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I thought GMail had a way to import mail from an old account. Searching a little bit, I found this post from 2009 regarding importing mail into GMail. However, there is no longer an "Accounts and Import" tab in the settings, only "Accounts". There is an option to check mail for another accout via POP3, but I want to grab all the mail from another account, and hopefully be able to label it, too.

Is it possible to import to GMail via IMAP?

Joseph
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5 Answers5

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It's not supported by Gmail natively. However, since Gmail provides IMAP service itself, you can set up a desktop mail client (e.g. Thunderbird or Outlook) for both old and new accounts, then simply drag and drop all messages to Gmail's inbox.

There are also tools like imapsync which can copy everything automatically. (Although I am unsure about how they'd handle Gmail's unusual IMAP structure, so I'd probably stick to manual copying.)

grawity
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4

Gmail does not support importing mail via IMAP. However if you are a Google Apps user, then that Gmail does support it.

Community
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imtheman
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2

When using Google Apps Gmail you don't get Import by default. Your administrator must enable this explicitly.

https://support.google.com/a/answer/2525613?hl=en

xastor
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1

As far as I know, Gmail doesn't support Import emails via IMAP.

However Outlook.com do support Import emails via IMAP.

  • login to outlook.com
  • click/tap on gear icon at top right corner
  • click/tap on "connected accounts"
  • SKIP THIS OPTION: in connected account DON'T select "Gmail or other email accounts" (it will do the import but will not do the true IMAP two way sync of actions such as read, unread, archive etc)
  • Select "Manual configur account setting" under advanced settings.
  • Select IMAP/SMTP
  • Enter gmail id user name (including @gmail.com)

  • Gmail password ( if you're using 2 Step verification then your gmail password won't work but you need to get a disposable app password for the "app" from here)

    under "App Password" select the app "mail and select the device "other custom name" and type outlook.com

  • Fill the correct IMAP settings.

    incoming server port 993, authentication - basic, encryption SSL

  • If you want to send emails using the gmail id then add SMTP details too

    outgoing server port 465

Aniruddh
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GMail definitely supports IMAP. It supports all details of the protocol, and some useful extensions to boot. The mapping of the "labels" concept to the "folders" concept used in IMAP does have some unexpected consequences, but it's all really well documented in Google's own documentation. You might have to Enable IMAP in the Settings page, though.

mcicogni
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