Exporting & Importing Outlook account settings

You can export and import accounts in Outlook 2007, 2010 and Outlook 2013. Only the passwords must be retype. This work with POP accounts 100%.

Outlook 2007 did away with the export account information that was present in earlier editions. So, if a user with one account moves machines, it’s often faster to just recreate the account on the new machine. However, if a user has 8 accounts (like one did today) it’s time to find a better way.

That better way is hidden the registry.

On The Old Machine

Outlook 2007 is nice enough to put all of its account info for each profile under one key.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles\

So, first off, close Outlook if it’s running.

To export your Outlook account information, we just need to export that magic key.

1. Open Registry Editor.
2. Select the key that you want to save as a file.
3. On the File menu, click Export.
4. In the Export Registry File dialog box, in Save in, click the drive, folder, or network computer and folder where you want to save the hive.
5. In File name, enter a name for the key. (outlook_profile.reg would work great.)
6. In Save as type, make sure it’s set as Registration Files (*.reg)
7. Click Save.

Caveats: Every profile on your system under your logon will be exported.

To move your old mail, you’ll need to copy your PST file to the new machine.

1. Click Start, Run
2. Type %userprofile%\local settings\application data\microsoft\outlook
3. Click OK
4. In that folder there will be some *.pst files. Copy (don’t move!) them to a removable drive or a network share. The one you’re most likely concerned with is outlook.pst

On The New Machine

First, we need to import the profile information.

1. Double-click the file (outlook_profiles.reg) you exported on the old machine. That will import the new information into the registry. (Simple!)

Next, we need to get your data file back over.

1. Click Start, Run
2. Type %userprofile%\local settings\application data\microsoft\outlook
3. Click OK
4. Copy (don’t move!) the *.pst files you found on the old machine. The one you’re most likely concerned with is outlook.pst

Lastly, we need to set Outlook to use the profile from the old machine.

1. Open Control Panel.
2. Open the Mail applet.
3. Click on the Show Profiles button.
4. Choose the profile name that matches the one you used to use from the «Always use this profile» dropdown.
5. Click OK.

Now, when you open Outlook, you should have your old mail and the mail accounts all set up and ready to go.

Passwords

Outlook on the new machine will ask you for passwords the first time it does a send/receive on all non-Exchange accounts.

If you know the passwords, awesome. If not, you’ll need to find them out, and we go back to the old machine to do so.

What we need to do is peer behind the dots that Microsoft uses in their password boxes. To do so, we need a piece of freeware that will do that for us.

Passware offers a utility, Asterisk Key , which will do the job.

1. Download, install and run the tool on the old machine using this link.
2. Open Notepad.
3. Open Outlook 2007.
4. Click Tools, Account Settings.
5. Double-click the account you don’t know the password to.
6. Go into Asterisk Key and click the RECOVER icon on the toolbar.
7. The tool will reveal your password for that account. Click the COPY LINK next to the revealed password.
8. PASTE the password into your notepad document.
9. Repeat Steps 5-8 as necessary.
10. Save the Notepad document so you can move it to the new machine.
11. At the new machine, paste the passwords from the Notepad document into Outlook.

Windows messaging subsystem profiles outlook

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Asked by:

Question

I would like to import user settings using the reg key — HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles\Outlook

However each time I do this, I get the «choose an Outlook profile» prompt dialogue box popping up even though there is only one profile and also this profile is set to be the default. Does anyone have any ideas how I can suppress this?

All replies

Don
(Please take a moment to «Vote as Helpful» and/or «Mark as Answer», where applicable.
This helps the community, keeps the forums tidy, and recognises useful contributions. Thanks!)

Thanks, I tried this reg key to set it as default but when I go into the mail settings, it is already set and still prompts.

Surely if there is only one profile then it uses that one without prompting?

If you locate the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles registry, how many entries can you see under Profiles?

In addition, how did you set the profile to be the default? Did you just click Options button and select the «Set as default profile» check box? This even not working when I tested it in my environment.

We need to open Control Panel > Mail, click Show Profiles, and select «Always use this profile», then select your default profile. Click OK.

Steve Fan
TechNet Community Support

There is a single profile on the machine. I am trying to make the change programatically as I don’t want to have user intervention.

I am doing the following through GPO logon scripts

What I am doing is creating a profile called outlook using the following reg key

reg add «HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging
Subsystem\Profiles\Outlook» /f

Then I am importing the mail profile [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles\Outlook with another reg key which imports all the user customizations. (this is only a portion of the reg key for posting purposes)

Then I am setting this profile to default — [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Exchange\Client\Options]
«PickLogonProfile»=»0»

Even after doing this, Outlook launches and displays the «choose an Outlook profile» which requires manual intervention. I have tried a regdiff to check if there is anywhere else in the registry that is set when ticking the «Always use this profile» tick box but I am not coming right with it.

Windows messaging subsystem profiles outlook

Вопрос

I would like to import user settings using the reg key — HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles\Outlook

However each time I do this, I get the «choose an Outlook profile» prompt dialogue box popping up even though there is only one profile and also this profile is set to be the default. Does anyone have any ideas how I can suppress this?

Все ответы

Don
(Please take a moment to «Vote as Helpful» and/or «Mark as Answer», where applicable.
This helps the community, keeps the forums tidy, and recognises useful contributions. Thanks!)

Thanks, I tried this reg key to set it as default but when I go into the mail settings, it is already set and still prompts.

Surely if there is only one profile then it uses that one without prompting?

If you locate the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles registry, how many entries can you see under Profiles?

In addition, how did you set the profile to be the default? Did you just click Options button and select the «Set as default profile» check box? This even not working when I tested it in my environment.

We need to open Control Panel > Mail, click Show Profiles, and select «Always use this profile», then select your default profile. Click OK.

Steve Fan
TechNet Community Support

There is a single profile on the machine. I am trying to make the change programatically as I don’t want to have user intervention.

I am doing the following through GPO logon scripts

What I am doing is creating a profile called outlook using the following reg key

reg add «HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging
Subsystem\Profiles\Outlook» /f

Then I am importing the mail profile [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles\Outlook with another reg key which imports all the user customizations. (this is only a portion of the reg key for posting purposes)

Then I am setting this profile to default — [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Exchange\Client\Options]
«PickLogonProfile»=»0»

Even after doing this, Outlook launches and displays the «choose an Outlook profile» which requires manual intervention. I have tried a regdiff to check if there is anywhere else in the registry that is set when ticking the «Always use this profile» tick box but I am not coming right with it.

Windows messaging subsystem profiles outlook

This forum has migrated to Microsoft Q&A. Visit Microsoft Q&A to post new questions.

Asked by:

Question

I would like to import user settings using the reg key — HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles\Outlook

However each time I do this, I get the «choose an Outlook profile» prompt dialogue box popping up even though there is only one profile and also this profile is set to be the default. Does anyone have any ideas how I can suppress this?

All replies

Don
(Please take a moment to «Vote as Helpful» and/or «Mark as Answer», where applicable.
This helps the community, keeps the forums tidy, and recognises useful contributions. Thanks!)

Thanks, I tried this reg key to set it as default but when I go into the mail settings, it is already set and still prompts.

Surely if there is only one profile then it uses that one without prompting?

If you locate the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles registry, how many entries can you see under Profiles?

In addition, how did you set the profile to be the default? Did you just click Options button and select the «Set as default profile» check box? This even not working when I tested it in my environment.

We need to open Control Panel > Mail, click Show Profiles, and select «Always use this profile», then select your default profile. Click OK.

Steve Fan
TechNet Community Support

There is a single profile on the machine. I am trying to make the change programatically as I don’t want to have user intervention.

I am doing the following through GPO logon scripts

What I am doing is creating a profile called outlook using the following reg key

reg add «HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging
Subsystem\Profiles\Outlook» /f

Then I am importing the mail profile [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles\Outlook with another reg key which imports all the user customizations. (this is only a portion of the reg key for posting purposes)

Then I am setting this profile to default — [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Exchange\Client\Options]
«PickLogonProfile»=»0»

Even after doing this, Outlook launches and displays the «choose an Outlook profile» which requires manual intervention. I have tried a regdiff to check if there is anywhere else in the registry that is set when ticking the «Always use this profile» tick box but I am not coming right with it.