Are you planning to migrate your existing IMAP mailbox to Gmail or Google Workspace? If so, you’ve come to the right place. With our tried-and-tested workflow, you can easily migrate to Gmail in no time.
✅ No expert knowledge required, easy set up and 100% risk free!
Advantages of This Workflow:
✅ Auto Folder to Label Conversion: IMAP folders are converted to Gmail labels
✅ Risk-Free: Guaranteed safe migration without data loss or disruption.
✅ Zero Downtime: Your email accounts stay up and running the entire time.
✅ Fully Automated: Just start the process – MailJerry handles the rest.
✅ 100% Data Integrity: All email data remains unchanged and accurate.
Summary: How to Migrate from IMAP to Gmail
- 1️⃣ Set up your migration
- 2️⃣ Preview the IMAP to Gmail migration
- 3️⃣ Run the migration from IMAP to Gmail
🎁 BONUS: MailJerry’s tips o facilitate your IMAP to Gmail migration
➡️ If you’re migrating a large IMAP mailbox to Gmail, have a look at our deep dive that explains how to handle Gmails bandwidth limitations.
And in case there are still questions left, have a look at our FAQs.
Step by Step Workflow:How to Migrate from IMAP to Gmail
Checklist:
What You’ll Need for the IMAP to Gmail Migration
Before you start to migrate your IMAP email account to Gmail, verify that you have the following data and tools at hand:
1️⃣ Your IMAP credentials (username + password)
2️⃣ You IMAP mail server address
3️⃣ Your Gmail credentials (username + password)
4️⃣ MailJerry – your IMAP to Gmail migration tool
Step 01:
Migration Setup
1. Open MailJerry and select “New Migration”.
2. Under “Existing Address”, choose “IMAP” as account type.
3. Provide your email address and password.
4. Enter your mail server address in the field “mail server”.
5. In the section “New Address”, choose „Gmail / Google Workspace“ as account type.
6. Enter your Gmail address and click on “Connect with Google Account”.
7. Complete the sign-in process to authenticate your account.
8. Click “Continue” and grant the requested permissions.
Step 02:
Preview your IMAP to Gmail Migration
9. After adding your IMAP and Gmail account, it’s time to check if everything is configured correctly. To do so, click on “Check Settings”.
❓ Should I enable the option “Ignore Google Bandwidth Limits”?
This option is best used only when you’re migrating very large mailboxes under time pressure. It speeds up the transfer by trying to bypass Google’s bandwidth limits.
➡️ Keep in mind: While this option can initially speed up your migration, it also increases the risk of getting disconnected by Google, which may require restarting the migration. To learn more about Gmail bandwidth limits, have a look at our deep dive.
➡️ MailJerry will now connect to both accounts, collect the required mailbox data, and confirm that everything is ready for the migration. For large mailboxes, it might take a little longer to collect all necessary data, so please be patient until the check has finished.
10. When the mailbox check is complete, you’ll see a preview of your migration. Here, you can verify if everything is set up correctly and optionally configure advanced settings.
💡 Advanced settings: Check out our deep dive to see which advanced settings can help speed up your migration.
For small to medium migrations (up to 2 GB), we recommend to stick with the default settings.
Step 03:
Run the Migration from IMAP to Gmail
11. As soon as you’re ready to begin the migration from IMAP to Gmail, click on “Start Your Migration”. MailJerry now imports all IMAP data to Gmail.
✅ You can safely close MailJerry and continue using your email accounts as normal while the migration is running. Once the initial migration is complete, you can use the delta migration (auto sync) to capture and sync any changes made during and after the migration and migrate newly received emails as well.
➡️ Please don’t perform large structural changes to the source or target mailbox while your migration is running (e.g. “mailbox cleanup”).
"My mailbox migration is complete and it is commendable that MailJerry outperformed all the migration softwares in the market including Google's own which was really pathetic.
Bonus:MailJerry’s Tips to Facilitate Your Migration
Easily optimise your IMAP to Gmail migration by following these two expert tips:
Tip 01:
Enable the Auto Sync
The auto sync automatically connects with your mailbox every three hours and performs a delta migration. This means that newly received emails in your IMAP account are automatically migrate to your Gmail account.
You can enable the auto sync before starting the migration on the preview page or on your migrations detail page after the migration has finished.
How to enable the automatic delta migration:
1. Select your migration in the overview by clicking on it.
2. Scroll down to “Options” and enable the toggle “Automatically synchronise emails for 10 days”.
💡 If you’d like to sync possible changes immediately, you can hit the “Sync Now” button anytime.
Tip 02:
Activate the Migration Cache
The migration cache makes it possible for MailJerry to easily identify which messages have already been migrated to your new account. This means that moved or deleted messages will not be migrated again. In addition, the migration cache speeds up the delta migration, which is useful when migrating a large IMAP mailbox to Gmail.
➡️ You can enable the migration cache before starting your migration on the migration preview page in the section “Advanced Settings”. After the migration, you can enable the option on the details page of your migration.
➡️ Please keep in mind that MailJerry needs one run (initial migration or delta migration) to build the cache. As soon as the cache is available, all following syncs will run significantly faster.
Deep Dive:How to Deal with Gmail’s Bandwidth Limits
To protect its infrastructure, Gmail enforces bandwidth limits on every account. Once a certain number of emails has been transferred, the connection is throttled to a much lower speed. So if your migration suddenly slows down, you’ve likely reached this limit.
Current Gmail bandwidth limits:
- Free Gmail accounts: upload of 500 messages / day
- Google Workspace accounts: upload of 2,000 messages / day
➡️ These limits usually reset within 24 hours (Google states “between 1 and 24 hours”).
Of course, throttling limits are very inconvenient when migrating lots of data from IMAP to Gmail.
So what can you do about that?
Be Patient
Plan enough time if you need to migrate a large IMAP account to Gmail. Usually, it’s best to simply let the migration run through and accept Gmails bandwidth limits. This is the most reliable and secure way to transfer all your mailbox data.💡 Even if your migration takes several hours or even days, you can simply shut down MailJerry and your computer, as your migration is automatically managed in MailJerry’s migration cloud.
Enable the Migration Cache
The migration cache is created during the initial migration (or the first delta migration if enabled later). While it won’t speed up the first run, it significantly improves the performance of future syncs.
Reduce additional mailbox activity
Before starting your migration, minimise other activities on your Gmail account. Disable tools like email clients or backup services to avoid unnecessary load during the migration.
Optional: Ignore Gmail bandwidth limits (experimental)
When connecting with your Google account, you can enable the option “Ignore Google Bandwidth Limits”. By doing so, MailJerry tries to ignore Googles limits and migrates your messages as quickly as possible.
⚠️ But keep in mind: It is very likely that you’ll get disconnected from your Gmail account, which means that your migration breaks. In this case, you need to restart the migration, this time without activating the “ignore bandwidth” option.
✅ Advantage: Until you get disconnected, you can migrate at a high data rate and won’t loose this progress even if you need to restart the migration.
IMAP to Gmail Migration:Frequent Questions
Is it really risk-free to migrate from IMAP to Gmail using MailJerry?
Can I use my mailboxes while the migration is running?
My mailbox is very large and progress is slow. What can I do?
Google applies bandwidth limits after a certain amount of data has been migrated, which can slow down your progress during large migrations. These limits are usually reset within 24 hours, so if you’re not in a hurry, the best approach is to simply wait until the migration completes.
If you need to speed things up, you can stop the migration and restart it with the “Ignore Bandwidth Limits” option enabled. MailJerry will then attempt to bypass Google’s limits and migrate your data as quickly as possible.
After enabling “Ignore Bandwidth Limits”, my migration failed. What now?
When the “ignore bandwidth limits” option is enabled, Google may disconnect your account, which means that your migration finishes with errors. If this happens, simply restart the migration without enabling the bandwidth bypass option.
During the restart, the mailbox check may take a bit longer, as MailJerry needs to identify which messages have already been migrated. Simply wait until the check has finished and proceed as usual afterwards.
I have further questions. Where can I get help?
You can find helpful articles and tutorials on our blog. In addition, many common questions are answered on our FAQ page. If you still need assistance, our support team is happy to assist!
