Migrating gmail account from POP to IMAP in Apple Mail - avoid duplicates?

I have a massive gmail account full of three years or more of messages. On OS X Mail I have a POP account that I have been using since the beginning, and I have always left a copy of messages on the gmail server, so it has three years worth on there.
So my question is, I want to disable the POP account and add an IMAP account for gmail, but how can I do this without the IMAP downloading allllll of my messages over again? Because I literally do not want to have TWO copies of each message from the past three years... oh heck no.
There has to be a solution to this. I don't know if the new version of Mail is smart enough to see that a copy of a message already exists, and not download it again -- somehow I doubt it's that smart. Is there a way on gmail to mark all of the mail that's on the server currently as being "not-for-download"?
I'm being forced into this because for whatever reason, one of my two Macs decided it's not going to download POP messages that the other one has already downloaded, even though the messages are still on the server!!

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?

Similar Messages

Migrating nested mailboxes from POP to IMAP

How can I migrate a user from POP to IMAP, with their nested mailbox structure and email. I have dragged and dropped the nested mailboxes from the POP account to the IMAP account. All the nested mailboxes transfered as planned, but only the email in the most deeply nested folders transfered.
Is there a smooth way to migrate the nested mailbox structure AND all of the email inside of the nested mailboxes?
Thanks in advance,
Mike

I have the same problem. I copied my subfolders from my POP account into my .Mac account and they show up, but they don't update with new mail. I guess I need to migrate my POP account to an IMAP account but I don't want to lose my 100+ rules and 15 mailboxes.

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

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

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

Help! Migrated from POP to IMAP - Lost Sent Mail!

Hello all,
OK, I messed up. It happens to us all, once in a blue moon (even if I knew better to back up BEFORE I tried something new, and it had been 3 months).
I've been using the Mail App with my Gmail accessed through POP Mail since 2005.
Today, I wanted to make a switch from the Mail app checking my Gmail account with POP to checking it with IMAP. It's the same Gmail account that I previously retrieved with POP, but now wanted to access through IMAP (better syncing ability through multiple machines).
I created a new IMAP account in the Mail Preferences.
I had meant to disable the POP account, but instead...I DELETED THE POP GMAIL ACCOUNT! This stupid accidental mistake has me kicking myself!
As a result, all of my sent mails are gone. My Inbox is synced up like it was before, but NOT my Sent Mail.
The last time I backed up was 3 months ago - so I could retrieve 5 years (minus last 3 months) worth of sent emails.
I've checked my Library / Mail Settings, and the Pop Gmail account is no longer there. That file, that has all my sent mail data, is not in the Trash - it's nowhere to be found.
I can find the file that has all my sent mail on a backup drive. (A .mbox file found in Library / Mail.) Since I have not backed up recently, I'm losing 3 months worth of sent emails.
Any help in retrieving it would be appreciated.
thanks,
Mike

Mike,
Gmail, which is not true POP, captures a copy for the Sent on the server if you use their SMTP -- smtp.gmail.com. To see those messages captured that way requires web mail access and will not be seen by any other email client accessing as POP. I know this to be true, for I tested it when I once used POP with Gmail.
In general your comment is true for POP, as I well know.
Ernie

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.

Switched from POP to IMAP, problems in Mail

I use a gmail account, and had it set up with POP
I recently changed it to IMAP settings, however before i did this, i had rules set which would move my messages to specific folders, for example, messages from facebook would go into one folder etc
No on this new set up, firstly, my inbox doesn't display ALL my messages, i have to go to ALL mail and secondly, the rules are not working, there is nothing in my specific mailboxes
anyone know the answer?

that's how IMAP works. it syncs with the server and you local content reflects what is stored on the server. so, of course, Mail downloads all the mails you have on the server when you first connect (100 messages are actually very very few). but after a first "sync" (if you want to call it that), it just downloads the new messages from the server, like POP does.
that gmail entry in mail is totally normal, it reflects the server while the "mailboxes" part reflects your local copy. I personally just have the gmail part closed all the time so it's not really a bother. you can't get rid of it though, but that's just logical.
why your gmail shows 68 new messages is strange though. did you delete the messages from the gmail trash either? try opening the gmail part in mail, right-click on "\[Google Mail]" and select "sync gmail". if that doesn't work, open the "\[Google Mail]" folder as well see which folder has the new messages, go into that folder, press cmd+A to select all messages and then right-click on the selected messages and select mark -> as read.
also, to work properly, you should go into your \[Google Mail] folder, select your drafts folder and then click on "Mailbox -> Use this mailbox for -> drafts". do this for sent, trash and junk either.
as for the RSS feed: when adding the feed, make sure you don't have "show in inbox" selected, otherwise all RSS news will appear in the inbox of mail. that has nothing to do with IMAP though.
Message was edited by: nachdenki
Message was edited by: nachdenki

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.

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.

Mail 3.2, Gmail and iPhone POP and IMAP Problems

This is a Mail problem but I am pretty sure it has something to do with the iphone as well....
Here's the deal:
Up until a week ago I used this setup:
1. My gmail account has had pop and imap enabled for all mail and it kept the email on the server
2. My mail client on my MBP C2duo on Leopard 10.5.2 was setup to retrieve email from gmail using pop
3. My 1.1.1 iPhone was setup to retrieve email from gmail using pop as well
4. Gmail account was being also synchronised between MBP and iphone through the appropriate tab in itunes.
RESULT: mail would pop to both clients as new mail and I would have to mark it as read in each client. I like that cause there are certain messages I read on my MBP and some others on my iphone.
About a week ago I upgraded my iphone to 1.1.3 and that's when the problems started:
a) It appears that the iphone is now setup to gmail's IMAP by default. So I delete the account and create one manually to work as pop
1. So now I have an iphone setup to retrieve with pop.
2. My MAil client on the MBP is still set to pop
3. Gmail settings remain untouched
PROBLEM: Everything is setup as pop but acts as IMAP ?!!?!
Whichever client gets an email message first that message will not appear on the other client.
Basically if my iphone catches an emai while my MBP is asleep i'll never get it in my inbox on the MBP and vice versa
Please help me out... It's the first time an Apple product makes me feel like a good ol windows user again
FAILED SOLUTIONS:
1. I tried deleting the iphone account and creating it from scratch making sure it's setup correctly
2. I tried disabling IMAP from gmail's settings
3. I tried disabling and re-enabling pop from gmail's settings
4. I tried using gmail's recent mode that forces a download of all recent (30 days) mail
5. I have repaired permissions, rebooted etc etc
Nothing changed
I have now deleted the gmail account from the MBP, re-created it and await while it re-downloads al 6000 messages before I try re-creating the account on the iphone but sth tells me it wont change anything.
Sorry for the extreme length of this post. Any help would be appreciated

But I'm not using IMAP. I never used IMAP and I do not want to use IMAP. The reason being that I know all about the problems you speak of.
I just can't get POP working as it did before the 1.1.3 update. It's really frustrating

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?

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.

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.

Migrating gmail account from POP to IMAP in Apple Mail - avoid duplicates?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for