Home » Computers & Electronics

Gmail --> E-mail Migration to Gmail and Account Consolidation

Ranked #2,758 in Computers & Electronics, #55,219 overall

Gmail Options

This lens is all about options with Gmail, specifically about how to migrate from a different e-mail provider to Google and how to consolidate multiple e-mail accounts with Google.  Information on this page was developed by Ross Hollman and by other where specifically noted.

Due to the fact that my posts about Gmail are some of the highest traffic on my blog and generate the most comments and e-mails, I felt the entire topic could be better served by consolidating the information in a single lens.

As I find out further things about Gmail that seem worthwhile to share, I will post them not only on my blog, but also here on this lens.

General Thoughts on Migration

A few words about migrating to Gmail . . .

Most people can migrate to Gmail easily as they are not concerned with keeping archived e-mail from other accounts. However, if you are like me, you have a ton of e-mail that you archive and one of the primary drivers of switching to Gmail is being able to have all of your e-mail in one account with the ability to leverage Gmail's powerful built-in search features.

I'll take you through basic migration and advanced techniques below.

Basic Migration

When you don't need to save any archived e-mails

If you're one of those lucky people that just needs a new e-mail address and/or doesn't archive or care about getting archived e-mail into Gmail, then this is the guide for you.
  1. Go to Gmail and follow the sign up procedure to get a new account. Note that you should try to choose a relevant address as people will see your address in the e-mails that they receive from you. Further note that the address and password combination you choose will also allow you to sign into other Google services.
  2. Once your account is set up, it's probably best to e-mail all of your contacts to let them know your address. Gmail has tools that allow you to import contacts into Gmail provided you can get your contacts into comma-separated values format. Alternatively, you could simply send an e-mail from your old account informing everyone of your new address and carbon copy your Gmail account so that you can copy and paste all the addresses.

Intermediate Migration -- POP3 (non-Gmail)

This migration involves polulating archived e-mail from a non-Gmail account into your primary Gmail account via POP3

Many other e-mail providers allow you to access mail in your account via a protocol called POP3. Gmail includes a tool that allows you to "POP" into other e-mail accounts that support the POP protocol and bring that mail into the Gmail mailbox. I will assume that you have already set up a Gmail account at this point (if not, see the "Basic Migration" above).
  1. Login to Gmail.
  2. Click "Settings" (upper right).
  3. Click "Accounts".
  4. You'll see an item that says: "Get mail from other accounts:". To the left of that item is a link that says: "Add another mail account" -- click that link. Note that this will open another window, so ensure that any pop-up blocker that you are using does not keep the window from opening.
  5. Enter the e-mail address of the account from which you want to get your mail (i.e., "nowhere@loopback.com") and click "Next Step".
  6. Fill in the information required on the next page.

    You will need to get the address for the POP server from your provider though Google tries to make the process easy by pre-populating any known POP server addresses from common mail providers. If your POP server address does not appear in the drop-down menu, then simply select "other" and enter the date manually.

    Should you no longer be keeping the address from which you are pulling the mail, you shouldn't need to check the box next to "Leave a copy of retrieved message on the server." Furthermore, even if you want to keep the other account, Gmail offers tremendously more storage than other providers, so you may not want to leave copies of messages on the other mail server.

    If your e-mail provider supports POP retrieval over SSL, it is always more secure to send your information over SSL.

    You should decide if you want to apply a particular label to your messages to denote them as having come from another account -- this is completely at your option.

    You should decide if you want to immediately archive all of the e-mail that you are bringing over -- this will cause the mail to go into the archive rather than into the Inbox. Once again, this is at your option.
  7. Click "Add Account" and Gmail will take care of the rest.

Advanced Migration using GExodus (Windows only)

This method works for non-Gmail and Gmail accounts, but only works in Windows (or on a machine running Windows as a virtual machine)

CAUTION: This method does not preserve original e-mail dates and times! Dates and times will be changed to when the mail arrives in Gmail.

This method allows you to extract e-mail from a non-Gmail or Gmail account and populate that e-mail into your primary Gmail account. Although this method is listed as Windows only, I have successfully used this method on my Mac running Windows as a virtual machine.

I do not suggest using this method on a non-broadband connection and have only tested it on a high-speed connection.

I will assume that you already have a primary Gmail account set up at this point.
  1. Download gExodus. Once done, you will have a zip file - be sure to use the WinZip Extract button instead of dragging and dropping the files out of the archive. The first time I installed, I did a drag and drop and the program could not find the Python dll file. Once you have extracted to whatever folder you have chosen, go ahead and double-click the gExodus.exe file to make sure it works. Keep gExodus minimized throughout this process until I call for it in the instructions.
  2. Download and install Thunderbird. Once installation is done, launch Thunderbird and cancel out of the wizards. Unless you are going to continue to use Thunderbird, there is no reason to waste time filling in any information. Keep Thunderbird minimized throughout this process until I call for it in the instructions.
  3. Maximize Thunderbird and follow the Google Instructions to configure it for the account that you no longer want to log into.

    Note the Google Instructions will only give you instructions on how to configure Thunderbird to access Gmail, but there are good screenshots in the instructions that you can use for other POP accounts; just input the information for your non-Gmail provider as necessary.

    Further note that if you are consolidating Gmail accounts, you should read the consolidation section below to ensure that you have activated POP access.
  4. Once Thunderbird is configured, click "Get Mail" -- if everything is configured correctly, Thunderbird will download all of the mail from the account you no longer want to log in to (this can be a non-Gmail or Gmail account).
  5. The most important thing to do is to located where the Thunderbird mail files are on your computer. In order to do this, you must have invisible files and folders activated in your Windows view options and you should have the hidden file extension option de-selected (Google this if you don't know what I'm talk about). I highly suggest locating the folder before using gExodus, but it depends on your level of comfort. The files are located here:

    * C:\Documents and Settings\xxxx\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxxx.default\Mail\Local Folders\Outlook Express Mail.sbd
    * Note that the "xxxx" represents items that will be unique to your system.
    * Note that there will be a regular version of a file and a .msf version of the same file in the folder (i.e., "Inbox" and "Inbox.msf")
  6. Maximize gExodus.
  7. Under "Account Setting" enter your master Gmail address.
  8. Under "Import From" either paste in the path from your Explorer window or click the "Browse" button and navigate to the file that you want to import. Note that you should select the file that does not have the .msf extension (i.e., "Inbox").
  9. Under "Label", you can add a label if you really want to, but read the example below the box - I did not use this when I did my imports.
  10. Leave the "SMTP server" alone and click "Import into Gmail" -- Note that if you have a problem with the address that's in there, click the "MX lookup for Gmail" link jsut below the box and enter one of the results that comes up in the browser.
  11. The "Progress" box will let you know about any errors, when everything is complete, etc.
  12. gExodus essentially forwards all of the e-mails in the file you have decided to import into your Gmail account - while the To and From information is retained, the date information that shows up in Gmail will be the date and time the you run gExodus; there is no way that I could find to fix this issue.
  13. Every e-mail shows up in Gmail as an unread e-mail, so you will need to do a select all on every page and mark every e-mail as read.

Advanced Migration using Thunderbird (all platforms)

This method works for non-Gmail and Gmail accounts and works for all platforms that Thunderbird is compatible with

CAUTION: This method does not preserve original e-mail dates and times! Dates and times will be changed to when the mail arrives in Gmail.

This method allows you to extract e-mail from a non-Gmail or Gmail account and populate that e-mail into your primary Gmail account. Unlike the Gexodus method, all downloading and uploading activities take place solely within Thunderbird.

I do not suggest using this method on a non-broadband connection and have only tested it on a high-speed connection.

I will assume that you already have a primary Gmail account set up at this point.
  1. Download Thunderbird.
  2. Download the Mailredirect extension for Thunderbird.
  3. At this point you should have the POP information for your account. If you are consolidating Gmail accounts, you should read the consolidation section below to ensure that you have activated POP access.
  4. Launch Thunderbird and install the Mailredirect extension going to the "Tools" menu then to "Extensions" and then to "Install". Locate the Mailredirect extension and install it.
  5. Restart Thunderbird and configure it to access your POP account (see number 3 in the Gexodus instructions above and substitute your POP provider information where appropriate) and to send with Gmail SMTP (the instructions in Gexodus number 3 above also give the SMTP configuration instructions for Gmail).
  6. POP into your account and retrieve all of your messages.
  7. Select all of the messages and then select Mailredirect from the "Messages" menu.
  8. Input the address you want the e-mails redirected to (your primary Gmail account address) and redirect all of the e-mail. If everything work correctly, all of the e-mail will be populated into your primary Gmail account.
  9. Every e-mail shows up in Gmail as an unread e-mail, so you will need to do a select all on every page and mark every e-mail as read.

Expert Migration using MailTraq (Windows only)

Placeholder for instructions

This procedure is very advanced and is for Windows only as Mailtraq server is only available for Windows. The instructions below are from Robert Ciaccio, who figured out the process and documented all of the instructions below in detail. Although Robert's instructions are slanted to consolidating multiple Gmail accounts, they are applicable to any mail that you can get into Thunderbird and therefore are listed in the Migration section rather than the Consolidation section.

Here are a few things to think about with this method:

# Mailtrq is only available for Windows, so all of the instructions above specifically relate to Windows. I'm pretty sure that you should be able to get all of this to work with /www.zimbra.com/community/downloads.html">Zimbra -- if you do, please send instructions -- or possibly with some other application, but I haven't tested it.

# If your high-speed provider NATs behind IP addresses or constantly reassigns dynamic addresses, you may want to check out
# Be aware that you are potentially opening up your network/computer for port attacks by disabling security on the 110 port. You can configure a random port in Mailtraq, but be aware that you will have to also specify that port in Gmail in order for Mail Fetcher to work correctly. Instructions for this are not provided here, but are probably easily obtained by doing a Google search.">
  1. Download and install the mailtraq 30 day trial version from Mailtraq (choosing complete as your setup option is fine).
  2. After installation, the setup wizard should start automatically (if it does not, go ahead and start mailtraq by clicking on its icon in the Windows Start menu).
  3. Go ahead and let the wizard create a new database for you at the default location.
  4. When you get to the screen that asks for your domain name, enter any domain you like, such as oitotheworld.net (this will be used later as part of your login username).
  5. The next screen asks for a string which identifies IP addresses on your local network. If you don't understand what this means, just go ahead and enter 192.168.0.* (assuming you have a home network, this gives machines on it the ability to access the mailtraq server). Click 'next'.
  6. Leave the sending mail selection as "I wish to send mail directly..." and click 'next'.
  7. On the "Mail Collection" screen, choose "I am my own mail host..." and click 'next'.
  8. Type the username that you would like to use as the part of your login before @yourdomainname.com, enter your full name, choose a password and click 'next'.
  9. Click "finish" to exit the wizard.
  10. Now you'll import the Gmail messages that you have downloaded into Thunderbird to make them accessible through the mailtraq email server.

    [Note that at this point that you don't have to have downloaded messages from Gmail into Thunderbird, but from any mail account into Thunderbird -- the messages in Thunderbird are the ones that you want to get into a particular Gmail account]
  11. Go to the mailtraq administration console (it should already have popped up after the wizard, but if not, go to the start--->all programs--->mailtraq), and choose tools--->message import wizard, and click 'next' on the first screen.
  12. Choose "Mozilla Thunderbird Mail File" and click 'next'.
  13. Note: At this point, I made a copy of my Thunderbird inbox file that I used for importing the messages into mailtraq, just so I would have a backup copy in case I screwed something up. Your Thunderbird mbox file is located at 'Documents and Settings[yourusername]Application DataThunderbirdProfiles[somecrazytextstring].defaultMailLocal FoldersInbox. Copy this file to a location easy to browse to, such as c:temp.
  14. Back in the wizard, click 'browse', then navigate to the location where you have stored your inbox file, select it, click 'open' and then 'next'.
  15. Choose the mailbox you would like to import the messages into, which will be the username you created earlier in the previous wizard, and click 'next'.
  16. Select "Assign all messages to the folder selected below", click 'next' and 'next' again.
  17. While mailtraq is busy importing your Gmails into your new mailtraq mailbox, go to your Gmail settings page for the account you will be checking from now on.
  18. Click on "Accounts", and in the section labeled "Get mail from other accounts", click "add another mail account".
  19. In the popup that appears, enter the username that you created in the earlier wizard, ie "myusername@oitotheworld.net", and click 'next step'.
  20. In the "username" field, enter the full email address, not just the part prior to the @ symbol. Enter your password. For POP server, enter the IP address of your home network or your computer, depending on whether you have a router or not. Leave the port at "110", and make sure that your router and/or software firewall is allowing/forwarding incoming connections on this port to your computer. I also checked the box "Label incoming messages" and typed in the username of my old Gmail account, so all the imported messages are labeled as such. If you don't want all the imported messages clogging up your inbox, also choose "archive incoming messages". Check to see that the mailtraq wizard has completed the task of importing your messages into your mailbox. When it is complete, click "add account".
  21. At this point, Gmail should begin downloading the messages from your computer, in groups of 200. In my case, it took about 2 days for Gmail to retrieve everything (3500 messages?) from the the mailtraq server. Once gmail is finally done, go ahead and uninstall mailtraq and you're through!

Gmail Account Consolidation -- forwarding

When you have multiple Gmail accounts and only want one primary account

This is a special case of Gmail migration.

If you are like me, you have many Gmail accounts, but want to manage all of your e-mail out of a single Gmail account; luckily Gmail has some tools to make this easy.

These steps show you how to set up forwarding from your non-primary Gmail account(s) to your primary Gmail account.
  1. Log into the Gmail account you want to stop logging into (i.e., non-primary account).
  2. Click "Settings" in the upper right.
  3. Click "Forwarding and Pop".
  4. Click the radio button next to "Forward a copy of incoming mail to . . .".
  5. Enter the address that you want the mail to be sent to in the box that says "email address".
  6. From the drop-down, decide what you want done with the forwarded mail -- in my case, I selected "delete Gmail's copy" so that no new mail will be added to the non-primary account.
  7. Click "Save Changes".

Gmail Account Consolidation -- replying from another address

When you have multiple Gmail accounts and only want one primary account (this also works for non-Gmail accounts)

This is a special case of Gmail migration and though it is listed for consolidating Gmail accounts, it does work for non-Gmail accounts.

If you are like me, you have many Gmail accounts, but want to manage all of your e-mail out of a single Gmail account; luckily Gmail has some tools to make this easy.

These steps show you how to set up your primary Gmail account to be able to use a different e-mail address as the sender. It is important to note that many e-mail providers or programs will display a secondary address as "sent on behalf of" your primary address, so you are not necessarily buying yourself anonymity.
  1. Log in to the primary Gmail account.
  2. Click "Settings" in the upper right.
  3. Click "Accounts".
  4. Click "Add Another E-Mail Address" -- this will trigger a pop-up window.
  5. Enter your name as you wish it to be seen by recipients and the e-mail address of the account you are no longer logging into (Gmail or non-Gmail).
  6. Click "Next Step" -- this will trigger a verification number e-mail to be sent to the e-mail address of the account you are no longer logging in to and change the pop-up screen to an entry screen for the verification number.
  7. Leave the pop-up screen open. At this point if you've set up forwarding in Gmail as described in the previous instruction set, click "Inbox" in the Gmail screen -- if you have configured forwarding correctly, then the confirmation e-mail should be in your Inbox. If you have not configured forwarding or are trying to use a non-Gmail address, you need to log into the other account to get the verification code.
  8. Click the e-mail from Gmail to open it.
  9. Select the verification number and copy it.
  10. Go back to the pop-up window and paste the verification number into the "Verification Number" field.
  11. Click "Next Step" -- the pop-up window will close and you will be left at the Inbox view for your primary Gmail account. If your primary Gmail account is open in another tab or window, change to that tab or window now so that you can see the Inbox.
  12. Click "Settings".
  13. Click "Accounts" -- if everything went through correctly, then you will now see another e-mail address listed from the account you are no longer logging into.
  14. I suggest checking the radio button next to "Reply from the same address the message was sent to.", which will cause Gmail to automatically use the address that the e-mail was sent to when replying.

Gmail Account Consolidation -- activating POP access

When you need to get e-mail out of your Gmail account using GExodus or Thunderbird as described in the "Migration" sections

These steps show you how to enable POP access for your Gmail account as referenced in the "Migration" sections above. All of these steps need to be complete to get stored Gmail e-mails out of the non-primary account via POP. Unfortunately Gmail does not support the use of their POP access tool with Gmail accounts, so you have to use these steps in conjunction with one of the "Migration" methods above.
  1. Log into the Gmail account you want to stop logging into (i.e., non-primary account).
  2. Click "Settings" in the upper right.
  3. Click "Forwarding and Pop".
  4. Click the radio button next to "Enable POP for all mail (even mail that's already been downloaded)".
  5. Select from the drop-down what you want done with mail that is accessed via POP -- in my case I selected "delete Gmail's copy" so that once all of the old mail is extracted via POP, it is deleted from the account I'm no longer logging in to.
  6. Click "Save Changes".

by

rhollman

Ross Hollman is a young professional working in the entertainment industry, specifically in music. Since he was 5, starting with an Apple II, Ross ha... more »

Feeling creative? Create a Lens!

Explore related pages

Related Tags