the latest MS Outlook 2013. The choice of the MS Outlook totally depends upon the user need and its compatibility with the platform on which it has to be installed. For example, a user might prefer MS Outlook 2010 over MS Outlook 2013. Some of the reasons of choosing MS Outlook as an email client are mentioned below.
- Provides better security by working in collaboration with MS Exchange
- Support various protocols including POP and IMAP
- Blocks from any virus or Phishing attack
- Helps you organize mail items by advanced grouping feature
- Provides calendar, scheduling, and various other emailing options
Thunderbird is yet another famous email client application. However, unlike MS Outlook it is an open source application developed by Mozilla, which comes free of cost. It also caters the various emailing needs including messages, notes, newsgroup, etc. Some of the features provided by Thunderbird are mentioned below.
- Provides various message management features including the advanced message filtering feature.
- Provides great flexibility and supports various extensions and themes.
- Supports standard protocol including POP, IMAP, and SMTP.
- Widely compatible across various Windows and Mac platform including the latest Windows 8.
- With the advanced filtering option, it helps in getting rid of junk mails.
- Highly professional and secured application, as it provides various virus antivirus properties and security firewalls.
- Easy to install and use.
Apart from the aforementioned features, there are many more features which make Thunderbird a preferred choice. Moreover, it totally depends upon the user requirement. Some of the features in Thunderbird that might make a user to give it a thought are mentioned below.
- Support for Disposable Email Address
- Better Add-ons and lightening features
- Better theme options.
Because of all these reasons and depending upon the need a user working in MS Outlook might want to migrate to Thunderbird. Since both MS Outlook and Thunderbird supports different file format, they are not compatible with each other. So, in order to access MS Outlook mail in Thunderbird, a user has to convert his MBOX file into a MS Outlook readable format.
Consider a scenario where a user working in MS Outlook 2010, wants to migrate to Thunderbird. However, there are many different inbuilt mechanisms provided by Mozilla to import Outlook data files in Thunderbird. But, such process might not work all the time. A user might get the following error.
“no default email client selected”
Importing messages from Outlook to Thunderbird is not an easy task. A user might receive few more errors of similar kind. However, a user should avoid any un-trusted mechanism or any manual method for such conversion, as it might even lead to severe data loss. The error message mentioned could arise due to some problem in Thunderbird. You can try reinstalling the application. However, in any case it is advised to use a trusted and reliable conversion tool.
Stellar Converter for PST is a highly recommended professional tool for such type of situations. It uses an advanced algorithm to migrate from MS Outlook to Thunderbird. It converts all the user mail items including messages, attachments, notes, tasks, journals, etc. in its original format. The steps are easy to perform and can be used by anyone. In order to convert the PST file of Outlook 2010 to Thunderbird, you need to follow the below mentioned steps.
- Double-click on the ‘Stellar Converter for PST ’ icon.
- The main screen is displayed along with the ‘Select Outlook Profile & MBOX Client’ dialog box.
- Choose a profile from the list of default profiles. However, you can always choose any other profile by navigating to its location.
- Choose ‘Thunderbird’ as the MBOX client and click OK.
- Scanning process starts.
- The tool displays a list of folders containing the mail items, once the scanning is complete
- You can click on any folder to display its items.
- In order to display any particular item, click on the item itself.
- The preview is displayed on the main screen.
- To convert a file, click on the ‘Convert to MBOX’ button.
- ‘Stellar Converter for PST’ dialog box is popped up.
- Choose a destination to save the file.
- Now, import the saved MBOX file to a Thunderbird email client.
In order to let Thunderbird automatically import the file, you need to copy the saved file to a particular location, depending upon the OS you are using.
- For Windows XP, copy the file to the following location: C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles
- For Windows Vista, copy the file to the following location: C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\
- For Windows 7/8, copy the file to the following location:
- C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\ Profiles
Once done, launch Thunderbird.