Transfering AOL emails to text?

[Night Train]

I am going to stop using AOL but I have all my emails saved online with AOL.

Is there a way to download the emails as text for archiving and also to transfer my address book to Thunderbird?

I know that when I saved emails on my pc I could save the AOL folder when doing a back up and transfer it back to AOL but if I leave AOL then I will lose my emails as they are online.

I would like to be able to keep all the emails for archiving and future reference.

Thanks.

 

[Gerry Attrick]

Transfer the online folder contents to the "Stored on my PC" folder in manage e-mail. Can't say I have tried it, but its worth a go.

 

[Night Train]

Thanks, I could do that but then I can only access the files if I install AOL. I found that out when I decided not to install AOL on my laptop.

I still had to install it on my desk top to get the broadband to work but I now have all my emails online with AOL so I can access them via aol.com on the laptop.

 

[Gerry Attrick]

If you only need the text and not the use of the addresses, you could always copy them to wordpad or similar.

 

[Night Train]

I was hoping that wouldn't be the only option, there are thousands of emails and, although not all are worth keeping, it would take ages going through each one looking fo the useful ones and copying the text and dates.

 

[Plax]

Do you have Microsoft Outlook? I have set up my AOL mail to be transferred into my Outlook. Whenever I startup outlook it pulls all my emails from AOL.
http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/outlook/HA010936921033.aspx

 

[Plax]

This link might be worth looking at for Thunderbird;
http://www.mozilla.org/support/thunderbird/faq#aol

 

[Norm]

Do you have Microsoft Outlook?

Not just Outlook. I'd recommend Thunderbird.

 

[Night Train]

This link might be worth looking at for Thunderbird;
http://www.mozilla.org/support/thunderbird/faq#aol

We looked at that when we were setting up Thunderbird. It would only allow new AOL emails to be picked up but not existing ones and I would still need to keep the AOL account open.

I only keep AOL open for a few contacts. Those will be transfered over when I drop the account. I just can't drop the account until I have saved all the existing emails.

 

[rh100]

Norm has already suggested this site, this link is specific for AOL and Outlook - but never tried it myself. http://email.about.com/od/outlooktips/qt/Access_AOL_Email_Acct_Outlook.htm

What you should then be able to do, is to create another, seperate PST (an outlook data file) file within outlook, and you specify the location. So you would see the AOL folder and subfolders as the main mail account, and below that would be the seperate folder that you created from scratch, by going to File, New, Outlook Data File and follow the wizard. Drag all your folders etc to the new pst file (copy or move), you then have the pst file to open within any outlook application.

Be carefull when you drag and drop emails in outlook though, they can get lost fairly easily!

I would suggest testing with a couple of small folders or just a few emails, and check you can open the pst file elsewhere. And safest to copy rather than move the emails so leaving aol intact until ready to cut it loose.

I used to use outlook with hotmail without too much bother.

 

[Night Train]

Thanks for that, I will give it a go and see what happens.