Migrate Email to Hosted Email with IMAP

When you move an existing mailbox to Enom hosted email, you transfer messages, folders, and often contacts and calendars from a previous provider into the new Enom mailbox. This article explains the general concepts behind an email migration using a mail client.

Understanding email migration

Email migration moves the contents of one mailbox into another. Most migrations rely on IMAP, a standard protocol that keeps mail stored on the server and synchronizes it across clients. Because Enom hosted email supports IMAP, a mailbox can generally be accessed from common applications such as Outlook, Apple Mail, Gmail, and Thunderbird. The same IMAP access that lets a client read mail is what most migration methods use to copy messages from the old mailbox into the new one.

Before any migration, the destination mailbox must already exist at Enom. To create mailboxes, see Creating and Managing Mailboxes (Enom).

Before you begin

• Confirm the destination Enom mailbox has been created and that you can sign in to it.
• Gather the connection details for the source (old) mailbox: server address, username, password, and ports.
• Gather the destination Enom mail client settings. See Settings for Your Mail Client.
• Make sure the destination mailbox is large enough to hold the migrated mail.
• Confirm your mail client has multi-account support.

Step 1: Migrate manually over IMAP

A manual IMAP migration copies mail by connecting to both mailboxes at the same time:

1. In a mail client, add the source mailbox as an IMAP account using the old provider's settings.
2. Add the destination Enom mailbox as a second IMAP account using the Enom mail client settings.
3. Once both accounts are fully synchronized, copy or drag the messages and folders from the source account into the matching folders of the Enom account.
4. Wait for the copied mail to upload to the Enom server, then verify it appears in Enom webmail.

Step 2: Update mail clients and DNS

After mail has transferred, update each device and application to connect to the Enom mailbox using the Enom mail client settings, and confirm that mail flow (MX records) points to Enom so new messages are delivered to the migrated mailbox.

Next steps

• Creating and Managing Mailboxes (Enom)
• Settings for Your Mail Client

Questions? Contact Enom Support.