In this article, you will learn:

• What conditions you have to meet to migrate emails automatically
• How to perform automatic email migration
• Common issues
• Frequently asked questions

To enable automatic email migration to run smoothly, make sure you meet the following conditions:

• You know a functional IMAP server address. If you use an IMAP server address in the form of imap.domain.tld, where domain.tld is the name of your domain, make sure that this address is up-to-date.
• You know the login credentials to all mailboxes.
• The service you’re migrating emails from allows access to third-party IMAP applications. Some such services require additional setup, such as Gmail or Zoho.

If you have the original provider’s IMAP access ready, open the automatic migration interface by following these steps:

1. Log into the customer administraion panel.
2. In the navigation bar, select Web & Email Hosting Webhosting, Mailhosting, or WMS.
3. Select the service you want to migrate to from the list.
4. In the left menu, click Email Migration Tool.

Open the automatic migration interface for:

In the Source Mailserver Details section, enter the IMAP server address. Then select the type of migration (you can use them separately or both at the same time):

• Synchronize existing mailboxes
• New mailbox migration

This type of migration downloads emails from the specified IMAP server to mailboxes that already exist on the hosting. New emails are added to those already in the inbox.

Using this tool, you can download the contents of any other mailbox available through the given IMAP server to existing mailboxes.

Follow these steps:

1. In the Sync Existing Mailboxes section, check the mailboxes you want to migrate to.
2. Enter the password (for the WEDOS service) and the corresponding login credentials for the source mailbox.

This type of migration creates new mailboxes with the same name (the text before the @ character) and then downloads emails into them. You can create mailboxes in bulk by entering values into the field.

In the New Mailbox Migration section, enter the login credentials of all the mailboxes you want to migrate. Follow these rules:

• Enter the login name, a space character and password of one mailbox on one line.
• The login name is a complete email address, such as mailbox@domain.tld.

After the migration is complete, you can change passwords or set aliases according to the instructions in the article Emails – Mailbox Management.

After the migration is complete, check whether the domain is using the correct MX records.

To change IMAP, SMTP and POP3 addresses to names containing your domain, edit the corresponding CNAME records.

Common email migration issues include:

• Invalid email login credentials
• Errors while migrating between WEDOS services
• Insufficient space on the new hosting service

Issue: The system returns login credential errors

Cause: The most common cause of this error is an incorrect IMAP server address, less often an incomplete login name (for example, a mailbox name without a domain) or an old password.

Solution: Make sure that you are logging into the correct IMAP server, that you are entering valid credentials for the original mailbox, and that the original system can handle these credentials. If you have changed DNS records as part of changing services, check that the IMAP server address you are entering still directs to the original service.

Issue: Migrating emails from an old WEDOS mail hosting to a new one doesn’t work.

Cause: While you were setting up a new email service, you probably renamed the old one (having the name removed by customer support is also a renaming of sorts). The mailserver therefore sees the old mailboxes under the new service name.

Solution: Enter the existing name or alias of the original hosting in the address of the migrated mailbox. If the hosting name has been removed, enter its identifier in the customer administration, for example mailbox@w123456.

Issue: The migration ended with an out-of-space error.

Solution: Increase the mailbox capacity according to the instructions Emails – Mailbox Storage Upgrade, wait at least 1 hour for changes to be made in the system and restart the migration. Alternatively, you can delete emails in the original mailboxes.

Question: What happens to the emails on the original hosting service?
Answer: Migration has no effect on emails on the original mail hosting.

Question: How do I find out the IMAP server address of the original mail hosting?
Answer: If you have mailboxes with WEDOS, follow the instructions in the article Emails – SMTP, POP3, IMAP. In other cases, find out the address from the current provider, or for example in email client settings, if you use one.

Question: Could incorrect MX records be causing problems with email migration?
Answer: The migration script downloads emails via the IMAP protocol, just like a mail client. MX records would only affect its functionality if it sent emails to a new mailbox, which does not happen. So you can safely direct them to the new hosting even before starting the migration. However, check that any CNAME record with the imap subdomain directs to the original mailhosting.