How I moved my email to Gmail
A few weeks ago I took control over my email. Not only did I clean out my inboxes, but I also converted everything over to Gmail. Why would I do this?
- Always online and availabe to me.
- Doesn’t take up space on my webserver.
- The labeling system is fantastic. I didn’t really know this until I really started using it.
- Integrated nicely with Mail.app or other email applications like Thunderbird and Outlook.
- I can send and receive email from multiple accounts via one Gmail account.
- iPhone ready.
- Email is up even if website is down.
- Google has the best spam protection I’ve seen.
So how did I move years worth of email to Gmail?
1 - The first thing I did was organize my inbox. This step is optional, but it helped me to have things in order.
2 - You either need to setup a Gmail account or Google Apps for your domain. I did the Google Apps part as I didn’t want an additional Gmail account and it was free.
If you are doing Google Apps for your domain, make sure to move all your email into local folders in your inbox. This includes your inbox, drafts and sent if you want to keep them. Get them off the server so you don’t loose them when the MX records are changed. Then go ahead and follow Google’s instructions on getting things setup and work with your host to get the email records updated. Once that’s in place, continue.
3 - Go into your Gmail account and enable the IMAP settings.
Settings -> Forwarding and POP/IMAP -> Enable IMAP
4 - Follow Google’s configuration instructions on getting your account setup in your email client.
5 - Once that’s done, you should now have two separate email accounts in your email application. One for your old email and one for Gmail.
6 - Setup Gmail labels to match your folder structure that corresponds with your email.
7 - Copy all your email from your old account to your new Gmail account. Since it’s setup via IMAP, all the email will be copied to Gmail and available online. This step may take some time if you have a lot of email. It isn’t hard, it’s just time consuming to upload all those emails.
Really that’s all there is to it. It’s quite easy. It took me some time to complete, but that was because of the large amount of email I had.
This will work on Mac or Windows or Linux; Thunderbird, Mail.app or Outlook. The only real requirements are a Gmail account and an email application capable of IMAP.
Since moving my email over to Gmail, I’ve moved over to using Gmail as my email application via Mailplane. Google’s labeling system is just so smart! 
I’ve been using GMail to manage everything for a while now (all my various email addresses forward to my GMail account) and whilst I am quite happy with the result I’ve had a few (major to me) issues after enabling IMap with Entourage such as junk mail being pulled into the inbox, mail being pulled out of labels (folders) etc. I’ve blogged about it in a bit more detail here - have you noticed any of these issues with the mail application you’re using?
- Katy May 6th, 2008 at 11:25 am
Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.14 - Mac OS X
I did post this previously but it didn’t appear - apologies if it become a double post!
I’ve been using Gmail to manage all my email accounts for quite some time now and have all of my various email addresses forwarding to it.
I recently enabled IMAP on my account and have had no end of problems with it, emails appearing in the inbox (I use Entourage) after they’ve been deleted, spam loading into the email box after I’ve clicked on the spam folder, emails loosing labels, it’s all really rather annoying.
Have you noticed any similar issues? I was wondering if it was just an Entourage thing or if it was a common occurrence or if it’s just me!
- Katy May 6th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.14 - Mac OS X
Sorry Katy, I don’t have any experience with Gmail and Entourage. My suggestion would be to double check the setting with what Google recommends and check out the Google help groups.
- Thomas May 8th, 2008 at 5:46 am
Safari 525.18 - Mac OS X
You forgot to add that G Mail will spy on everything that you send through them and everything that anyone sends to you! Nice one!
- Darrell Ridley May 14th, 2008 at 3:24 am
Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.14 - Windows XP
Darrell. If that were true, who cares? It’s not like email from my Mom is that private. Any other email provider does the same. Heck, even your ISP probably sells usage stats.
- Thomas May 14th, 2008 at 5:49 am
Safari 525.18 - Mac OS X
Hi Thomas,
It certainly is true, they admit it themselves. I am fortunate to have my own hosting company and about 40 websites, so all my mail goes through me. It is comforting to know that what I write and what someone writes to me is between us and no third-party, that’s all.
I don’t trust Google. They don’t have a good track record and plus they sold out to the Chinese by censoring their search results. Why? Because of the mighty dollar.
Google is a private organization. Who’s keeping them honest?
- Darrell Ridley May 14th, 2008 at 8:49 am
Internet Explorer 7.0 - Windows XP