Transfer Email Data to Another Account Step by Step

If you want to transfer email data to another account, the most straightforward way would be to set up both accounts on a single desktop client. Then, drag and drop all of your tens of thousands of messages from the source into the destination account.

It sounds simple until you try it on your own. If you try to move too many emails at once, the memory in use shoots up to 95%, and it’s possible that your machine gets stuck.

Don’t worry, I have assisted many people in successfully changing their email platforms. Just follow my instructions, and you will be able to do the same in no time.

Trying to Transfer Email Data to Another Account via Forwarding? Stop

If email clients aren’t your forte, and you decide that if email forwarding exists, why not just use it and transport data?

This is a completely wrong approach. First of all, many of the email service providers don’t even have a mass forwarding option. Those who do have a bulk forward transform your emails into a file format and add it as an attachment.

This was one of my original strategies for moving Gmail to Zoho. I used it only because the destination platform had a feature to directly arrange the incoming file format into the inbox. Your endpoint might be different, so this strategy fails at its inception.

Moreover, even if you are willing to waste time and forward every message one by one, you will have to live with the fact that the email metadata will be destroyed.

In highly regulated industries, such blatant data manipulation, although unintentional, may be seen as a deliberate attempt to hide something.

You could use the auto-forwarding function to take care of the messages that are yet to arrive, but sometimes even that feature is locked behind a paywall on some platforms.

I talked about using an email client in the beginning. Let me explain in more detail what the exact procedure is and also tell its limitations.

Problems with Using an Email Client for Moving Email Data Between Accounts

The steps are as follows:

Step 1. Install an email client, for example, Thunderbird. Your computer might even have a client pre-installed, like Apple Mail on Mac or Outlook on Windows. It’s perfectly fine to use either of them.

Step 2. Add both the source and the target email accounts on the same client one by one. Check out my Thunderbird IMAP settings guide for more details.

Step 3. Now open another instance of the same client. And arrange them in a split-screen setup. I did this because dragging and dropping multiple messages while scrolling was too clumsy.

Step 4. Drag and drop emails from the source to the destination. Repeat till you move all of the emails in this manner.

Now I don’t use this method anymore because I almost always have to move multiple emails together. Which becomes quite time-consuming. Moreover, there is no way to track what has moved and what is left. As the process uses my machine’s RAM, I have to close all background processes just to make the drag and drop smoother. Even then, I encountered data corruption and missing emails regularly.

You don’t have to repeat my mistakes because I have an excellent solution for you. Before I tell you what it is, do a one last check of your target email platform to see if it offers any built-in mechanism. I explored one such option in great depth in my article on how to migrate emails from one Gmail account to another.

There, you will also find why this method is not so great when moving multiple accounts at once. My next solution solves those problems effortlessly.

The Only Professional Alternative to Transfer Email Data to Another Account

SysTools IMAP to IMAP Migration Tool is the best solution to transfer email data to another account. You can speed up the entire transfer process even if you have multiple source and destination accounts, thanks to its smart CSV mapping facility.

 

The entire UI is graphical with no scripts or commands that you need to remember. Install and start just like that. Here is how you can use the tool, explained in brief:

Step 1. Download an official copy for Windows or Mac. Launch it, check that the endpoints are already set to IMAP, and the email workload is also pre-selected. Just apply the date filter, and you are good to go.

Step 2. Then, on the source screen, toggle the dropdown and select the desired platform. If you can’t find it by name, then don’t worry, choose the other option. Enter the details like server URL and port number. Press Validate and hit Next.

Step 3. Likewise, on the destination screen, repeat the same exact process, selecting the platform, filling in the details if you have to, validating, and hitting Next.

Step 4. Map the users with the help of the built-in CSV sheet that is there for you in the blog.

Step 5. View the user list, make final adjustments like selection, priority marking, etc. When ready Validate and hit Start.

Conclusion

Now you know quite a few ways to transfer Email data to another account. I explained all possible methods here, like message forwarding, via email clients, built in mechanisms. However, the best method is, without a doubt, the professional utility because of how easy it makes the inter-account email transfer, even if you are moving multiple accounts at once.

FAQs on How to Transfer Email Data to Another Account

Q. I tried to forward all my emails to a different account, but I can’t anymore. Why?

If you don’t know this yet, then let me tell you that email sending has a built-in in rate limit. This is universally applicable regardless of the platform you are using. This is around 500 messages per day and 100 messages per hour. If you hit the limit, then you have to wait till the cooldown resets.

Q. How long does it take to completely transfer all of my email data to a new account?

Depending on the method you choose, it can be over in a few minutes (via the professional utility) or take multiple weeks if you decide to forward messages one by one.

Q. Do I have to transfer the email attachments separately?

If you use the tool that I explained, then all the attachments move alongside the emails automatically. The same can’t be said for the manual methods.