Reaching this page is half the battle. Your are a few minutes away from freedom.

I have been told, and, have read about nightmares people have on AOL especially when it comes to email. All the emails reside on the AOL server, so does your address book.

Forwarding your AOL emails to another account is tedious, but fairly easy. The migration of your email address book is the biggest hassle and involves risks. In general, people don't like to loose their address book. There are softwares that do the trick but they cost close to $50. Here freedom is free.

We have discovered an easy and safe way to do this migration. The method uses software that is already existing on many computers, if you don't have it, will show you where to get it.

The software you need is the following:

1. Netscape Navigator, I used version 7.1

2. Outlook Express (not Outlook). For Outlook Express, I used version 6

You can download Netscape at:

http://channels.netscape.com/ns/browsers/default.jsp

You can download Outlook Express at:

Internet Explorer Latest Version (English) which includes Outlook Express.

All we are going to do is show you how to have these software communicate with each others to copy you address book from AOL into Outlook Express. Copying is safer because your original will remain on the AOL server.

In Netscape, there is a function that allows you to synchronize Netscape and AOL, meaning you will have two address books that are mirrors of each other. The following is how you do it:

Synchronizing Entries with Your Webmail or AOL Address Book

You can synchronize address books in your Netscape Webmail or AOL account with your Netscape Personal Address Book. If you add, edit, or delete an address in one address book, you can automatically update the other address books so that both address books match.

Caution: in order to synchronize your address book, you must already have an AOL or Netscape screen name. If you do not yet have a screen name, you can create a new one at http://home.netscape.com.

To synchronize an address book, in the browser, click window then click address book, the address book screen or window opens:

1. In the Address Book window, click Sync on the toolbar or select Sync Netscape Address Book from the Tools menu.
2. Mail & Newsgroups prompts you to enter the user name (screen name) and password for the account you want to use for address book synchronization.

For example, if you want to synchronize your Personal Address Book with your Netscape Webmail address book, enter your Webmail user name and password. If you want to synchronize your Personal Address Book with your AOL address book, enter your AOL user name and password.
3. Click OK to begin synchronization.

Now we have 2 address books, one of them on your computer, outside AOL, hurray!!!

Next step is to get this address book outside the Netscape program and accessible to other programs such as Outlook Express. The following is how to do it:

Exporting a Netscape Address Book

You can export a Netscape address book in one of these file formats: Netscape (.ldif), tab-delimited (.tab), comma-separated (.csv), or text (.txt) formats.

To export an address book, begin from the Address Book window by clicking window in your browser and selecting address book:

1. Choose the address book that you want to export.
2. Open the Tools menu, and select Export.
3. In the Export Address Book dialog box, choose the location where you want to save the address book file (I chose desktop).
4. Choose the file format for the exported address book (.ldif, comma-separated, or tab-delimited)(I chose .ldif).
5. Enter a name for the address book file.
6. Click Save.

Importing your Address Book into Outlook Express

I created an address book in Netscape and Exported it to my desktop. Now, the address book is accessible to other programs. The file extension of the file I exported was .ldif. The next thing is to use Outlook Express to import the file. The following is the page from Microsoft that tells you how to do it, it is very simple. In the link I am posting, it mentions older versions of Outlook Express, I used 6, which is newer, and it worked fine. The following is the link at Microsoft where you could find the simple directions:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;238892

Good Luck!!!! and since it is free, assess independently, and use at your own risk.

The names Netscape, Microsoft, Outlook, Outlook Express, AOL, and Internet Explorer are the properties of their respective companies.

Copyright   The Democracy Workshop. All rights Reserved.              Patent Pending