POP3 TO IMAP

[jethazm]

Hi Guys

I've finally managed to sell the benefits of IMAP to my Dad and have now convinced him that it will save him time and energy to migrate his Yahoo account to an IMAP one and he sees the light and agrees.

I've tried to think of the most easiest way in which this can be done, and it seems that, perhaps, I am best off doing the following:- 1. Backing up his entire POP PST. 2. Then emptying his entire Yahoo! mailbox, INBOX, SENT ITEMS ETC and wiping it clean to the state of an almost brand new mailbox (on the web interface). 3. Then finding a way of either importing the PST into Webmail and removing the POP3 account from Outlook, and finally re-adding the account as an IMAP one in Outlook and allowing it to populate the inbox, sent folders etc. Please note that the inbox has several sub-folders, and these need to remain. 4. Finally adding the IMAP account, which now mirrors outlook. NOTE:- Outlook is the master copy not outlook and I am banking that whatever deleted in Outlook can be restored when the first sync happens (Outlook will push to Yahoo!).

I have also read of people adding the IMAP account first and removing the POP3 - I'm not sure this makes much of a difference. I've read several articles, and rather worryingly, none of these make mention of giving the Webmail a thorough flush-through.

People who have done this, please advise!

Thanks

 

[EQ Admin]

I have also read of people adding the IMAP account first and removing the POP3 - I'm not sure this makes much of a difference. I've read several articles, and rather worryingly, none of these make mention of giving the Webmail a thorough flush-through.
People who have done this, please advise!

That is my preferred approach.

Create a second profile in Outlook that connects to Yahoo with IMAP.

Use Outlook to drag the emails from the POP3 profile to the IMAP profile's folders (they can be IMAP server folders or local folders in Outlook)

Then once everything can be seen in the IMAP profile, turn off pop3 access in the Yahoo mail options and eventually remove the POP3 profile from Outlook.

They'll probably ask you to do that once the pop3 starts generating an error because it can't connect anymore.

 

[jethazm]

Hey Popowich,

Thanks - this is so helpful!

Ideally, all the new folders created would be IMAP folders, otherwise there would be no benefit in IMAP. Dad has an iPad and smartphone, thus it would be nice to have everything in sync.

Firstly, do I need to empty everything in Webmail?

Secondly, can folders be created as subfolders of the Inbox in Outlook or simply as subfolders of the account itself?

I don't think POP will generate an error as it currently coexists side by side. Ideally I would prefer a method of phased implementation and have the two running side by side until the last possible stage, for comfort purposes.

Cheers for your help so far.

Also, kindly advise how to make sure SENT, DELETED ITEMS, DRAFTS etc use their server-side counterparts. My ideal would be that though the folders are stored server-side they are still viewable in the unlikely event that the PC is offline, and will sync changes when up again.

Sorry for so many questions.

 

[EQ Admin]

You do not need to empty the webmail, you'll see it in IMAP once that's configured.

Yes, Yahoo allows you to create subfolders in IMAP folders (I'm testing with Thunderbird not Outlook, but that shouldn't matter)

The only problem with a long term phased approach is that the IMAP profile won't see any email downloaded by the pop3 profile. Your dad will need to keep copying email from the pop3 to the imap profile until the pop3 profile stops downloading email from Yahoo (or it's configured to leave a copy of mail on the server.

Outlook has options that let you select which folder is used for the sent mail etc functions. If you need help finding those please let me know your version of Outlook and I'll make some screen shots.

 

[jethazm]

Cheers. But if I don't empty the webmail, then there will be duplication, because Outlook will attempt to download mail. Outlook doesn't delete once read on the server.

Ideally, I want outlook to upload the entire POP3 account (imported into the new IMAP account) starting with a fresh Webmail thus there is no chance of duplication.

Thanks once again.

You've sold me on leaving out the Phased approach - that's for sure.

If I simply created the IMAP account and then began migrating everything across from the POP3, the inbox would likely have a lot of duplicates.

 

[rfs9999]

Hi,

After migrating things as Ray suggested you can clean up duplicates using a tool named delIMAPdups.pl.

See http://www.emailquestions.com/imap-tools/8071-delete-duplicate-messages-imap-account.html for details.

-Rick

 

[Nirav D]

I have not read in detail above mentioned suggestions.. but here are my two cents:

-Delete POP mails from client.
-Keep webmails as it is.
-Make new IMAP account and let mails download in new account.

Another way would be instead of deleting POP mails, cut-paste them in IMAP account. Like this u dont need to download them fresh i guess.