Migrate email from an IMAP account

If your users are migrating from an IMAP account, you can migrate their email data to Google Workspace using the new data migration service.

Except where indicated, perform the following steps in the Google Admin console of your target Google Workspace account (the account you're migrating to).

Before you begin

  • Complete the requirements in Get ready to migrate.
  • Make sure a super administrator sets up and runs the migration. Resellers can't migrate data for their customer accounts. 
  • Ensure that your server connects to Google IP address ranges.
  • Make sure that IMAP is turned on for the target account:

Run a migration

You must be signed in as a super administrator for this task.

Expand section  |  Collapse all & go to top

Step 1: Connect to IMAP server
  1. Sign in to your Google Admin console.

    Sign in using an account with super administrator privileges (does not end in @gmail.com).

  2. In the Admin console, go to Menu and then Dataand thenData import & exportand thenData migration.
  3. At the top, click Go to the new data migration service.
  4. For IMAP, click Migrate.
  5. For IMAP server address, enter the address of the IMAP server, for example, imap.example.com.

    For assistance with this information, go to the Connection information for common IMAP-based webmail providers table (later in this section).

  6. Click Test connection.

    If the connection is successful, you get a Connected notification.

Connection information for common IMAP-based webmail providers

If your provider isn't listed here, check your provider's documentation for this information.

Webmail provider IMAP server address
123 Reg
  • imap.123-reg.co.uk
  • imap.secureserver.net
1&1 IONOS
  • imap.ionos.com
  • imap.ionos.co.uk
  • imap.ionos.fr
  • imap.1and1.com
AOL imap.aol.com
Apple iCloud imap.mail.me.com
Bluehost mail.example.com (where example.com is your domain name)
DreamHost imap.dreamhost.com
Fastmail imap.fastmail.com
Gandi.net mail.gandi.net
HostGator gator####.hostgator.com (where #### is your HostGator server name on the left side of the cPanel)
Hostinger imap.hostinger.com
Locaweb email-ssl.com.br
Namecheap mail.privateemail.com

Microsoft 365, Outlook, Hotmail, MSN, and live.com

outlook.office365.com
one.com imap.one.com
OVHcloud ssl0.ovh.net
Rackspace secure.emailsrvr.com
Yahoo! (including Yahoo! Small Business) imap.mail.yahoo.com
Yandex
  • imap.yandex.ru
  • imap.yandex.com
Zoho
Step 2: Create & upload a migration map

You use a migration map to connect users on the source account to users on the target account. The new data migration service uses the migration map to transfer email data from the source user to the target user.

The mapping file requires you to enter the user's password from their source account. However, some IMAP servers require the user to create an app password instead. For details on app passwords and whether they are required, consult your IMAP server documentation.

1. Create the mapping file

Tip: Click Download sample CSV to get an example comma-separated values (CSV) file that you can use.

  1. In a spreadsheet program, add the following headers:
    • Source ImapUser—The user's email address on the source account
    • Source ImapPassword—The user's password on the source account
    • Target GUser—The user's email address on the target account

    You can download a list of users from your Admin console. For details, go to Download a list of users.

  2. Using valid email addresses, map the users and their passwords under the headers (both addresses are mandatory). Be aware of the following points:
    • You can't map a single source user to more than one target user.
    • Make sure the file contains no more than 100 source users and doesn't exceed 128 MB in size.

      The new data migration service currently supports a maximum of 100 users for IMAP migrations.

  3. Save the spreadsheet as a CSV file.

Example:

Source ImapUser Source ImapPassword Target GUser
[email protected] password1 [email protected]
[email protected] password2 [email protected]

In this example, the source domain is example.com. The target domain is solarmora.com.

2. Upload the file

  1. In the Admin console of your target account, click Upload CSV.
  2. Go to and select your CSV mapping fileand thenclick Open.
  3. Click Tasks to confirm that the mapping file has successfully been uploaded.
  4. If you get an error message, correct your CSV file. Then, repeat steps 1–2 to upload your mapping file.
Step 3: Select the migration settings
  1. Click Start date and enter the date that you want messages migrated from.

    The new data migration service migrates messages from the selected date to the date that you start the migration.

  2. (Optional) To migrate email messages that have been deleted, check the Migrate deleted emails box.
  3. (Optional) To migrate email messages with the Spam label, check the Migrate spam emails box.
  4. (Optional) If you don't want to migrate messages that have specific labels, check the Exclude specific folders from migration box, and enter the label names, separated by commas.

    For details, go to How to exclude folders from migration (in the next section).

  5. Click Save.

How to exclude folders from migration

  • Specify each folder or subfolder separately.
  • When you add a subfolder, use the full path and separate the parent folder from the subfolder with a forward slash (/).

    Example: You want to exclude the folder Travel and its child folder, Asia. To do so, you enter Travel,Travel/Asia.

Step 4: Start & view the progress of the migration

You must be signed in as a super administrator for this task.

  1. Click Start migration.

    This action also grants domain-wide delegation and creates a client ID for Data Migration (New) in the target account. For more information, go to Control API access with domain-wide delegation.

  2. The status changes to In progress, and the following information is updated in real time:
    • Discovered tasks—Total number of items (messages, labels, and other tasks) that were migrated, skipped, or failed
    • Warning—Number of items that were migrated, but failed to complete as expected
    • Failed—Number of items that failed to migrate, due to an error
    • Skipped—Number of items that were skipped
    • Successful—Number of items that were migrated successfully
    • Users processed—Number of users whose migration has completed
    • Emails discovered—Number of email messages that were migrated, skipped, or failed
    • Emails migrated—Number of email messages that were migrated
    • Emails skipped—Number of email messages that were skipped
    • Emails failed–Number of email messages that failed to migrate
  3. To export and interpret the reports, go to Understand the new data migration service reports.
Step 5: (Optional) Run a delta migration

To move data that has been added to the source account since the primary migration, run a delta migration. For details, go to Run a delta migration.

Exit a completed migration

Important: Once you exit a migration, you can no longer access its configuration data or reports.

Information about a completed migration is displayed in the Admin console until you exit the migration. You can’t start a new migration until you exit a completed migration. To exit a completed migration:

  1. (Optional) To export the migration report, go to Understand the new data migration service reports.
  2. Click Exit migrationand thenExit and delete migration.

When you exit, the system deletes the client ID and removes Data Migration (New) as a client in the domain-wide delegation setting.

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