Copying Entourage files from one Mac to another

[Art Shotwell]

I've had to take my iMac to Apple for repair. I have backed up the HD to an
external drive, which is bootable. So, I can open Entourage, and any other
app for that matter, on my laptop by booting from the external HD. But, when
I get my iMac back, how can I copy my updated Entourage email over to my
iMac to bring it up to date?

 

[Michel Bintener]

Hi Art,

simply follow these steps:

* Open Activity Monitor and quit the Microsoft Database Daemon.

* Copy the folder ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data from your external HD to
the same location on your iMac, thus overwriting the existing old folder.

* Make sure Entourage is up-to-date on your iMac. If your laptop runs a
newer version than the iMac, then the copy on your iMac may not be able to
read the database format until it is at the same level as the laptop.

 

[Ed Kimball]

I've had to take my iMac to Apple for repair. I have backed up the HD to an
external drive, which is bootable. So, I can open Entourage, and any other
app for that matter, on my laptop by booting from the external HD. But, when
I get my iMac back, how can I copy my updated Entourage email over to my
iMac to bring it up to date?

Yes, you should be able to do that. I believe in this situation, Entourage
is using the Microsoft User Data from the startup (external) drive, not from
the internal drive on your laptop, but I've never tried this so I'm not
sure. You can check the update date of the file
~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Office 200x Identities/Main
Identity/Database
to make sure it was updated the last time your ran Entourage.
(If you're not using Main Identity, look for the folder corresponding to the
Identity you are using.)

In any case, you can copy the Microsoft User Data folder from the Documents
folder on your external drive (or which ever such folder Entourage is using)
to your iMac BEFORE launching any Office application. That should accomplish
what you want.

 

[Art Shotwell]

Thanks to you both for the quick info. Art

Yes, you should be able to do that. I believe in this situation, Entourage
is using the Microsoft User Data from the startup (external) drive, not from
the internal drive on your laptop, but I've never tried this so I'm not
sure. You can check the update date of the file
~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Office 200x Identities/Main
Identity/Database
to make sure it was updated the last time your ran Entourage.
(If you're not using Main Identity, look for the folder corresponding to the
Identity you are using.)

In any case, you can copy the Microsoft User Data folder from the Documents
folder on your external drive (or which ever such folder Entourage is using)
to your iMac BEFORE launching any Office application. That should accomplish
what you want.