Most Intuitive Method for Transferring Email to new cPanel Host

[jethrodesign]

Hi, we are creating websites for local schools using our VPS account. Each school has their own cPanel account and we have currently enabled @Mail and RoundCube for their webmail client choices. But a few of the schools have currently hosted email on various shared hosting plans. The two we are dealing with now are at Network Solutions, using a basic shared hosting package (not cPanel).

A number of the staff are using webmail only for checking email and are concerned about the transfer process and losing their accumulated (and organized) email in the process.

So looking for advice deciding the best methods we can give our clients for transferring their email if using non-cPanel webmail. They probably won't be able to afford having us do it all, so we will need a system that we might be able to setup and then allow them to do the repetitive work with each email account.

I've done a bit of searching and these look like a couple options available:

OPTION A) Use IMAP on both systems and manually drag folders of email from the old server to the new one using something like Outlook or Thunderbird.

A1) This seems like the simplest method, although it may be pretty tedious. What drawbacks are there (i.e., do they lose the timestamps/read status/etc.)??


OPTION B) If IMAP is not an option (doesn't look like it is for Network Solutions' basic package), it looks like Horde mail has a 'Fetch Mail' option that can pull in POP mail from another source?!?

B1) Does this work well and pull in all existing stored email from the old server?? Does it leave a copy on that server?

B2) Does it keep folders organized, or can you do one folder at a time to keep organized?

B3) If we can get email into folders in Horde mail using this option, would this email then be available if the user wanted to switch to @Mail or RoundCube??


OPTION C) Install and use Imapsync to automatically import all email from the other server.

C1) This 'appears' like a good method, but we are not familiar with installing custom applications in WHM/cPanel (we use Host Gator). Is there any methods to getting Imapsync to work from within WHM/cPanel, or do you have to get in with command line interfaces to do everything? This might be challenging for us and really difficult for our clients.


OPTION D) Any other options I'm not mentioning here???

 

[ruzbehraja]

OPTION B) If IMAP is not an option (doesn't look like it is for Network Solutions' basic package), it looks like Horde mail has a 'Fetch Mail' option that can pull in POP mail from another source?!?

B1) Does this work well and pull in all existing stored email from the old server?? Does it leave a copy on that server?

Yes it works pretty well. But do keep in mind that there are some email size limits which may need to be modified.

Also keep an eye on the server load.

Do not terminate the transfer till it gives you a confirmation of completion. It can take a while.
It can transfer 1500 mails together with ease.

B2) Does it keep folders organized, or can you do one folder at a time to keep organized?

B3) If we can get email into folders in Horde mail using this option, would this email then be available if the user wanted to switch to @Mail or RoundCube??

You can map folders and do it folder-wise, but do note that many a time it depends on the other servers IMAP version and features.
All the emails in Horde can be seen in Roundcube. I don't know about @Mail since I havent used it.

OPTION D) Any other options I'm not mentioning here???

There is already an open thread to Request for a CPanel Supported option to do this.

http://forums.cpanel.net/f145/migrate-imap-mailbox-cpanel-250602.html#post1040001

Do add a +1 to it, if you think it should be implemented.

 

[SoftDux]

We've been using Horde todo this for quite some time now with great success. Horde can import POP3 or IMAP, and it's much quicker than having to first download the mail to your PC, and then back to the server - as it's done when you drag & drop it using Outlook or something.

 

[jethrodesign]

Thanks for the replies! We'll re-enable Horde for now so we can explore this method.

- Concerning the email size limits concern, is this relating to a 'per email' size??

I would guess so, but wanted to double-check. Would it just ignore emails over a default limit (say 10MB/email)?

- Does it keep original timestamps on the emails??

- Can you 'retrieve' Sent emails?? I would imagine not, but that may be pretty important to some people.

THANKS!

 

[jethrodesign]

Hmm, tried doing a test in Horde and running into some issues.

I setup folders in Horde to match external email folder structure. I was then testing bringing in a email from one subfolder on the other account (to the corresponding folder in Horde), and receive a message about the POP "Can not authenticate to POP3 server: Authentication failed." I had used the cPanel/Horde server address as seemed to be indicated in the instructions I found (i.e., mail.mynewaccount.com).

The bigger issue now, though, is that I cannot get into the Fetch Mail setup to make any changes. I cannot create a new Fetch Mail account either. The only thing I am now allowed to do when clicking Fetch Mail icon in menu is to select the check-box for the account I created and have it 'Fetch Mail'. No other options anymore.

- I noticed another thread about people not being able to get it to retrieve email after some updates last year. Is anyone using it lately for this feature and have it still work??

- Am I completely missing how to add/edit/delete a Fetch Mail account once I create one? I seem to be stuck now. The Fetchmail options only allow you to choose to have it open in another window or put the icon in the menu.

Thanks! Hoping this will actually work...

 

[ruzbehraja]

Thanks for the replies! We'll re-enable Horde for now so we can explore this method.

- Concerning the email size limits concern, is this relating to a 'per email' size??

I would guess so, but wanted to double-check. Would it just ignore emails over a default limit (say 10MB/email)?

Yes, this is a per email limit.

To change it you need to modify:
/usr/local/cpanel/base/horde/imp/config/conf.php

$conf['fetchmail']['size_limit'] = 4000000;

- Can you 'retrieve' Sent emails?? I would imagine not, but that may be pretty important to some people.

If you put the sent emails into a user created folder and then map the folders while fetching, it should do the trick.
However, it maybe very buggy with older IMAP servers.

 

[ruzbehraja]

I setup folders in Horde to match external email folder structure. I was then testing bringing in a email from one subfolder on the other account (to the corresponding folder in Horde), and receive a message about the POP "Can not authenticate to POP3 server: Authentication failed." I had used the cPanel/Horde server address as seemed to be indicated in the instructions I found (i.e., mail.mynewaccount.com).

The bigger issue now, though, is that I cannot get into the Fetch Mail setup to make any changes. I cannot create a new Fetch Mail account either. The only thing I am now allowed to do when clicking Fetch Mail icon in menu is to select the check-box for the account I created and have it 'Fetch Mail'. No other options anymore.

Go to Mail Options >> Fetch Mail

 

[jethrodesign]

OK. I was able to get back into the Fetch Mail options to change things finally (not sure why the option wasn't there yesterday). So I figured out that the server is supposed to be the REMOTE server, not the local one (as instructions I found seemed to indicate).

So it did actually bring in my remote email EXCEPT that it imported all the mail in the remote Inbox into the folder I had specified. But I had specified a similarly named folder on the remote system, NOT the Inbox.

- Is retrieving email from folders and keeping it organized ONLY an option if you use IMAP, and not POP??

- If so, is it reasonable to think that the client would be able to 'temporarily' upgrade their account to gain IMAP access only for this procedure without having to change any settings or setup in their remote email accounts??

THANKS! We so badly want something to work here!

 

[jethrodesign]

Go to Mail Options >> Fetch Mail

Thanks. I can get to the link to edit the Fetch Mail account now. Not sure what was happening yesterday. And I realized that the server is the remote server address and not the local one (as some of the instructions I found seemed to indicate).

But when I ran a test, the email that SHOULD have come in from a folder I specified on the remote host did not come in. Instead, the entire contents of the Inbox came in to the local folder I had specified.

- Does retrieving email from specific remote folders ONLY work with IMAP and not POP??

- Is it reasonable to think that the client could temporarily upgrade their account on the old host to enable IMAP (if that's the only real option) without messing up anything with their current accounts/setup/folders/etc.?


THANKS! Really hoping to find a reasonably easy way to make this happen.

 

[ruzbehraja]

Thats right. When the Fetch Mail looks at the POP server, it sees only the Inbox folder and nothing else.

So the donkey-work option would be to create a TempInbox folder, move the mails from Inbox >> TempInbox.
Shift folder by folder into Inbox and then Fetch Mail and shift back the Inbox contents to the original folder.

Does the old host not provide IMAP / POP together? If not then the donkey-work option is the only one I see.