Transfer Emails Between Servers

If you had email hosting from a previous hosting provider, you likely had an email account. You can transfer those emails to your Nili Business Account. There are different ways to migrate your existing emails. One way to configure the accounts in an email client and copy the emails to our servers. We will show you how to do this using the Thunderbird email client. Other clients, such as MS Outlook, have the same basic functionality.

How do I transfer my emails using Thunderbird?

Before we get started, you will need to create an email account in Nili cPanel. Next, open your preferred email client, such as Thunderbird. Setting up your old email hosting in your email client as an IMAP account is essential. Ensure this is done before you cancel your hosting with your previous provider, or you will lose your emails. Next, set up the same email account name but on our servers. (For example, if your email was [email protected], create a new email account as [email protected] on the Nili Business Account server)

When configuring the accounts, use your servers’ hostnames as the incoming and outgoing mail servers, not your own domain name. For example, the average user will use mail.yourdomain.ca as their incoming and outgoing server name. mail.yourdomain.ca either point to Nili or your previous server, not both. Using a server’s hostname instead of mail.yourdomain.ca ensures we connect to the correct servers. Your hostname for Nili’s business email may look something like (email.nili.email). You should reference your Account Management Panel for the exact server name. You’ll need to contact your previous host to find out the server name of your last server.

Now that both hosting email accounts are added, we can copy the emails. In this example, we will move emails from [email protected] to [email protected]. We are using two different email addresses to make our example clear. However, when you add your email accounts, they will be the same email address, and you will be copying emails from the same email addresses, each hosted on different servers. Once both accounts are added, you will see them both on the left menu of your email client.

Making the Transfer

1. To begin the transfer process, highlight all the emails you want to transfer. You can highlight them by clicking on “Edit” in the menu bar and then “Select All “:
   
2. Right-click on the email messages. In Thunderbird, mouse over “Copy To” and then select the inbox you want to copy the emails. Remember this will be the email account set up with InMotion Hosting:
   
3. Once you click on the folder you want the emails moved to, a transfer will begin. It will display at the bottom of the page, so you know it is copying.

1. Finally, you can click on the new inbox to ensure the emails are transferred. You can confirm the emails were copied by simply checking the inboxes of both accounts. The emails in each account should be identical. You can check the old and new accounts to confirm the successful process.

The transfer was complete if your emails were in our server’s inbox! Depending on the number of emails, this can take anywhere from a few minutes to hours. You can also confirm that the emails were copied by logging into webmail.