How to move from Outlook to mello

Before you start

• A mello address. mello is invite only for now: request an invite, and sign in once at mail.mello.mx.
• A computer with Thunderbird or Apple Mail. They copy mail from one account to another. Both are free, and you can remove the accounts once you’re done.
• For a work account, a word with IT first. The mailbox belongs to your employer, and its admin decides whether mail may leave it. Ask before you forward or copy anything.

Forward your new mail

First, have Outlook send everything that arrives on to mello. People can keep writing to your old address while you move.

1. In Outlook on the web (outlook.com, or outlook.office.com for a work account), open Settings, the gear at the top.
2. Choose Mail, then Forwarding. Outlook may ask you to sign in again before it shows the page.
3. Turn on Enable forwarding and enter your mello address.
4. Select Keep a copy of forwarded messages, then Save.

Keep the copy. Without it, Outlook keeps nothing of what it forwards, not even in Deleted Items, so your old mailbox stops being a backup.

Outlook forwards only what arrives from now on. Send a test message to your Outlook address and check that it reaches mello.

When forwarding is blocked

• Work accounts: the admin may block it. Microsoft 365 blocks automatic forwarding to outside addresses unless the organization allows it. You then either find no forwarding option, or your forwarded mail bounces with 550 5.7.520 Access denied, Your organization does not allow external forwarding. Only your admin can change that. If they won’t, tell the people who write to you about your new address instead.
• Rules count too. A rule that forwards mail (Settings → Mail → Rules) is blocked the same way on a work account. On a personal account, a rule is a good way to forward only some of your mail.
• Sending limits. Microsoft limits how many people an Outlook.com account can send to each day, and new accounts and accounts without a Microsoft 365 subscription get less. Forwarded mail goes out from your account too. If it stops arriving in mello, nothing is lost: it’s still in Outlook, and you can copy it over as below.

Copy your old mail

The reliable way is to add both accounts to one mail app, then drag your folders from one to the other. The app copies each message with its date, its attachments, and whether you’ve read it.

1. Add your Outlook account. Thunderbird finds the settings on its own and opens Microsoft’s sign-in page. In Apple Mail on a Mac, choose Microsoft Exchange and sign in on Microsoft’s page. Microsoft no longer lets mail apps sign in with just a password, so if an app keeps asking for one, remove the account and add it again.
2. Add your mello account: your name, your mello address and your password. Both apps find mello’s settings on their own. If one asks, they are below.
3. Wait for Outlook’s folders to load. Then drag the messages of each folder to the same folder in mello: Inbox to Inbox, Sent Items to Sent, then Archive and the folders you made yourself.

The same settings are in the mello webmail, under Settings → Accesses.

On a work account, the admin may also have turned off access from other mail apps. If Thunderbird or Apple Mail can’t sign in, ask IT, or ask them for an export of your mailbox.

Focused Inbox, categories and big folders

• Focused and Other are one Inbox. They are two views of the same folder, so a mail app shows a single Inbox, and that’s what you copy.
• Categories stay behind. Outlook’s colored categories don’t travel to other mail apps. If you sort by category, move each category’s mail into a folder in Outlook first, then copy the folder.
• Copy big folders in parts. A large folder can take a long time to copy, and if the app stops halfway, it’s hard to tell what’s left. Sort the folder by date and drag one year at a time.

Old .pst files from desktop Outlook

If you used Outlook on a Windows PC for years, some of your mail may sit in .pst files on that computer rather than on Microsoft’s servers. mello can’t read .pst files, and there’s nowhere to upload them. You move their mail the same way, by dragging, in Outlook itself:

1. In classic Outlook for Windows, choose File → Open & Export → Open Outlook Data File, and pick the .pst file. Its folders appear in the folder list.
2. In the same Outlook, add your mello account as an IMAP account, with the settings above.
3. Drag the folders, or the messages in them, from the .pst file to your mello account. Outlook uploads them.

A .pst file can also hold contacts and a calendar. Export those from Outlook into files, as below.

Bring your contacts

1. In Outlook on the web, open People from the icons on the left.
2. Choose Manage contacts, then Export contacts.
3. Choose All contacts, or one folder, and Export. A .csv file lands in your Downloads folder.
4. In the mello webmail, open Contacts, choose Import, and pick the file.

mello reads Outlook’s columns for names, email addresses, phone numbers, company and notes. Postal addresses and birthdays stay behind, so check the few contacts where they matter. A file can hold up to 5,000 contacts and be up to 5 MB. Contacts with an email address already in your mello contacts are skipped, so importing the same file twice does no harm.

Bring your calendar

Outlook on the web has no button that saves your calendar as a file. Instead, you publish it for a moment, download the file, and stop publishing.

1. In Outlook on the web, open Settings → Calendar → Shared calendars.
2. Under Publish a calendar, choose your calendar and Can view all details, then Publish.
3. Open the ICS link it shows in your browser. It downloads an .ics file with your events.
4. Then choose Unpublish in the same place. Until you do, anyone with the link can see your calendar.

In classic Outlook for Windows, it’s simpler: File → Save Calendar saves an .ics file. Under More Options, choose the whole calendar and full details. On a work account, publishing may be turned off, so this is the way there.

The mello webmail can’t open .ics files yet, so you import the file through a calendar app that has your mello account:

• On a Mac: open System Settings → Internet Accounts → Add Account → Add Other Account, choose CalDAV account, and enter your mello address, your password and the server mail.mello.mx. Then, in Apple Calendar, choose File → Import.
• In Thunderbird: add a new calendar On the Network, with your mello address and the location https://mail.mello.mx/. Then choose Tools → Import → Calendar.

Choose your mello calendar when asked. Look through older events before you delete anything in Outlook, to check that everything came along.

Give out your new address

Forwarding catches your mail for now. Over the next weeks, move what matters to your mello address:

• The people you write to most. A short note does it, or simply reply from mello: your new address goes with every message.
• Accounts that sign you in by email: your bank, your phone company, the shops you use. Change the address in each one’s settings, starting with those that send password resets.
• Newsletters you want to keep. Subscribe again with your new address. For sign-ups you don’t want tied to your real address, use a private address.

When a forwarded message arrives in mello, its To line still shows your Outlook address. Each one is a reminder of a sender still to update.

Afterwards

Keep forwarding on for a few months: mail still trickles in to old addresses long after you move. Sign in to Outlook now and then, too, because Microsoft closes inboxes that nobody opens for a long time.

Think twice before closing the account. Your Outlook address is also your Microsoft account, which signs you in to Windows, OneDrive, Xbox and Office, and closing it closes all of them. Most people simply keep it, with forwarding on.

You can leave mello as easily: Settings → General → Download all my data gives you every message as mbox, your calendars as .ics and your contacts as .vcf.