Moving from ASU Outlook to a personal account on Outlook.com (officially called "Outlook on the web") is not as scary and complicated as you may fear. Just take these steps one at a time.
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Moving to Outlook.com
This page provides step-by-step instructions for migrating your mail, calendar and contacts from Outlook at ASU to a personal account on Outlook.com.
The procedure for migrating will require you to have on hand:
- Your ASURITE User ID and password.
- Your direct ASU Outlook email address. This is your ASURITE UserID @exchange.asu.edu.
To make the transfer from the ASU Outlook service to your computer, you need to have the Microsoft Outlook app installed on your computer. If you are not sure whether you have it, look in your list of programs.
- On Windows you do this by clicking on the Windows icon in the lower left corner of your screen and scrolling through the list of programs. If you have the app, it will appear in the program list alphabetically under "O". Microsoft has animated instructions for finding apps in Windows 10.
- There are several ways to find installed programs on a Mac.
If you don't have the Outlook program installed on your computer, you can download and install a free one-month trial of Microsoft Office 365. Outlook is one of the pieces of Microsoft Office 365.
Next, you will need an account on Microsoft.com.
- If you do not already have one, follow Microsoft's instructions to create a new one.
- Your new email address and your new account are most likely the same: they end with @outlook.com.
- Be sure to make note of both the address and the associated password.
Once your new account is open, you will want to start receiving new emails there right away. You don't want new emails to go to your old ASU Outlook account. To cause emails addressed to your @asu.edu address or your direct Outlook address to go to the new account, set up forwarding in ASU Outlook.
If you have given anyone your direct ASU Outlook address (i.e., an address ending in exchange.asu.edu or possibly mainexn.asu.edu) you should give those people your new Outlook.com address.
Similarly if you used the ASU Outlook direct address as a target for forwarding instructions from within another email service you are using, now is the time to change that forwarding address to your new Outlook.com address.
In this set of steps you will be copying from the ASU Outlook cloud email service to your computer.
If you have not been using an Outlook app on your computer to access your email, begin by adding your ASU Outlook account to the Outlook app. The address to use for this step is your direct ASU Outlook address, i.e., ASURITE @exchange.asu.edu.
See demo - adding account to Outlook app
Clean up your Outlook account before you back it up. Doing this not only gives you a cleaner result, but also speeds up the next steps in which you will be copying things.
- Click on the Folders tab at the bottom so you can see everything
- Delete items you don't want to keep
- Empty your deleted items folder
- Empty any folders that are within the Sync Issues folder
See demo - cleaning up Outlook folders
Once your ASU Outlook account is cleaned up in your Outlook app, follow Microsoft's instructions for exporting email, contacts, and calendar items from Outlook to a .pst file:
- Choose "Outlook without Office 365" if you are using Outlook 365 (counterintuitively!). Otherwise, use the instructions for your version of the Outlook app.
- When you come to the step "Save exported file as": either note the default location where the file will be saved or use the Browse button to store it on your desktop or another location where you can find it easily later
- When prompted for an optional password, don't supply one -- just click on OK.
You should now have a file on your computer (called a .pst file) that you will use in the next steps to copy your "stuff" to Outlook.com. You can also keep this .pst file as a backup of what you had on your ASU Outlook account at the time you migrated.
In this set of steps you will be copying from your computer to the Outlook.com cloud email service.
- First you will need to add your new Outlook.com account to the Outlook app on your computer.
- The address to enter during this procedure is your new Outlook.com address.
- The demonstration video for adding an account to your Outlook app shown in the previous step works here too.
Follow Microsoft's instructions for importing your email, contacts, and calendar items from the .pst file you created in the previous step to your new outlook.com account. A brief video demonstration of doing this follows these written instructions.
- In step 7 of the directions, you will be importing to your Office 365 mailbox, as in the picture. Microsoft seems to refer to the Outlook.com mailbox as an Office 365 mailbox. Go figure.
- Also in step 7, make sure the folder to import from is the .pst file you created earlier. As illustrated in the instructions, check the "Include subfolders" box and choose "Import items into the same folder in:" From the pull-down box select your new Outlook.com account.
Depending on how big your email files are, this step may take some time. When it finishes, though, you should have all of your mail, contacts, and calendar successfully in the Outlook.com cloud email service.
See demo - copy from ASU Outlook to Outlook com
You can check to make sure all is well by pointing your browser (Firefox, Chrome, Safari, etc.) to https://outlook.com and signing in with your new outlook.com account.
This should bring you to your mail inbox, and you should see everything there that you could see in your Outlook at ASU inbox.
Use the menu icon (square of 9 dots) in the upper left to switch to your calendar and contacts (People).
If you have been using the webmail access for ASU Outlook, this should all be familiar to you.
Because everything is in a cloud email service, you can access it from a computer, phone or tablet (or all three!) via an email app or a web browser.
- For web browser access, you simply need to point your browser to https://outlook.com. You may want to set that address as a favorite in your browser.
- For access from an app, you will need to tell the app about your new email service account. Directions follow.
If you have and intend to keep the Outlook app on your computer, the steps you have completed have it already set it up. It is ready to use with your new Outlook.com account. You can now remove your ASU Outlook account from the app. Your ASU Outlook account ends in asu.edu.
If you are using an email app on your phone or tablet to access your Outlook at ASU mail (an app such as Outlook or Apple Mail), you will now need to add your new email service account to your device and remove the old one. Both accounts are called Exchange accounts. ASU Outlook may be called an Exchange ActiveSync account.
- Android: Instructions for adding or deleting accounts are available from Google. The type of account you are adding is Exchange. The account you are deleting ends in asu.edu. You may have to go into the settings of an app to connect the account you have added to the app.
- Apple: Add Exchange account to Apple device. Delete Exchange account from Apple device. The account you are deleting ends in asu.edu.
If you don't intend to keep the Outlook app on your computer, you can now uninstall it.
- If you don't know how to do that, use your web browser to search on "uninstall an app in OpSys x", where "OpSys" is Windows or Mac OS and "x" is the version of Windows or Mac OS that you are using.
- If you downloaded the one-month trial of Office 365, don't forget to cancel before your free month is over.
When you are sure all is well with your new Outlook.com account and everything is there, you should close your Outlook/Exchange account with ASU. To close, call the Help Center at 855-278-5080. They will verify your identity and then close the account.
You should celebrate your accomplishment. You are ready to go with your shiny new Outlook.com email service.
![Move messages from the ASU Outlook server to your computer and from there to Outlook web serv ice](/sites/default/files/styles/block_image_med/public/2021-09/MoveToOutlookPic.png?itok=5_CxLr4r)
This picture shows an overview of what you will do:
- You will copy your mail, contacts and calendar from the ASU Outlook cloud service to your computer
- Then copy them from your computer to the Outlook.com cloud service that you will be using when finished with the migration.