Using IMAP to migrate email messages to GMail
Many people on internet forums are asking how to migrate their mailboxes from desktop email clients to GMail. I tried to do it myself today and it seems that the easiest solution is very hard to find on the web.
It appears that with the current GMail version supporting IMAP, you no longer need external tools like gExodus or Google GMail Loader. All you need is your desktop email client supporting IMAP. Thunderbird for example does support it, so to migrate all your messages you need to:
- Enable IMAP in your GMail settings
- [optional] Create label(s) in GMail for your imported messages
- Configure Thunderbird to access GMail account using IMAP - any of previously created labels will appear as folders in Thunderbird
- Move or copy your messages to All Mail folder or any of the label folders
That’s it! All the information in your messages will be preserved (including dates) and if you copy/move them to the labeled folders they’ll be automatically labeled in GMail.
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