Getting from Thunderbird POP, to new Gsuite (IMAP)
Hello to all,
I have my main Thunderbird account set up as POP and that was a mistake from years ago. :) I want to now get a new Gsuite account setup and migrate all my pop email to Gsuite. However, I am totally in the dark as to how to best achieve this and THOROUGHLY nervous about fracking it up and losing email. I have about 10 GB in there probably.
1 option seemed to be following the steps to just changing the account to IMAP by following instructions here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/switch-pop-imap-account --- With I guess the idea being that by changing it from pop to imap, once the settings are done, if the server was empty and settings on Tbird were to not check server for email, that once all the email is manually copied to the new IMAP email account, it flows up to the server? Is that accurate?
Then I guess, after that is successful, I'd do a typical migration via Gsuite to their server. Seems convoluted.
What is the most streamlined / easy / safe way to get all this pop email usable via Imap so it can be transferred to Gsuite?
Thanks in advance!
All Replies (6)
The link you mentioned is clear way to convert from POP to IMAP.
if your afraid your mail data, backup your profile and try it.
Thanks, though is it correct that you'd have to clear the sever out of all mail so it's empty, and that once you local mail from the pop version is copied over to the new IMAP profile, it would flow up to the server?
Would there be potential issues with flowing 10gb of email up to a server?
Yes, there would definitely be issues with uploading 10GB to an IMAP server. If the POP mail was still on the server, you could have the gmail account collect it, by enabling mail fetcher in gmail settings. But if it isn't, your best bet is to manually copy the POP mail from the current computer to any other computer, to Mail/Local Folders in the profile, from which you need access those messages. The mail is stored in mbox files, with no extension, and one file per mail folder.
hmmmm...
Is the issue of pushing that much to an imap server that it would choke the server? Or another reason?
I don't have another computer, just this one computer. So I don't understand why I would need another computer. There is email on the server, but it's just a copy of every inbox message (nothing else). My thought is I would delete all the email sitting on the server (since I have it locally) and then somehow push my email up to the server, but I am not sure how to best do it.
I can easily create a new version of the email account on thunderbird using the IMAP settings, and "disable" the current pop version (with all the mail) so it doesn't check the server. I suspect that means the email will just sit there undisturbed, and I can check it whenever I want, from THIS particular computer. Of course, it won't be checkable from my phone, or anywhere else (which is the point).
I suspect I could, over the time, gradually start copying / pasting mail from the disabled pop account to the new IMAP account, slowly pushing that up to the server.
Besides being a pain in the butt :) , would that work? Perhaps that makes more sense so I can skip migrating it to IMAP on current server and then to Google. I could literally create the new google IMAP account, and then slowly push everything directly there.
Is there a "limit" of how much mail I can push to IMAP account before there are issues (as you mention 10gb is a problem).
Thanks for your help!!
sfhowes said
Yes, there would definitely be issues with uploading 10GB to an IMAP server. If the POP mail was still on the server, you could have the gmail account collect it, by enabling mail fetcher in gmail settings. But if it isn't, your best bet is to manually copy the POP mail from the current computer to any other computer, to Mail/Local Folders in the profile, from which you need access those messages. The mail is stored in mbox files, with no extension, and one file per mail folder.
Besides the limits imposed by Gmail, the IMAP protocol is not really designed for mass uploading, as has been demonstrated by many users attempting this over the years. Since you only access the account on one device, simply copy the POP mail to Local Folders for permanent storage, then remove the POP account and add the IMAP account.
Thanks for that link. I am going to be speaking with Gsuite about this as well during my free trial to see if I can make it work.
The issue is that I CAN only access the email from one device (my computer). I am trying to find out how I can change that. That's the point of this thread: how can I successfully and safely convert this POP account to IMAP. I need to be able to check from ipad / phone in addition to computer, something I cannot do now. This is why I made the post.
Thanks.
sfhowes said
Besides the limits imposed by Gmail, the IMAP protocol is not really designed for mass uploading, as has been demonstrated by many users attempting this over the years. Since you only access the account on one device, simply copy the POP mail to Local Folders for permanent storage, then remove the POP account and add the IMAP account.