Transfer from Mail App (on my Mac) to Gmail mailboxes

Irene · 12-20-2012, 02:14 PM

My husband’s new iMac (to replace his 6 year old one) will arrive today.
He has thousands of old mail messages saved in Mail App folders on his Mac. He used Comcast POP mail until very recently, and still uses it as well as gmail IMAP now. I suggested he put the folders of old messages into his gmail account so he would easily have them for his new computer.
He created the appropriate mailboxes under gmail and began transferring. Some folders worked fine, some showed messages with wrong dates and also refused to transfer all of the messages.

Why? What to do?

fracai · 12-20-2012, 02:24 PM

When I did this I moved messages in small batches. At first I just dumped everything and received multiple errors of messages that couldn't be transferred. When I tried again with sets of 20-100 messages at a time, everything eventually went through. If you hit an error, just try a smaller batch.

I never saw anything like incorrect dates.

12-21-2012, 12:34 AM

I think there is no method for doing this.

agentx · 12-21-2012, 07:48 AM

Definitely move in small batches around 100 at a time and wait for sync checking activity in Mail. There are many things that go wrong during the upload process.

In fact there are ways that it can be done. I had this year and insane migration !
ABout 450,000 emails in 100s of folders ( 16GB of data ) moving from local to hosted. It woudl have taken months in Apple Mail !

We ended up setting up an IMAP mail server on a machine. Imported all mail into it using error checking etc. Then enabled external access to that machine. The hosted system imported the mail over a period of 2 weeks at its own pace and the user slowly got all their local mail into the Hosted service.

acme.mail.order · 12-21-2012, 08:45 AM

Your new computer comes with Migration Assistant, software specifically for copying your old data. Connect the two machines to the local network (use a cable, not wireless), enable file sharing on the old machine, and follow the prompts.

NaOH · 12-21-2012, 08:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by acme.mail.order


	Your new computer comes with Migration Assistant, software specifically for copying your old data. Connect the two machines to the local network (use a cable, not wireless), enable file sharing on the old machine, and follow the prompts.

And once that's done, the POP email account can be deactivated from new-mail checking, thus retaining its folders while Gmail checking becomes the lone, actively checked account. At that point, if it's important for organization or some other reason, the moving methods that fracai and agentx described can be pursued.

Irene · 12-23-2012, 03:07 PM

I dislike using Migration Assistant. His 6 year old machine may have accumulated “crud.” I did it in batches as suggested and that work The date issue has become clear--Gmail threaded some messages, but everything is now there.

12-20-2012, 02:14 PM	#1
Irene MVP Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Tucson, Arizona Posts: 1,127	Transfer from Mail App (on my Mac) to Gmail mailboxes My husband’s new iMac (to replace his 6 year old one) will arrive today. He has thousands of old mail messages saved in Mail App folders on his Mac. He used Comcast POP mail until very recently, and still uses it as well as gmail IMAP now. I suggested he put the folders of old messages into his gmail account so he would easily have them for his new computer. He created the appropriate mailboxes under gmail and began transferring. Some folders worked fine, some showed messages with wrong dates and also refused to transfer all of the messages. Why? What to do?

12-20-2012, 02:24 PM	#2
fracai MVP Join Date: May 2004 Posts: 2,012	When I did this I moved messages in small batches. At first I just dumped everything and received multiple errors of messages that couldn't be transferred. When I tried again with sets of 20-100 messages at a time, everything eventually went through. If you hit an error, just try a smaller batch. I never saw anything like incorrect dates. __________________ i am jack's amusing sig file
$fracai is offline$

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12-21-2012, 12:34 AM	#3
Brus Martin Guest Posts: n/a	I think there is no method for doing this.

12-21-2012, 07:48 AM	#4
agentx Hall of Famer Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Brighton, UK Posts: 3,832	Definitely move in small batches around 100 at a time and wait for sync checking activity in Mail. There are many things that go wrong during the upload process. In fact there are ways that it can be done. I had this year and insane migration ! ABout 450,000 emails in 100s of folders ( 16GB of data ) moving from local to hosted. It woudl have taken months in Apple Mail ! We ended up setting up an IMAP mail server on a machine. Imported all mail into it using error checking etc. Then enabled external access to that machine. The hosted system imported the mail over a period of 2 weeks at its own pace and the user slowly got all their local mail into the Hosted service.

12-21-2012, 08:45 AM	#5
acme.mail.order League Commissioner Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Tokyo Posts: 6,057	Your new computer comes with Migration Assistant, software specifically for copying your old data. Connect the two machines to the local network (use a cable, not wireless), enable file sharing on the old machine, and follow the prompts.

12-23-2012, 03:07 PM	#7
Irene MVP Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Tucson, Arizona Posts: 1,127	I dislike using Migration Assistant. His 6 year old machine may have accumulated “crud.” I did it in batches as suggested and that work The date issue has become clear--Gmail threaded some messages, but everything is now there.