Lotus Notes is a groupware email client developed by IBM Corporation. This email application provides many features such as emailing, calendar and database management, scheduling, address book, and much more. Its unmatched encryption security in emails makes it unique and eminent application. Lotus Notes uses NSF files to store and maintain its mailbox data.
MS Outlook is a part of Microsoft Office suite that is used by several organizations to manage their email messages, contacts, calendar, notes, etc. It saves its entire mail components in an Outlook data file (known as .pst or .ost ). The popularity of Outlook keeps on increasing due to its feature-rich functions and its ability to sync with the mobile and embedded system. Well, Lotus Notes and MS Outlook both email clients have their own unique features. The design and technology of both applications are different thus, sometimes users may need to access the Lotus Notes data from Outlook or vice versa. Executing this task is not that much easy as it seems thus, we have come up with this editorial. Here, we will discuss some simple and cost-efficient ways for Lotus Notes to Outlook migration along with the reasons to do the same.
Basic Reasons to Migrate from Lotus Notes to Outlook
MS Outlook includes many unique features that attract any Lotus Notes user towards it, some of them are mentioned below:
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Offline mailbox accessibility with folders
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High-level data administration and security
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Understandable graphical user interface
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Less installation and maintenance charges
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Easy data sharing and collaboration ability
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Cost-effective in comparison to Lotus Notes
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Configure multiple accounts simultaneously
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Multitasking functionality without any hurdle
Manual Method to Export Data from Lotus Notes to Outlook
It is highly recommended to take a backup of original NSF files before migrating data from Lotus Notes to Outlook as the files can be corrupted during the migration. The complete Lotus Notes to Outlook migration process is divided into two major steps:
- Export the Lotus Notes NSF files
- Import the exported file in Outlook
Step 1: Exporting Files from Lotus Notes
Open Lotus Notes application and click on Mail tab
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Select File >> Open >> Lotus Notes Application
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Open Application window will pop up now. Here, select the required NSF files and hit the Open button
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Next, click on File >> Export
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In the Export dialog box, enter a name for the output file and select a location to save this file
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Choose Comma Separated Value option from Save as type section and click on Export
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In CSV Export window, choose all required options and hit the OK button
This will save a CSV file on the selected location
Step 2: Importing CSV File into MS Outlook
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Launch Microsoft Outlook application and click on the File tab
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Choose Open and Export >> Import/Export
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In Import and Export wizard, select Import from another program or file option. Click on Next
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Now, select Comma Separated Values option and click on Next
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Click on Browse button and select the CSV file that you have created earlier in Step 1
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Choose the Outlook folder where you need to save the exported data and hit the Next button
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Check Import a file option and click on Finish
Note: If you want to change the destination or map the custom fields then, select the appropriate options from Import a file window.
The CSV file would be successfully imported to Outlook. Now, users can easily access their Lotus Notes data from Outlook application.
Limitations of Manual Approach
- High possibilities of data loss and damage
- Inappropriate for large-sized NSF conversion
- Unable to migrate corrupted NSF files
- Selective data conversion is not possible
- Converts a single NSF data file at a time
- Lengthy and time-consuming procedure
- Puzzling method for non-technical users
Automatic Method to Migrate Data from Lotus Notes to Outlook
Due to some serious disadvantages of manual technique, we recommend users to use NSF to PST Migration Tool as their first approach. This application is one of the easiest and safe ways to migrate Lotus Notes database (NSF) to Outlook PST. The tool is capable to export all data items from NSF to PST such as emails, contacts, calendars, tasks, journals, names.nsf etc. It provides support to Lotus Notes 9.0, 8.0, 8.5, 7, 6 and all below Versions.
Concluding Lines
How to migrate from Lotus Notes to Outlook, is such a common query of several computer users. In order, to resolve this problematic situation we have disclosed some manual as well as professional techniques. If users want to avoid the data conflicts and completeness in migration then, they can directly go for the professional solution mentioned above.
