2.19.6.2. Mail Import

When using this method, our server connects via IMAP to the mailbox hosted on the specified mail server, and all letters are copied from it from all folders (both standard and manually created). Copied emails on the source server are not deleted.

Important points:

  • Duplicate letters not transferred. If the mailbox contains multiple copies of the same letter, only one copy will be transferred.
  • Restarting the import migrates only new emails. Messages that have already been migrated before are not migrated again.
  • If the import went through without errors, but there are not transferred letters on the server, then it will be automatically repeated up to 20 times.
  • For gmail:
    • Gmail only allows IMAP downloads 2.5 GB per day, so at a time from your Gmail inbox you can import no more than 2 GB. If the mailbox has more than 2 GB of mail, the import must be run several times on different days — the letters will be downloaded. At the same time, do not run the import more than once a day, because if the daily limit of 2.5 GB is exhausted, Gmail will return an error and mail clients will not be able to work with the mailbox via IMAP until the end of the day.
    • If your Google account has 2-step verification turned on, use a special password instead of your account password. application password. You can create it by instructions.
  1. Open the section "Mailboxes".
  2. In the line with the mailbox, click "Import mail":
  3. Fill out the form on the tab "IMAP" and press "Import mail":
    • "IMAPsettings" — select the mail service from which you want to import mail:

      Specify the data for connecting to the mail server (they should be specified in the support of the mail service or with the administrator of the server from which the mail is imported):

      • "IMAPserver" — address of the IMAP server from which you want to import mail.
      • "IMAPport" — port for connecting to the IMAP server.
      • "SSL connection protection" — enable if you want to use encryption when connecting.
      • "Do not check the validity of an SSL certificate" — enable if a secure connection is used and the IMAP server from which mail is imported does not have a valid SSL certificate (for example, it uses a self-signed one).
    • Specify the login and password of the mailbox from which you want to import mail, using the switch, select whether to import all mail or only mail for the last few days (you will need to specify the number of days yourself):
  4. Wait for the import to complete. After completing on account mail a notification will be sent, which will indicate where the import was from and where, as well as the number of transferred letters and their total volume.

When all mail is transferred, in the domain settings you can set our MX records, so that incoming mail does not go to mailboxes on the old hosting, but to mailboxes created with us.

The mbox format is used for mail export from the mailbox.

When using this method, letters are downloaded to our server from a file in the mbox format. This format is a text file in which all letters are stored as text one after the other (the data of each letter in the file starts with the text From and end with an empty string). It is in this format that letters from the Gmail mailbox are saved when exporting data using Google Takeout.

Maximum file size 30 GB

The size of the imported file must not exceed 30 GB. Larger files can be split into parts using a text editor (Notepad++, VS Code, etc.) or specialized programs.
  1. Open the section "Mailboxes".
  2. In the line with the mailbox, click "Import mail":
  3. In the tab "mbox" select the mbox file and click "Import mail".

If the automatic transfer option is not suitable for some reason (for example, the mail server from which you want to transfer mail does not support IMAP), you can transfer messages manually using an email client.

  1. Create mailbox with the same name with which it was created on the old hosting.
  2. Connect using the Thunderbird mail client directly to two mailboxes:
    • To a new mailbox created on our hosting, in which you need to transfer letters (necessarily via the IMAP protocol).
    • To the old mailbox created on the old hosting, from which you need to transfer letters.
  3. In Thunderbird, on the left, select the mailbox and folder, from which the transfer of letters will be performed.
  4. Select all the letters you want to transfer.
  5. Right-click on the selected letters and in the menu that appears, select "Copy to folder".
  6. In the context menu, select the mailbox and folder where the letters are to be moved.
  7. Wait until the process of copying letters is completed.

Screenshot with an example of the process of copying letters from a mailbox test1 (created on the old hosting) to the mailbox test (created with us):

After all mail has been transferred, in the domain settings you can set our MX records, so that incoming mail does not go to mailboxes on the old hosting, but to mailboxes created with us.

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