Lost attachments after upgrading Outlook

[ScottW]

I found a solution to a problem that must surely be
plaguing others: the loss of attachments when upgrading
from an earlier version of Outlook to a later version (to
Outlook 2000 SP1?). I'm not sure when I lost the
attachments, but based on my web sleuthing it seems like
it was a result of updating from 2000 to SP1. Anyway,
since I couldn't find a solution on the web easily, I'm
posting this in hopes that either the page will be indexed
by Google or that Microsoft will post a formal fix in its
Knowledgebase.

Here's the solution: find Outlook Express on your
computer and open it. From the File menu, choose Import,
then Messages. Select whichever folders that contain
attachments you've lost (or just select all of them to be
safe) and import them into Outlook Express. You can
verify that your attachments are "back". Then Export the
folders *back* to Outlook using File>Export>Messages.
When you return to Outlook, you'll see the folders
(subfolders will remain within their parent folders). Now
just delete the original folders from Outlook and replace
them with the folders you just exported. (Be careful to
make sure you're deleting the old folders and that
everything transfers over of course.) Problem solved.
Hope somebody benefits from this.

keywords: microsoft outlook attachments lost missing
stripped deleted removed upgrade update

 

[ScottW]

So, I already found a problem with this solution, which is
that you lose the information about whether or not you've
responded to or forwarded a message in the course of
exporting to Outlook Express and then back to Outlook. So
if you're trying to lose as little information as
possible, you should just replace the affected messages
once you're back in Outlook, rather than replacing entire
folder contents.