Last week, I told you about OE Classic, a free program that can serve as a replacement for Outlook Express. Click here to read that article.
I received a lot of questions over the weekend about how to use it. So today, I’m going to walk you through downloading and setting up the program. We’ll start by going to https://www.oeclassic.com/
Once you click the download button, you’ll have the option to save or run the installer. I chose Run. But you could choose Save and download it to your Downloads folder, then run it later.
An installation Wizard will open.
You’ll have to agree to the license.
You’ll be able to choose the file location.
Installation takes a couple of minutes. Click Finish when it’s done.
I chose to open OE Classic and to also see the Readme.
The inbox has a message from OE Classic about the program.
Here’s how to set up your email accounts. Click Tools at the top of the inbox.
Choose Accounts from the drop-down menu.
Then choose Add.
Select Email Accounts.
Enter the email address for the account you want to come to this program. It can be any email provider: Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo, or an address through your local ISP. Enter the email address and provide your password.
Pick your username and confirm the incoming and outgoing server name. This should be automatic for most accounts, but for some local ISPs, you may have to enter the info yourself. Advanced Options will let you make additional changes. Note that OE Classic is only available as a POP email account and not an IMAP. This means it will download the copies from your account. If your account is set to delete messages when they’re downloaded, they’ll be erased. from the server.
Then finish up.
You can go straight to your inbox or add additional email accounts. Since this is an email client, you could have Outlook, Yahoo, Gmail, and other accounts all coming to the same program. Since many of you asked, this in no way affects your web interface with any email account or any other email client like Thunderbird or LiveMail you might have installed on your PC.
Here’s a look at my new inbox.
Nice article. It would be great if you would write an article on how to *import* DBX files from Microsoft Outlook Express into Outlook Express Classic. I think that is the hurdle with which most folks need help… not only finding a program that looks and acts like OE, but one into which they can bring their old OE emails!
Before importing from Outlook Express you should compact Outlook Express folders. To do so, in the main menu of Outlook Express click on File » Folder » Compact All Folders. Compact does not alter data inside folders – it just removes any wasted space. Do not ignore this step, it is important to ensure correct import of folder/email data and may prevent some errors.
In Outlook Express main menu click Tools » Options, click Maintenance tab and finally click Store Folder button. This will reveal location of store folder.
Using file manager (e.g. Windows Explorer or any other) browse to above store folder and copy all the data (all the DBX files and everything inside store folder) to a folder on external disk drive (USB drive, thumb drive etc.).
After copying, connect the external drive to Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows 10 computer.
In OE Classic main menu click File » Import. Select Microsoft Outlook Express 6 option.
Select Import from OE6 store folder option and use Browse button to point to external disk drive folder where you have copied the DBX files in step #2.
Click Next button to start import process. On completion, you will see your Outlook Express folders and emails imported. The import process takes some time if you have a large store folder so please be patient and give it time to finish the task.
I had OE Classic crash and I had to reinstall. I can’t seem to get it to recognize the folders with the stored mail and I can’t import them either. Is there a trick to this?