Moving emails to new host with imapsync

More info about imapsync here

Install imapsync

CentOS 7, Works on cPanel servers too

yum install epel-release && yum install imapsync

Once installed check and make sure it works.

imapsync --version

If it gives you the version number you should be good to go.

Move email account

imapsync --host1 mail.emaildomain.com --user1 username@emaildomain.com --password1  "password1" --host2 mail.exampledomain.com --user2 username@movetodomain.com --password2  "password2"

Example :

imapsync --host1 mail.myemail.com --user1 bob@myemail.com --password1  "password1" --host2 mail.incredigeek.com --user2 bob@incredigeek.com --password2  "password2"

Moving Multiple accounts

Best way to move multiple accounts is to use a script and and a list that contains all the usernames and passwords to the accounts you want to move.

example scripts can be found on the imapsync website here is a script example and here is the example file.txt

Example script.

#!/bin/sh
#
# $Id: sync_loop_unix.sh,v 1.6 2015/11/04 18:23:04 gilles Exp gilles $

# Example for imapsync massive migration on Unix systems.
# See also http://imapsync.lamiral.info/FAQ.d/FAQ.Massive.txt
#
# Data is supposed to be in file.txt in the following format:
# host001_1;user001_1;password001_1;host001_2;user001_2;password001_2;
# ...
# Separator is character semi-colon ";" it can be changed by any character changing IFS=';' 
# in the while loop below.
# # Each line contains 6 columns, columns are parameter values for 
# --host1 --user1 --password1 --host2 --user2 --password2
# and a trailing empty fake column to avaid CR LF part going 
# in the 6th parameter password2. Don't forget the last semicolon.
#
# You can add extra options after the variable "$@" 
# Use character backslash \ at the end of each suplementary line, except for the last one.
# You can also pass extra options via the parameters of this script since
# they will be in "$@"

# The credentials filename "file.txt" used for the loop can be renamed 
# by changing "file.txt" below.


echo Looping on account credentials found in file.txt
echo

{ while IFS=';' read  h1 u1 p1 h2 u2 p2 fake
    do 
        { echo "$h1" | egrep "^#" ; } > /dev/null && continue # this skip commented lines in file.txt
        echo "==== Starting imapsync from host1 $h1 user1 $u1 to host2 $h2 user2 $u2 ===="
        imapsync --host1 "$h1" --user1 "$u1" --password1 "$p1" \
                 --host2 "$h2" --user2 "$u2" --password2 "$p2" \
                 "$@"  
        echo "==== Ended imapsync from host1 $h1 user1 $u1 to host2 $h2 user2 $u2 ===="
        echo
    done 
} < file.txt

Example list of accounts to

mail.maildomain.com;user1@incredigeek.com;password1;mail.incredigeek.com;user2@incredigeek.com;password2;

 

How to use,

You can run these command from a Linux computer

Download script

wget www.incredigeek.com/home/downloads/imapsync/imapsync_loop.sh

Make the script executable

chmod +x imapsync_loop.sh

Create a text file named “imapsync_list.txt”

This file will contain the mail server to transfer from, username, and password, and then the mail server to transfer to, username and password.  Add one line per account.

Example:

mail.servertotransferfrom.com;Username1;Password1;mail.servertomoveto.com;Username2;Password2;
mail.servertotransferfrom.com;testuser;123456;mail.servertomoveto.com;bob;123456;

Execute the script to start moving mail

./imapsync_loop.sh

Troubleshooting

In the username you may need to use the username@domainname.tld, so if the username is bob, and the mail domain is incredigeek.com, use bob@incredigeek.com for the username in the imapsync_list.txt.

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