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ePreserver 5.0.0

From Heinz Tschabitscher,
Your Guide to Email.
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Guide Rating - rating

The Bottom Line

ePreserver lets you save your precious email data from AOL, exporting address book entries and email messages to Outlook or Outlook Express in an easy and fast step by step process. Support for more export formats would be nice, though.
Pros
  • ePreserver rescues your emails, address book entries and favorites from AOL
  • With every step in the wizard going almost automatically, ePreserver is easy to use
  • ePreserver remembers information already copied to avoid duplicates when used repeatedly
Cons
  • ePreserver can migrate data only from AOL to Outlook or Outlook Express
  • You cannot use ePreserver with some language versions of AOL (notably Chinese and Japanese)

Description

  • ePreserver exports email messages, address book data and favorites from AOL for Windows.
  • Messages and contacts are copied to Outlook Express 6 or Outlook 97-2003 by ePreserver.
  • ePreserver can migrate mail from "Saved on My PC" as well as from "Saved on AOL" folders.
  • Multiple AOL screennames are supported by ePreserver and data can be copied selectively.
  • ePreserver remembers messages and contacts already moved to avoid duplicates.
  • ePreserver supports Windows 98/ME/2000/3/XP/Vista.

Guide Review - ePreserver 5.0.0

AOL has evolved over the years, but its email parts are increasingly (perceived as) monolithic, stagnant and a bit awkward. If you decide to switch internet service providers or just email clients (AOL does offer highly useful IMAP access to its spam-protected accounts after all), you likely run into a big stumbling block, the most monolithic probably: messages stored in AOL's "Saved on My PC" filing cabinet cannot be exported, and no major email program knows how to import them directly.

Are you stuck with AOL? No, thanks to ePreserver. Finding the data for your AOL screenname automatically, ePreserver takes you through the process of getting important information out of AOL in a few simple steps. You can export not only email messages but ePreserver also supports address book entries and favorites.

Unfortunately, the selection of email programs (and, in case of favorites, browsers) is limited: ePreserver copies email data to either Outlook Express or Outlook. Of course, since data from these omnipresent programs is usually and easily imported in your favorite application, this additional step can be filled with wasted time and frustration if the transition does not go smooth.

So, while direct support for more email programs were certainly desired, ePreserver as a whole is a nicely done, simple but potentially highly important and useful little tool.
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