Transfer MS Mail emails (old PC,Vista) to New PC (Win 11) Outlook (2021)?

Before you laugh, I realize I'm late upgrading but at least I'm trying to do the right thing.

Is there any way I can move (transfer, export, whatever you call it) emails from my ancient PC Windows Mail program (~2009, Vista) to my new PC Win 11 Pro)? I'm probably going to use Outlook (the one that comes w/Office 2021 Home & Business).

If I CAN transfer those old emails I'd be open to a different email client other than Outlook.

Thank you

Sure, you should be able to transfer your e-mail, but exactly how depends upon what you have now. For example, does your e-mail provider store your e-mails on their servers or is it all locally stored?

As an example, I have an OUTLOOK.COM e-mail address. All of my e-mails are stored on Microsoft servers. Because of this, I don't even have to move the e-mail. If I setup e-mail on a new system, it will have access to all my e-mail on the Microsoft servers.

However, I also have the option of either making a copy of the e-mail or moving it, to a local file. I do this with all my older e-mail. In that case, I simply need to copy that e-mail file to any new machine, or make a backup and restore it if I'm reinstalling Windows on my current machine.

This may vary depending upon who your provider is, but the point is simply that there should be an option to save your e-mail locally and restore it or even move it to another system, or it may already be located in the cloud in which case it would accessible without you having to make a copy or move it at all.

Thank you for your reply.
I have an ancient Road Runner account. The emails are stored locally in my Windows Mail directories; some quite old so most no longer on the RR server.

The emails are eml files. Outlook 2021 I believe uses pst files.

So I guess it comes down to finding a new email client that can read eml files or find a file converter (eml to pst).

Hopefully this will help:

Cool. I'll play with it.

Thanks!