The Problem:
Move emails without changing the email address or domain
If you’re looking to move emails from one provider to another while keeping the same email address and the same domain name, you may be wondering how you can do this without losing data or experiencing a a service interruption.
In this guide, we’ll provide you with two easy steps to help you to move emails to a new webserver without having to make any changes to your domain or email address.
The benefits of using this tutorial include:
✅ you can keep the same domain and email address for both the old and new accounts
✅ no data will be lost in the process
✅ no service disruption will occur
Setup: Get your new mailbox up and running!
In case you haven’t already set up your new mailbox, now is the time to register with your new email provider and setup up your email address.
Your email address can (of course) have the same name as your previous one.
Example:
| Existing Email Address | jerry@mailjerry.com |
| New Email Address | jerry@mailjerry.com |
Step 01:
Find out the alternative hostname of your old and new mail server
Usually, you can reach your mail server using an address containing your domain name. In our example, that would be mail.mailjerry.com.
Since you want to use the same domain on both servers, you can’t use this address to move emails to the new provider.
Fortunately, every mail server listens to multiple addresses or host names which you can use for the data migration.
To find out the alternative hostname for both providers, there are three options:
Option A: Use the public mail server address
If you know the public name of your mail server, you can simply use the public hostname instead of the hostname associated with your domain.
| Old Provider | New Provider | |
| Email Address | jerry@mailjerry.com | jerry@mailjerry.com |
| Provider | Hostgator | IMAP Provider |
| Public Mail Server Address | gator123.hostgator.com | imap.mailjerry.com |
If you don’t know the public mail server, send a support ticket to your old (and new) provider or proceed with option B or C instead.
Option B: Use the IP address of your mail server instead of the hostname
Instead of using the hostname of your webserver, you can simply use the IP address. To find the IP address of your mail servers, send a support ticket to your hosting providers asking for the IP address or ➡️ find the server IP on your own by following our short guide here.
| Old Provider | New Provider | |
| Email Address | jerry@mailjerry.com | jerry@mailjerry.com |
| Provider | Hostgator | IMAP Provider |
| ✅ IP Address | 50.87.144.144 | 66.102.1.109 |
Option C: Point an alternative DNS entry to the new mail server you want to connect with
Alternatively, you can add a new DNS record in administration panel of your domain which points to the IP address of your new mail server.
| Old Provider | New Provider | |
| Email Address | jerry@mailjerry.com | jerry@mailjerry.com |
| Provider | Hostgator | IMAP Provider |
| ✅ Hostname | mail.mailjerry.com | newmail.mailjerry.com |
| DNS record of hostname points to | IP address of old server | IP address of new server |
Step 02:
Start your Email Migration 🎉
Now there’s only one thing left to do in order to move your emails:
➡️ Download MailJerry, start a new email migration and enter the alternative hostname or the IP address of your old and new email provider in the field mail server.
➡️ Hit Check Settings and proceed with your email migration!
