Moving to using a new computer is like moving your house ! You need to take backups of everything in your old computer (like packing all the stuff in your house) and then reinstalling and restoring it on your new computer (like unpackaging everything in your new house) !! Except that there are no moving costs involved here - well for the most part ;-)
As part of my last move, I had to move all my work email (stored in Outlook) to my new machines. I also had rules that ran on my inbox. I thought it would be a daunting process of exporting all the personal local email folders and importing them in the new computer. I was surprised to find out that all that you needed was to copy over 1 file to the new machine and import it in Outlook !

Here is how I did it…

Step 1: Find the location of the file (on your computer) where Outlook stores all the email
Outlook stores all your email and rules in a single file that has a .pst extension. To find the location of this file, in Outlook, right click on “Large Personal Folders” and click on “Properties for Large Personal Folders”. When the dialog comes up, click on “Advanced” and then copy the location in the “Filename” - This is where all your email is stored

outlook transfer 1outlook transfer 2

Step 2 : Copy the file
In Windows Explorer copy this file to a USB memory stick or a CD. Copy this file over to your new machine
Step 3: Import the file in Outlook
In the destination computer, import the file. Go to File > Import and select the .pst file that you just copied over. All your email and rules will now be imported in Outlook.