Mail: change Gmail from POP to IMAP without loosing old mail

My Gmail account setup in Mail is old enough to be POP. Want to change it to IMAP for easier syncing between Mail on Mac, iPhone and iPad. All instructions on Google site just say to delete the POP account in Mail and create a new Gmail IMAP account. Unfortunately, trying to delete the POP account immediately warns that all emails related to that account will be deleted if the account is deleted.
How do I make the change from POP to IMAP in Mail and still retain all my past emails on the Mac (most of them are long gone from Google servers)?
Thanks in advance.

The warning about the deletion of the mails of the account in question can only refer to the inbox. No email you have archived or put into a different folder will be deleted. If you're still worried back everything up before going ahead.

Similar Messages

Changed email from pop to imap in entourage 2008 and apple mail and have lost a lot of messages

Changed email from pop to imap in entourage 2008 and apple mail and have lost a lot of messages. I am a rookie and don't know what to do to correct the situation

I found this great set of mail AppleScripts:
http://homepage.mac.com/aamann/Mail_Scripts.html
It includes one script to delete duplicate messages. So if we can't find a way to do this right, then I'll just download all the duplicates then delete them. Of course I don't want to actually do that, lets call this the nuclear option.
So can anyone think of a way to make an IMAP account for my gmail without it downloading all the messages again that I have already downloaded?

Switching mail set-up from POP to IMAP

I have set-up mail with a MobileMe account and another e-mail account in POP mode. I am about to buy a iPhone and need to change the set-up to IMAP. Are there any do's and don'ts in making this change or any advice that anyone might have? I am particularly concerned that when I delete the pop account set-up's that I might lose my e-mail history!
Many Thanks
Edward

how did you manage to set up mobileme as POP? you have to go out of your way to do that. it's created as IMAP by default.
the main thing to remember is that when you delete an account all mailboxes associated with that account are immediately deleted. so before you delete your POP accounts make local mailboxes in 'on my mac" section" and copy anything you want to keep from inbox and sent mailboxes to the local mailboxes. then delete the accounts from mail preferences->accounts and recreate them as IMAP. for mobileme you don't really need to recreate it by hand. just delete the POP one and restart mail. provided you are logged into mobileme it should recreate that account as IMAP.
as for the other account you'll have to recreate it as IMAP yourself. of course, your email provider has to provide IMAP access to it. does it? if not you won't be able to do it.

I need to change settings from pop to imap

I need to sync my email act. to be compatible with my iphone and ipad they are imap and my current thunderbird settings is pop. can this be changed and how do I do it

''moving to the Thunderbird questions queue''

Change Account from POP to IMAP

Is this possible? I tried to in Mail -> Accounts but does not appear to be possible.

you can not change the type of an existing account. you'll have to make a new account. also, your email provider has to provide support for IMAP. if it doesn't, you can't do it at all.

Is there a way to change a Mail account from POP to IMAP?

Greetings,
Is there a way to change a Mail account from POP to IMAP so as not to have to create a new account?
Thanks

GMail offers both without you have to pick one or the other? If so, and changing the server doesn't work then you will need to re-establish the account in Mail. Don't delete the old account (or you will lose any downloaded messages) - there's no reason why you shouldn't have both available. You can move the messages from the POP account to another folder and then delete it.

Change the mail account from POP to IMAP

Hi All,
I have been looking around on how to switch a 10 years old email account from POP to IMAP for quite a while without success.
I've noticed that if I delete a POP account all emails are deleted, and despite all the backups I'm concerned even creating a new IMAP account and move back into all the emails.
What do you suggest?
If I move all the emails into a local folder, are these email "disconnected" from the POP account so would I be able to delete the POP account without incur in a mass mail deletion?
Thanks
Andrea

Having Mail automatically change account type from, say, POP3 to IMAP is not going to happen, in my opinion. With it would come great risk of losing existing data between the cracks, and I don't think Apple of other developers will do that. There would be no one size fits all in the IMAP server world, and communication to change On My Mac mailboxes to folders residing on the server needs forethought.
Looking at it another way, it would be like moving your bank account from one bank to the other, via only web access.
The headaches are not the product of Mail or other email clients, but rather understanding the difference between POP and IMAP, and that many people do not understand those differences is demonstrated every day on this forum.
Ernie

How do I Change my cox incoming mail server from pop to imap

I Have a macbook pro with OS X Yosemite. I want to change the incoming cox mail server from pop to imap. I did it on my ipad and iphone but I can't do it on the mac pro. Do I need to delete the existing account and do it as a new account or can I edit the server?

It depends on what Cox has set up. Usually, you need to create a new account using IMAP. You don't want to delete the POP accounts because all your old mail is stored on your computer. You'll want to import that using Mail's Import option.

New mail server, software, changing from POP to IMAP. Advice / Thoughts?

David Wiese wrote:
just out of curiosity why are you doing imap for 80 users? Was this for cost reasons?
another way is to use hosted exchange, $4/ month per mailbox
That was my thought too...
Is there no Office licencing? Even if you want to avoid Exchange, MDaemon with the Outlook Connector and ActiveSync is a far more pleasant experience than IMAP and Thunderbird.
Is all email currently stored in the POP mailbox, or is it pulled to PST files?
I would investigate using something like MigrationWiz to copy the data between the two servers, so all you have to worry about it updating the server details in the clients. Being clever with DNS, depending on the current setup, might avoid having to do even that.

Hi all.This won’t be short…..It seems I can’t find a good guide to migrating to a new non-exchange server solution and go from POP to IMAP in the process. I currently have approximately 80 email users in one location on a UTM device now functioning as email server only that must be retired. The mail service is the basic of all basic. After a lengthy trial, I have purchased Alt-N's mDaemon mail server. My end goal is to have everyone using IMAP (and eventually all the bells and whistles). The current production email server is mail.example.COM with WAN ip of xx.xxx.xxx.66My staged mDaemon server is mail.example.XYZ with WAN ip of xx.xxx.xxx.86 It is now on the same Lan with mail routing correctly to .XYZ. It is AD integrated and everything works for XYZ independently of .COM just nicely. I have tested everything through and all is good...
This topic first appeared in the Spiceworks Community

Converting Mac Mail Accounts from POP to IMAP?

I'm just discovering IMAP for keeping my email synced. Is it possible to convert my 5 Mac Mail accounts from POP to IMAP or do I really have to start 5 new accounts & then deal with importing all that email to the new ones somehow? I've tried experimenting with changing the incoming mail server manually form pop.gmail.com to imap.gmail.com to no avail. Any suggestions/instructs are appreciated. Also, seems that, at least for gmail, the recommended Apple Mail client pref settings aren't current with Mail 3.5. Any guide to where mailbox behaviors should be set to work correctly for gmail & other mail servers (I'm using gmail, comcast, godddy and a private mail server) would be great!

first you have to make sure that the email providers for those accounts offer IMAP. if they don't you can't do anything. gmail does as you mentioned but most email providers only offer one type of access. if an email provider supports IMAP then you have to create a new account for IMAP for the email address. there is no way to change the type of an existing account. once you do set it up it will sync with the server so if your mail was kept on server (that's the default for gmail POP I think) you don't have to do anything. It will sync automatically. If you remove POP mail from server (default for most POP providers) then you'll have to move your messages from the existing local POP mailbox to the imap mailbox. It will sync with the server and upload all those emails back to the server. That might take a long time and a lot of bandwidth if you have a lot of stuff so it's up to you if you want to do this. You can simply move that mail to a local mailbox in "on my mac" section. after your imap account is set and has all the mail you need, you can delete the POP account.
Lastly see this link for gmail imap setup (also check out the link to recommended client settings)
http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=81379&topic=12814

Converting my Mail from POP to IMAP

I am considering converting my ISP email account in Apple Mail from POP to IMAP. I had never given this much (any) thought until I recently got an iPhone and noticed that the email account that it setup for my ISP email (Charter) was an IMAP one. This has created a little bit of a conflict and has sometimes resulted in my inbox or get mail on my desktop Apple Mail being "locked up" for a while when I have just previously read the mail on my iPhone. (I get the message on my iMac that my ISP email is currently in use by another mail client). I had never run into this problem before and I've read that it does happen and happens more often when you have both POP and IMAP clients trying to access the same mail server.
One question is do I just go into the accounts settings on Mail on my iMac and change the incoming and outgoing servers to the appropriated IMAP ones? Or should I create a whole new account in Mail and use the IMAP settings from the start? What will happen to the folders and subfolders I already have in my Mail program? Going forward with IMAP, will I be able to download the emails from the server like I have always done and categorize them into folders using Mail?
This is all kind of confusing right now. Thanks.
Steve M.

You're welcome.
Is there any harm in leaving my desktop Mail as is (POP account) and just realizing that I may experience an occasional "lock out"?
There is no harm with doing so, but I'm not sure why you would want to.
How do I release the email account from my iPhone?
There is no option for this.
I already have my data settings on the iPhone to "fetch" every hour--not to push. But does this apply to the IMAP account on the iPhone?
Push access for received messages applies to an email account that supports Push access. The following email accounts support Push access for received messages:
MobileMe
Exchange
A Yahoo account created with the Yahoo account preset.
"If" I decided to convert my desktop Mail account to IMAP, could I not just "add" the new account? Would I necessarily have to delete the POP account?
You don't have to delete the POP account, but you would want to make it inactive or disable the account with the Mail app - Mail > Settings > Accounts > Select the Account > Under the Advanced tab for the account settings deselect Enable this account.
If you want access to the locally stored messages in the POP account's Inbox and Sent mailbox with the iPhone's Mail app, you want want to copy the messages to a server stored mailbox or mailboxes after creating the account as an IMAP account.
Can I setup the account as POP on my iPhone and just keep it all POP? Or is this dependent on Charter's policies?
This depends on Charter, but I don't see why you wouldn't be able to access the account as a POP account with the iPhone's Mail app as well, but this will not get rid of the "locked out" problem on occasion.
A POP account is from the early dark ages of email account access with an email client on a computer when the overwhelming majority at the time had access to a single computer only - before there were laptops and laptops became mainstream, and before there were handheld cell phones much less cell phones in the smart phone category. Until the iPhone, phones in the smart phone category were primarily targeted and sold to the business/enterprise market, not to the consumer market. The iPhone changed all that - just look at all the copies and different phones in the smart phone category that surfaced after the original
Although it is possible to access a POP account with more than one email client, a POP account is designed to be accessed with a single email client only and includes a number of limitations that are not a problem with an IMAP account, which is specifically designed to be accessed with more than one email client.
There is no "locked out" problem with an IMAP account. You can store the account's Drafts, Sent, Trash, and Junk mailboxes on the server with the Mail app on your Mac, and the account's Drafts, Sent, and Trash mailboxes on the server with the iPhone's Mail app. The account's Junk mailbox stored on the server with the Mail app on your Mac will be available automatically when accessing the account with the iPhone's Mail app along with all other server stored mailboxes created for the account with the Mail app on your Mac or via webmail access for the account using a browser. You can transfer received and sent messages to additional server stored mailboxes by category with the Mail app on your Mac and with the iPhone's Mail app which will be reflected automatically with each email client. All server stored mailboxes are kept synchronized with the server automatically with each email client used to access the account. Sent a message with the iPhone's Mail app and the message will be available in the account's Sent mailbox with the Mail app on your Mac automatically and vice-versa. Read a new message with the Mail app on your Mac and the message will be marked as read automatically when accessing the account's Inbox mailbox with the Mail app on your Mac and vice-versa. Transfer a received message to a user created server stored mailbox with iPhone's Mail app and the message will be available in that server stored mailbox automatically when accessing the server stored mailbox with the Mail app on your Mac and vice-versa.
I keep the Mail app on my Mac launched and running 24/7 checking my IMAP account for new messages. I have the account's Junk mailbox stored on the server with the Mail app on my Mac, which is available automatically when accessing the account with the iPhone's Mail app and the same with my iPad 2. Any received message that is marked as junk and moved to the account's Junk mailbox stored on the server with the Mail app on my Mac is reflected automatically with the account's Inbox mailbox and Junk mailbox with the iPhone's Mail app and with the iPad's Mail app. The junk mail filter with the Mail app on my Mac is serving as the junk mail filter for the account with my iPhone and iPad as well - remotely since all server stored mailboxes with an IMAP account are kept synchronized with the server with each email client used to access the account.
NONE of this is available with a POP account.
If you have the option to access your email account as an IMAP account and you access the account with an email client on more than one computer or device, to me it is a no-brainer which way to go - IMAP, which is specially designed for this.

HT201320 How do I change an iphone email account from POP to IMAP

I just open an email acoutn with Blue host with an IMAP setting. Now I am trying to put the new email and servers on my Iphone3. All was going well till the POP acccount problem came up at the end. How do I change an iphone email account from POP to IMAP? or do I?
Please go step by step if possible. Thank you,
Irene
PS If I cannot use Imap setting on my Iphone, how do I return the settings to the original for POP?

Hello Willon63,
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
For more information, take a look at:
iOS: Troubleshooting Mail
http://support.apple.com/kb/ts3899
Delete the affected email account from your device.
Tap Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars.
Choose the affected email account, then tap Delete Account.
Add your account again.
Have a nice day,
Mario

Since moving from POP to Imap, my send mail are shown twice

HI,
I have an hotmail account which I changed from Pop to Imap. Receiving, deleting and archiving mail work fine. But the send box in TB shows my mails twice. However mails which I send from outlook on line are shown only once.
Is it so that by having twice my send mails is taking twice the size? How can I make it back to normal?
Note that the addressees receive my mails normally , e.g. once . I have checked the account settings but did not find anything strange.
In going server : imap-mail.outlook.com
Out going server : smtp-mail.outlook.com
Thanks in advance for your support.

Hotmail/live/outlook.com accounts automatically copy a sent message to the Sent folder, so to avoid duplicates, uncheck "Place a copy in" under Tools/Account Settings/<i>hotmailaccount</i>/Copies & Folders.

Moving user from POP to IMAP

Hello
I'm switching all of my mail users from POP to IMAP. In most cases, I set up their IMAP setting in there mail client. Then I drag there POP messages (stored on their local machines) to the IMAP account. That has worked for most users. I have three users with a lot of local mail messages - about 10 gb. When I try to drag the mail folder over in Apple Mail, it starts to copy them. After a while, it just stops. The messages never get over to the IMAP server. (Their names are on the door, so I can't tell them to trim down their messages.)
My next thought was to convert the messages from Mail.app, copy them into the mailstore on the IMAP server, then reconstruct the mailbox. I have an app, Emailchemy, that converts Mail.app to following formats:
RFC-2822 mailboxes ("mbox" format or "UNIX-style")
Folders of individual RFC-2822 email files (.txt or .eml files)
Comma-separated value files (.csv files)
Maildir (qmail)
Maildir++ (Courier IMAP)
In a test account, I'v tried converting a single message to RFC-2822 format. After I reconstruct the mailbox, I see the header info, but the body of the message is blank.
Is there something that I am missing? Is there a better way to move those messages.
Thanks,
Henry
MacBook Pro 2.0 GHz 1 GB RAM Mac OS X (10.4.6)

I've switched many users from Eudora - pop and Mail - pop to imap.
it's very easy. - just change the client setting.
we chose Thunderbird because it worked the same on both PC and MAC, and came with just enough options to make everyone happy.
if all the users are set to either pop/imap combo then only the clients have to make any significant changes.
having the pop option is great if you want your users to flush their mailbox and keep a local copy while you do updates.
I frown upon alternate imap boxes other than defaults. if the user needs more mailboxes they can create them on their local machine. That way we don't have to deal with long reconstructs for an individual user. -lots of small files in those maildirs.

Problems with email after switching from POP to IMAP

I recently switched from POP to IMAP settings on my MacBook Pro (OS X Yosemite 10.10.2). My email seems to time out and then my emails seem to disappear. Then I have to logout and re-launch every few minutes to keep seeing my emails. Everything seems to be working fine for my iPhone and it's IMAP settings. Any ideas anyone?

William Kucharski wrote:
V.K. wrote:
when an IMAP account is set to use IDLE (a desktop equivalent of push) the emails are pushed by the IMAP server to Mail as soon as they are received. when this happens no new mail sound is played.
That is incorrect.
well, it always worked this way for me on all my imap accounts (I have 4).
and I've seen lots and lots of posts describing the same behavior. I don't know what's going on in your case.
I have two email accounts, both use IMAP IDLE, and I get the new mail sound each and every time a new mail message is delivered to either.
So there's some other factor at work here.

Mail: change Gmail from POP to IMAP without loosing old mail

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for