Email migration to a new host

[ArsE82]

Hi All

I have a domain and hosting services for 5 x mailboxes - all family use. I want to migrate the mailbox services and all existing data to a new provider, ideally Gmail. We have email content going back 20 years I'd say, so I really don't want to lose anything. My current provider is cowboy at best, and I'm getting more concerned about their viability.

I've used MigrationWiz in the past in a commercial environment to migrate to O365, and I'm fine with the principals of how the migration will work, but I don't really want to start paying monthly subs for O365 for my family members if there's an alternative. My 76 year-old Mum doesn't need Exchange!

So I suppose:

1 - Is it possible to leverage a hosting/mail service with my own custom domain, without using commercial products like O365/Google Business.

2 - If so, or indeed if not, any recommendations on tools to use for the migration? I don't mind paying for MigrationWiz but happy to explore other options.

Thanks in advance!

[megaphone]

I'd back all the messages up on a PC or elsewhere first, just in case it all goes TU.

[trashbat]

If you're going to migrate to GMail, just connect your old account in the advanced settings. It can only connect to POP3 and it processes 200 emails every 3-4 minutes, so it will take a long time, but it just happens in the background.

[Bikerjon]

You say "ideally Gmail". Do you mean everyone has their own personal Gmail acct and you want the personal domain going there too or are you looking at a full Google workspace setup?

[bitchstewie]

How are you doing all this now?

Nothing leaps out that should require paid migration tools for a home domain with 5 mailboxes.

Make sure you have an offline export of the current mailbox contents.

Get the new host setup and flip the MX record to get mail flowing into it and make sure new mail is being delivered.

Then you should be able to "simply" import mail from the import from the offline export of the old mailbox into the new empty mailbox at the new host.

[Bikerjon]

Once you have figured out the data migration side of things you could also consider transferring your domain away from the current registrar and over to Google domains. Doing this will provide email forwarding as part of your annual domain fee.

https://support.google.com/domains/answer/3251241?...

Note: this would work well if you were planning to switch to personal gmail accts but still wanted your own domain email forwarded into them. It's not mailbox hosting, just forwarding.

Edited by Bikerjon on Monday 8th August 20:14

[stewies_minion]

For 5 I think I'd dump them to 5 PSTs.

New mailboxes, MX change. Import PST.

Even writing PST makes me shudder "we've got this 12786767679gb PST on a file server and it's not working well" complaints from the old days.

Followed by an invariably corrupt PST with an absolutely mission critical email in that a lawyer needs.

[ArsE82]

Thanks everyone for your replies.

Bikerjon said:

You say "ideally Gmail". Do you mean everyone has their own personal Gmail acct and you want the personal domain going there too or are you looking at a full Google workspace setup?

I want the functionality you describe but not sure if I need the full Google Workspace setup, or if it can be achieved without it.

Bikerjon said:

Once you have figured out the data migration side of things you could also consider transferring your domain away from the current registrar and over to Google domains. Doing this will provide email forwarding as part of your annual domain fee.

https://support.google.com/domains/answer/3251241?...

Note: this would work well if you were planning to switch to personal gmail accts but still wanted your own domain email forwarded into them. It's not mailbox hosting, just forwarding.

This looks like a good idea, especially as you can send from the alias too.

bhstewie said:

How are you doing all this now?

Nothing leaps out that should require paid migration tools for a home domain with 5 mailboxes.

Make sure you have an offline export of the current mailbox contents.

Get the new host setup and flip the MX record to get mail flowing into it and make sure new mail is being delivered.

Then you should be able to "simply" import mail from the import from the offline export of the old mailbox into the new empty mailbox at the new host.

I'm currently using a crappy host and buying mailbox services from them, which we all use IMAP to work with.

stewies_minion said:

For 5 I think I'd dump them to 5 PSTs.

New mailboxes, MX change. Import PST.

Even writing PST makes me shudder "we've got this 12786767679gb PST on a file server and it's not working well" complaints from the old days.

Followed by an invariably corrupt PST with an absolutely mission critical email in that a lawyer needs.

I'm really trying to avoid exporting to PST as I just don't have the time at the moment and, like you, have many bad memories of trying to work with PST files. I'd like to find a solution that migrates mailbox to mailbox, without a middle-man task for me!

It's great that I can use Google mailboxes with the forwarder, I think that's the best solution. I just then need to get the mailbox contents across and manage the DNS changes. Without my Mum missing that critical Argos email.

[bitchstewie]

Add the mailboxes to Gmail, export to PST, MBOX to make sure you have a known good backup, I think the main thing is you should be able to "simply" get new mail coming into the new mailboxes and once that's in place import from the old ones.

I never quite get why people try to run their home lives like they're a Fortune 500

[Mr Pointy]

ArsE82 said:

I'm really trying to avoid exporting to PST as I just don't have the time at the moment and, like you, have many bad memories of trying to work with PST files. I'd like to find a solution that migrates mailbox to mailbox, without a middle-man task for me!

It's great that I can use Google mailboxes with the forwarder, I think that's the best solution. I just then need to get the mailbox contents across and manage the DNS changes. Without my Mum missing that critical Argos email.

Why don't you set up both the old & the new accounts in something like emclient, let the old account sync up (you said it was IMAP) & when it is done copy the emails into the Gmail account which will sync up to Google. Then you just have the issue of swapping over the MX records which is best done on Saturday or Sunday night when you've told everyone the mail will be down.
https://www.emclient.com/?lang=en

Your only using emclient as a mid point & it's free for two accounts.

[trashbat]

Again, for migration, do what I said in the second reply - connect your GMail to the existing account via POP3. Tick the 'leave everything on the server' box if you have doubts.

If you do automatic forwarding to GMail, rather than having it retrieve, you'll find you run into all sorts of anti-spam measures and get non-delivery in an unpredictable way. I've just switched my wife's business setup from forwarding to retrieval for this reason.

[ArsE82]

bhstewie said:

Add the mailboxes to Gmail, export to PST, MBOX to make sure you have a known good backup, I think the main thing is you should be able to "simply" get new mail coming into the new mailboxes and once that's in place import from the old ones.

I never quite get why people try to run their home lives like they're a Fortune 500

I just want to make sure I don't lose anything. I've got 10 years of emails, some of which are very important. Investing some time to make sure I'm reducing the risk of loss isn't a bad thing.

I've just logged in to my MigrationWiz account so I'm going to explore doing it that way first. I'd rather go directly between two hosts, rather than downloading to a PC first before then uploading and risking failures etc.

Mr Pointy said:

Why don't you set up both the old & the new accounts in something like emclient, let the old account sync up (you said it was IMAP) & when it is done copy the emails into the Gmail account which will sync up to Google. Then you just have the issue of swapping over the MX records which is best done on Saturday or Sunday night when you've told everyone the mail will be down.
https://www.emclient.com/?lang=en

Your only using emclient as a mid point & it's free for two accounts.

Thanks - never heard of emclient before and it looks pretty good.

I'm going to try with MigrationWiz first but will keep these solutions in mind as an alternative.

[bitchstewie]

I know it was meant tongue in cheek

If you have access to MigrationWiz then to be fair it looks cheap enough.

But with anything like that I'd want a proper offline backup which for most people will be a PST/MBOX type file.

Crappy host and all that..

[dmsims]

Mailstore Home is a great (local) backup/export tool

[khushy]

My o365 has 100gb mailbox and its been working well - however I am up to 97gb lol

I found a hosted exchange provider with a 300gb mailbox, which should last me another 20 years lol

We tried a migration service, which failed, probably because we use BB over a 4g sim card

Anyway, I set up outlook with both the old and new mailboxes - dragged and dropped

According to my calculations, syncing would take around 4.5 years over 4g lol so I took my mac to my friends house who has 300mbs upload over fibre - took less than hour and now I have no space worries with my new hosted exchange mailbox.

The only issue was trying to copy over Historical diary stuff - but everything that happened in the past is gone - a great opportunity to cleanse the soul

By the way I send out a lot of graphic heavy design files, hence the 100gb's and customers of 10 years ago still ask for old designs.

[Turtle Shed]

I might not be understanding the question/problem, but Krystal are a brilliant host and they have a mailbox migration tool that just works.

Creat new mailbox with them, enter login details for existing, hit 'go'. Repeat for each mailbox.

I moved a friend's business email accounts to Krystal with ease, mailboxes of about 20Gb each, all four done within the hour or thereabouts.

[Sheepshanks]

khushy said:

My o365 has 100gb mailbox and its been working well - however I am up to 97gb lol

I found a hosted exchange provider with a 300gb mailbox, which should last me another 20 years lol

We tried a migration service, which failed, probably because we use BB over a 4g sim card

Anyway, I set up outlook with both the old and new mailboxes - dragged and dropped

According to my calculations, syncing would take around 4.5 years over 4g lol so I took my mac to my friends house who has 300mbs upload over fibre - took less than hour and now I have no space worries with my new hosted exchange mailbox.

The only issue was trying to copy over Historical diary stuff - but everything that happened in the past is gone - a great opportunity to cleanse the soul

By the way I send out a lot of graphic heavy design files, hence the 100gb's and customers of 10 years ago still ask for old designs.

Isn't keeping them as email a tad iffy?

[khushy]

Sheepshanks said:

khushy said:

My o365 has 100gb mailbox and its been working well - however I am up to 97gb lol

I found a hosted exchange provider with a 300gb mailbox, which should last me another 20 years lol

We tried a migration service, which failed, probably because we use BB over a 4g sim card

Anyway, I set up outlook with both the old and new mailboxes - dragged and dropped

According to my calculations, syncing would take around 4.5 years over 4g lol so I took my mac to my friends house who has 300mbs upload over fibre - took less than hour and now I have no space worries with my new hosted exchange mailbox.

The only issue was trying to copy over Historical diary stuff - but everything that happened in the past is gone - a great opportunity to cleanse the soul

By the way I send out a lot of graphic heavy design files, hence the 100gb's and customers of 10 years ago still ask for old designs.

Isn't keeping them as email a tad iffy?

I dont keep designs as emails - but email helps with tracing coms with vague design requests on the fly

[Harpoon]

khushy said:

My o365 has 100gb mailbox and its been working well - however I am up to 97gb lol

I found a hosted exchange provider with a 300gb mailbox, which should last me another 20 years lol

We tried a migration service, which failed, probably because we use BB over a 4g sim card

Anyway, I set up outlook with both the old and new mailboxes - dragged and dropped

According to my calculations, syncing would take around 4.5 years over 4g lol so I took my mac to my friends house who has 300mbs upload over fibre - took less than hour and now I have no space worries with my new hosted exchange mailbox.

The only issue was trying to copy over Historical diary stuff - but everything that happened in the past is gone - a great opportunity to cleanse the soul

By the way I send out a lot of graphic heavy design files, hence the 100gb's and customers of 10 years ago still ask for old designs.

Did you look at the archive mailbox in O365? If you had a 100GB mailbox entitlement you should get up 1.5TB of archive space...

[khushy]

Harpoon said:

Did you look at the archive mailbox in O365? If you had a 100GB mailbox entitlement you should get up 1.5TB of archive space...

but you cannot search for stuff through the outlook app