Dodo WebMail is Closing: Here is What to Do

Every Dodo service subscriber who has an email ending with @dodo.com.au got three separate alerts regarding an upcoming closure. It’s not a scam. Dodo WebMail shutdown announcement is real and is happening on 8th May 2026.

90 days later (August 2026), all data that is in your account will be permanently deleted from Dodo’s servers.

This announcement has not been well received by users, as many in Australia have had their Dodo email accounts for more than a decade. And suddenly they are expected to shift elsewhere. However, this is not unprecedented; in fact, it might just be the norm, as not just Dodo, but many other Australian ISPs have delegated control of their email service to The Messaging Company (TMC).

The problem is not in shifting but the massive price hike. The email that you were using for free a month ago will now be billed at $69.99/year (or $6.99/month), with premium plans costing even more.

You don’t have to fall into this perpetual payment trap. There are plenty of other email services out there that frankly offer at par if not better service than TMC at a fraction of the cost (or even for free).

In this guide, I will teach you how to perform a clean break from your Dodo email account with pre-and post-transfer guidance. Let us see what led to Dodo’s email service closure.

Why is Dodo WebMail and Email Hosting Service Closing Forever?

Dodo does provide an official transcript on their support page. It reads out:

“We’re making some updates to how we deliver our services, and as part of that, Dodo will no longer support your email service.”

The rumors about the Dodo email service closure have been circulating on niche forums for some time now. Regular security breaches and the recent hardware cost explosion made the decision final.

Email might be free for you as a user, but it isn’t free for Dodo. Email servers have all sorts of costs, from hardware to maintenance, security, and delivery. All of which was being subsidized by your ISP bill. Even the premium plan was reabsorbed into the default billing.

So, like many of your fellow Dodo email users, take this opportunity to permanently sever your webmail and make it independent.

Dodo isn’t the first ISP forcing a shift on its customers. We saw the same roadmap when users had to frantically scramble to transfer iiNet email to Gmail.

Dodo Webmail wasn’t a top-of-the-line service, far from it. You could not log in to your account from outside Australia (a service limitation designed to be a security feature), small mailbox size meant you always had to watch out for what email to keep and what to delete.

Plus, the fact that email doesn’t make Dodo any money, instead of charging for it, was easier to just end it.

Seeing that the EOL date is so close, you might want to jump and migrate asap, but that’s where users make mistakes. That’s why I have included my very own pretransfer to take the right step at the right time in the right sequence.

Do This Before Migrating Out of Dodo WebMail

Account security should be your number one priority. You might have missed email alerts in the past and just heard about the Dodo WebMail shutdown recently. It’s easy to panic and skip these critical steps, so follow this:

1. Update Your MyDodo Portal: Its highlikely that all of your official Dodo communication happened via this email address. When the email closes, so does your contact information, so go and change your contact email to the new email address. This will help you settle all final bills or direct debit notices.
2. Audit Your Linked Accounts: You might have used this Dodo email address to register on social media or even banks and government portals. Find out if this is the case by revising historical conversations and updating your email address. Do this so you aren’t locked out.
3. Clear Your Junk Mail: As Dodo Mail’s closure is here, you can’t waste time and bandwidth moving unnecessary data. Delete spam and remove heavy attachments from your Dodo webmail to speed up data transfer.

Now that the preparations are done lets look at the exit strategies.

Transfer Dodo Email Data Elsewhere in 4 Different Ways

Switching over to TMC might be the easiest option, but it is also the most expensive. So, for the more budget-conscious users, here are alternative pathways.

Option 1: Set up Auto Forwarding Rule – This is a temporary band-aid that you can set up fast, but it only works for upcoming messages arriving between now and May 8. It won’t move any existing messages, and the moment Dodo shuts down the server, your rule stops functioning.

Option 2: Deploy Desktop Email Client – You connect both your existing @dodo.com.au and the new address to Apple Mail, Thunderbird, or Outlook using server settings (imap.dodo.com.au port 993). Then drag and drop emails. This strategy is similar to what I taught in my guide on how to transfer emails from BigPond to Gmail, another Australian email portal that closed in 2025. Drag and drop sounds easy, but waiting for the entire webmail history to first sync on your local hard drive, then moving all those massive volumes of emails by hand, can cause email clients to freeze and crash.

Option 3: Use Built-in Email Import Tools – Many email providers have this functionality, where you can bring in email from another platform. Gmail is a good example of this. Located usually in the settings menu are notoriously difficult to set up, requiring multi-step validations. Plus, they skip any folder structure that you might be using.

Option 4: Go for the $5 USD (~$7 AUD) Ultimate Escape Route: Recommended by Users and experts alike. The safest and fastest way of multi-account transfer is to choose a purpose-built software. Let me explain more about it.

Automate Your Dodo WebMail Exit Today

The SysTools IMAP Migration solution is, without a doubt, the best way to bypass the limitations of free fetchers and, at the same time, not break your bank.

 

Engineered with a simple philosophy in mind to make shifting email data as easy as possible.

Why Choose This Solution Over TMC

10x More Affordable: It is available for sale at a one-time cost of $5 USD per account (Minimum 5 accounts), which comes around roughly $7 Australian ($35 total). Making it perfect for the 3-5 mailboxes most families with a Dodo subscription have, which would otherwise be $70 per account every year.

Universal Transfer: By following TMC, you trade one vendor lock-in with another. Instead, if you have this tool, you have no restrictions on the provider; you can switch to Gmail, Yahoo, iCloud, or any other service of your choice.

Try before You Buy: The software has a free, no-cost, no-time-bound demo version that allows complete transfer of 100 emails from the first 5 folders in your IMAP account. You can explore every feature the tool has to offer and get to know how it functions. TMC gives you a free trial, but it only lasts for 3 months, after which you have to lock in or leave.

Advanced Controls: Industry-leading features like a date filter to extract the exact message history from your Dodo web mail account. Pre-flight validation of the source and destination platforms. VIP account prioritization, multi-account concurrent transfers, and much more.

Once you perform your transfer, the job isn’t complete yet. Go through the post-transfer procedure to finalize everything.

Steps to Secure Your Emails After Leaving Dodo WebMail

Step 1. Inform all your existing contacts via mass message from your soon-to-expire Dodo mail. Draft a simple message BCC: everyone (all friends, family, colleagues, etc) of your new, permanent email address. Couple this announcement with an OOO (out of office auto-replier) that messages anyone who tries to contact you on the old Dodo mail address.

Note: You might be tempted to use your new account for the message, but don’t. As your account is new, many of your recipients’ email services might treat the incoming message as spam. Especially since you are sending it to so many people at once. It can trigger junk filters and get discarded automatically. So they never know that you changed your email ID.

Step 2. Transport all of your Contacts and Calendar. Neither the tool nor other manual transport methods can bring your entire mailbox. They only process emails. So, you have to transfer your contact list and calendar events manually. Perhaps the only advantage of choosing TMC is that it can take care of contacts and calendars for you. If you believe that this transfer is worth the $70 perpetual price, then go for it.

My Verdict on Dodo Mail Shutdown

Closure of an email service is a sensitive time. Users have a lot to worry about what happens to their data, whether they will be able to transfer on time, etc. To reduce the confusion and clutter surrounding the end of Dodo webmail, I have given you key insights on what to do and what to avoid. One thing is for sure, the $70 dollar TMC plan is a trap; they might even jack up the prices later, and you will be forced to pay it. Instead, there is a much more affordable exit route at 1/10th of the price, and you only have to pay once.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Are there any Dodo WebMail details I need to know for transferring mail data?

Yes, you need to know the IMAP Server details, which are imap.dodo.com.au and Port 993.

Q: Can I keep using my @dodo.com.au address for free?

No, email service closure also means that your email address gets deleted. Unless you are moving to The Messaging Company (TMC). For that, you need to pay a monthly fee or an annual plan after the initial promo ends.

Q: Does this shutdown bring my Dodo bill down?

No, many Australians are under the impression that the Dodo will reduce prices now that they are no longer providing email. This cannot be further from the truth. According to Dodo, emails were a free add-on and not something customers were being billed for, so bills remain the same.

Q: Is the May 8th deadline final?

Yes, as long as there are no official announcements. I would suggest staying away from rumors you hear and don’t delay your decision.

Q: What happens to other Dodo services?

All other Dodo services remain as is. The shutdown is only applicable to Webmail.