How to Open NSF file without Lotus Notes?

author
Jamie Kaler   
Published: Oct 4, 2023 ~ How to

Lotus Notes is a very popular server-based emailing application used by huge organizations to achieve their daily need for email communication within an office environment. Besides this, a lot of users prefer to use Lotus Notes as an email client on their machine to open NSF file without Lotus Notes in offline mode. Such a Lotus Notes account creates a separate NSF file for each profile to save the complete data associated with it.

These NSF files can be opened with Lotus Notes, but if you ever have an orphan NSF file on a machine where Lotus Notes is not installed then it is not going to be easy. You should either have an NSF file viewer; which can directly read an NSF file or you should have any other emailing application through which you can open NSF file without Lotus Notes.

Besides Lotus Notes, emailing applications like; MS Outlook, Thunderbird, Eudora, Windows Live Mail, Outlook Express, etc. are some of the popularly used desktop-based email clients to access emails in offline mode. You can open NSF files in any of the above-listed applications, but for that, you first need to convert NSF files into other formats that are compatible with this application. Like; to open NSF file without Lotus Notes, you have to convert NSF to PST file format first. Similarly; to open NSF files in Thunderbird, Windows Mail, Outlook Express, etc. you need to convert NSF into EML file format.

How to Open NSF File in MS Outlook?

This is the scenario where you have MS Outlook on your machine and you need to open an orphan NSF file without Lotus Notes. In this situation, the most important job is to first convert the NSF file into MS Outlook compatible data file format; which is a PST file. For this, you can either go for some manual tactics or you can try NSF to PST converter which directly saves Lotus Notes data into MS Outlook data file format.

Also Read: How to Migrate Lotus Notes to Outlook?

Steps to Manually Convert NSF file into PST File

The manual conversion process involves two processes;

  • One is to export data from Lotus Notes (Here you need Lotus Notes on your Machine)
  • Secondly, import NSF file data within MS Outlook.

Export Data from Lotus Notes

  1. Launch Lotus Notes on your machine and click on the Open button from the menu bar.
  2. Click on File and go to Export from the list that appears
  3. An Export wizard will open and you need to choose a location to save the file after export. Select save type from the drop-down as “Comma Separated Value or Structured Text”.
  4. Next, you will be asked to name the file and then click on “Export”.
  5. After export, you will either get a “CSV file or a Structured Text Export screen”.
  6. After careful selection of the appropriate options click “OK”.

Now that you have successfully exported the Lotus Notes data file; we have to import this into MS Outlook.

Import Lotus Notes File to MS Outlook

  1. Launch MS Outlook on your machine and click the “File” menu
  2. Select Open and then go to the Import option from the list in the right pane
  3. Next, an Import Export Wizard will open from which; select the option “Import from another program or file” under the option to select an action to perform.
  4. Click next to proceed. An import a file window appears
  5. Here, select comma-separated values then click next
  6. Now browse and select the file exported from Lotus Notes.
  7. In the next wizard, you will get three different options to import or ignore importing duplicate items. These options are: (a) Replace duplicates with items imported, (b) Allow duplicates to be created, and (c) Do not import duplicate items.
  8. Select the desired option then click Next
  9. Now choose a folder to save the data after importing and click Next
  10. The process takes some time to complete then click on the Finish button once the task completes.

This is how you can successfully open the Lotus Notes data within MS Outlook without Lotus Notes manually. Although the process above is practically possible it does need sheer technical skills along with ample time to carry out the entire process without fail. Above all, this conversion cannot be done without Lotus Notes being installed on your machine. Also, it is a tricky job if you have multiple NSF files from different users or profiles. Every time you need to follow the complete process to import each Lotus Notes file data within MS Outlook.

Convert NSF File into PST Using a Third-Party Tool

Opting for third-party tools to perform conversions is not the first choice of users always. Everyone prefers to find out some manual or free method to migrate data from one platform to another. But, the fact of the matter is quality comes with a cost. With a paid tool you can do a lot more than what you do with the manual process.

  • It saves an ample amount of time which you can use in other more productive tasks
  • You do not need any technical experts for doing this. Anyone can do it with the tool
  • Zero risk of data loss while you perform conversion from NSF to PST
  • Multiple other options are available along with migration from NSF to PST
  • Thousands of NSF files can be moved into PST format with less effort

NSF to PST converter is designed to simplify the user efforts in exporting NSF data into MS Outlook without Lotus Notes. You only need to install and run the tool to convert NSF into PST format. Other feature benefits of NSF to PST conversion wizard are:

open NSF file without Lotus Notes

  1. It can convert multiple NSF files at a time
  2. Create a single PST for NSF files having all the profiles separately listed
  3. Keeps the hierarchy of folders intact while saving NSF to PST
  4. Any size of Lotus Notes NSF file can be converted easily
  5. Complete data of an NSF file will be migrated: Email, calendars, contact, etc.

Try out this wizard to open the NSF file in MS Outlook in an extremely easy and simple way.