IMAP to IMAP migration/sync tools
 

I'm looking to move my email provider and have quite a few emails (a thousand or so, maybe) that I'd like to keep - they're in quite a complex folder structure that would be a pain to recreate manually.

I have found a few tools that seem to do this.
- a Linux based utility called imapsync (which seems to be free on Linux but has a Windows port for €60+VAT).
- Softaken migration tool ($99)
- Mailvare IMAP to IMAP Migration Tool (free)

Has anyone any experience of any of these or any other tools?
The Mailvare site looks impressively professional - but I haven't come across them before. I don't mind paying but $99 or so is quite steep. I don't have a Linux system set up at the moment.

I would check with the new email service to see what they offer or advise you to use. For example, Fastmail offers advice on how to do it: https://www.fastmail.com/help/accoun...ofastmail.html

Thanks but they don't offer anything - it's a hosting service rather than email per se.

Maybe let us know which service you are moving from and which one you are moving to, and someone here probably has experience with it. I'm not sure what you mean by this:

The current email service is at Runbox. I have the domain hosted at tsoHost and that allows me to define email accounts using cPanel.

tsoHost is basically a web hosting company but supports email alongside the website. I don't currently have a working web site on the relevant domain (and probably will never need one) I just use it for email.

It costs very little to do it this way and gives a lot of flexibility over email addresses and storage space.

I think the easiest way to do this with the most control is to setup Thunderbird on your desktop. Add both email accounts to Tbird using IMAP. Then you can just drag and drop the emails between the accounts. Here's one explanation on how to do that. https://support.tigertech.net/email-copy

You might want to try a program like this, IMAPSize - https://broobles.com/imapsize/index.php

- Bruce

Free MailStore Home. Back up any IMAP account or most email clients. Restore to any IMAP account.

Thank you for the info. I'll give it a try to this app.

Regards

Can anyone tell me how "Free Mailstore Home" differs from using either Thunderbird or Outlook 2016 and copying all of your email folders to your hard disk ?

What other capabilities does Mailstore give you and are there any drawbacks / downside to using it?

Thank you.

Since discovering MailStore Home a few years ago, I've never considered using anything else for archiving my e-mails in Windows.

When setting up a profile for archiving, you have options for:

Include Folders and Subfolders
Exclude Folders and Subfolders (spam, deleted, etc)
Sent Items Folders

The initial run of the profile takes the longest, as it has to check each e-mail, but subsequent runs are much quicker.

It's also possible to set up profiles for exporting e-mails (servers, clients, files) although I've not used this option myself.

The easiest and quickest way to find out if it's suitable for your needs, is to try it yourself.

I only wish there was an equivalent for Linux!

I can endorse this, from my initial experiments, it's a very comprehensive utility - I wish there was a Mac version available. However, it seems it depends too heavily on Microsoft tools to be easily ported anywhere else. Fortunately, I have a second hand Intel NUC tucked away for just such eventualities. Not expensive on a well known auction site...

Excellent tool, thanks for the recommendation.

I eventually ended up using IMAPSync to do the job. It ostensibly costs €60 but the developer is flexible. As I only wanted it for a one off transfer, he was very helpful.

There's also a free online version for up to 300MB

I can certainly recommend it.