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How to migrate email using IMAP & Thunderbird

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  • Last reply by christ1

james_1
james_1
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Hi, I'm currently in the process of moving my email from a friend's server at Dreamhost to my own account that I will open at Dreamhost.

My friend says he can "change the MX records for the domain to point to wherever you migrate", but I don't know how to move the actual email inbox+messages to the new Dreamhost account.

To backup the local emails, I copied the "ImapMail" folder to my backup hard drive.

What would be my next step to put transfer (or upload?) my backed up emails into the new account?

Thanks,

James

Hi, I'm currently in the process of moving my email from a friend's server at Dreamhost to my own account that I will open at Dreamhost. My friend says he can "change the MX records for the domain to point to wherever you migrate", but I don't know how to move the actual email inbox+messages to the new Dreamhost account. To backup the local emails, I copied the "ImapMail" folder to my backup hard drive. What would be my next step to put transfer (or upload?) my backed up emails into the new account? Thanks, James

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christ1
christ1
  • Top 25 Contributor
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To backup the local emails, I copied the "ImapMail" folder to my backup hard drive.

Did you also turn on synchronization for that account? Otherwise you'd only backup the email headers. https://support.mozilla.org/kb/imap-synchronization

Also make sure to create backups of your entire Thunderbird profile before you start messing with it. https://support.mozilla.org/kb/profiles-where-thunderbird-stores-user-data#w_backing-up-a-profile

It would probably make more sense to copy the messages on the server to your Local Folders account. You'll need to manually replicate any folder hierarchy you may have in Local folders.

Once the MX recods has changed, set up your own (IMAP) Dreamhost account in Thunderbird. You can then upload the messages from Local Folders to the server for the new account.

Modified by christ1