Changing email server not address: how to keep all emails

[doveoscar]

Hello,

I cannot find the answer to this by searching the forums, and I would be very grateful for any help.

I have an email address of the form myname@mydomain.com, but I am having to change email hoster: old and new hosters IMAP. I want to keep my entire email archive, which is downloaded to my computer as well as on the server.

I experimented with just changing the server settings in Thunderbird (78.14.0) on my PC to match the new hoster. The address was functional, but whereas I was hoping that my entire email structure would be uploaded to the new servers by IMAP, instead the whole lot disappeared from visibility on Thunderbird. The contents of mydomain.com on Thunderbird were now empty.

When I reset the server settings in Thunderbird, all well and good.

What would be the best way to go about this?

Thanks in anticipation.

[tanstaafl]

IMAP stores messages in remote folders. So if you want to change hosts (while keeping the same email address) the most straightforward way would be to use some utility like imapsync or MailSync to copy the folders to the new host, delete the old account and add the new account.

However, what I'd do is:

(1) Backup my profile by copying & pasting it from whatever file manager tool you use.

(2) Make certain that all of the accounts folders are configured as offline folders in synchronization & storage and they'd had a chance to synch.

(3) Write down the local directory for the old account. Its in the server settings by a Browser button. Import the mbox files for the account using the ImportExportTools add-on into a folder in "Local Folders". They're safe there.

(4) Delete the old account. Don't check the checkbox to delete the accounts data as a additional precaution. If you keep the slip of paper with the old local directory you know what is safe to delete later on.

(5) Change hosts.

(6) Add the new account.

(7) Move the folders (or the messages if the corresponding folder already exists) from the "Local Folders" special account to the new account.

[doveoscar]

Thank you - I will try that.

[doveoscar]

Oh dear. "The add-on downloaded from this site could not be installed because it appears to be corrupt."

[doveoscar]

It seems other people have found the same since September, the add on seems incompatible with the latest Thunderbird. I need to get this right because once I've done mine, I have the rest of the family to sort out and although I have a safety belt - dual boot PC with Thunderbird & all files up to date on both OSes - the family will only have the backups I prepare.

Thank you for the local folder tip. I think I can just copy everything to local folders, delete the old account, set up the new account and copy back from local folders? A bit slow because I will have to manually recreate quite a large folder structure, but bomb-proof I guess?

[tanstaafl]

Try using the older version of importexporttools ng at https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/th ... ion-10.0.4 . It supports version 68.0 - 78.*

I'm using the current version of that (10.0.2) with Thunderbird 91.3.1

[doveoscar]

Try using the older version of importexporttools ng at https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/th ... ion-10.0.4 . It supports version 68.0 - 78.*

I'm using the current version of that (10.0.2) with Thunderbird 91.3.1

I nowhave an older version of ImportExportTools NG but I have had no success. Here's what I've done:
Right-click local folders, create folder for storing the mail.
Right click the newly created local folder.
Select ImpottExportTools NG -> Import mbox file -> Select a directory where searching the mbox files to import (also in subdirectories)
Select the directory where the original account data is stored

The subdirectory structure is not imported, each mbox file gets its own directory at root level and where folders are stored as several mbox files (eg Sent items-1, Sent Items-2) instead of a single Sent Items folder, Sent Iitems-1, Sent items-2 etc

If everything had come across OK I guess I could fix this, but every folder seems to have gained a number of new files, time stamped with the time of file copy, with blank subjects and from a single word, the email within often being somewhat mangled.

I have repeated this several times and it is consistent. I have also tried the other import options, but none of them seem to import folder structure and contents - I can get a nice copy of the folder structure, empty.

This is very frustrating. Is there some magic bullet set of options I'm missing, or is the tool not really properly functional?

[tanstaafl]

The current version has a dialog box with multiple radio buttons when you select "import mbox file". One choice is "select a directory where searching the mbox file to import (also in subdirectories). Do you see that?

If not then you are running into the downsides of not using the current major version of Thunderbird.

You always have the option of creating your own folder hierarchy in "Local Folders" and then copying the appropriate mbox file to its subdirectory.

[doveoscar]

I am running Thunderbird 78.14.0 (64 bit) on Linux Mint 20.2.

The mess (extra emails in each folder, folders broken into subfolders) is the result of using the fourth radio button "Select a directory where searching the mbox files to import (also in subdirectories)." The broken folders exactly mirrors the contents of the directory containing the mbox files. Intertestingly, if I select radio button 2 "import one or more mbox files, with its/their subdirectory" I get the folder structure correctly reproduced, but completely empty. Just in case I tried 2 then 4, I got the two lots overlaid.

However, thanks to your first posting I was inspired to try imapsync. I've done a test and it seems to work perfectly, albeit obviously takes a while. I only have four mailboxes to move, none more than 3GB, so I have found a solution.

It's a shame that importexportools NG is not working properly.

[doveoscar]

For anybody else looking, I can confirm that Imapsync works very well indeed, and it's free for mailboxes of less than 3GB, though it does take a little time. It keeps the original mailbox safe until you're happy everything has moved across and you can delete it.

The migration of all the mailbox data from one server to another, whilst retaining the same email address, was easy and completely effective, following the steps below:

1. If the existing Thunderbird account on the old server is named with the email address, go to Account Settings and change the account name but do not change anything else, this will let you set up another with the same name in due course and mean that meanwhile your mailbox contents are safe.
2. Set up the email account with the address you're migrating on the new server, check it is working. Ensure that from now on incoming emails only go to the new server.
3. Go to https://imapsync.lamiral.info/X/ and enter the login details for old and new accounts, then press the green "Sync or Resync" box. Your entire mailbox will be copied to the new account on the new server. It may take some hours, but you can stop and resume; similarly, if there are any connectivity issues, you can just restart and it will pick up where you left off.
4. Check. Your new account should have an exact copy of the content of the old account.
5. Set up your new account in Thunderbird.
6. Once you're happy everything is working, you can delete the old account.

It will clearly work in various other scenarios too, thank you tanstaafl for referencing impasync. I can now do the whole family's mailboxes secure in the knowledge it will work.