Migrating email from your old hosting

Migrating email from your old hosting

CloudWeb can move email from your old mailbox for you, using IMAP synchronization (the imapsync tool). Every folder and message from the source mailbox is transferred into the destination mailbox on CloudWeb.

Where to find the migration

In the panel, on the hosting page, open Email Management and switch to the Migration tab. The tab contains the form for starting a new migration and, above it, if any migration already exists, a Migration History section listing running and past migrations – there is no separate tab for the history, it is part of the same Migration tab.

Requirement: the destination mailbox must exist

The destination mailbox has to be created beforehand on the same hosting (Mailboxes tab) and must belong to one of that hosting's domains – the panel rejects migrating into a mailbox on a different hosting or a domain that does not belong to this hosting. The form therefore only lets you pick the destination mailbox from a list; it cannot be typed in.

Starting a migration

The New Email Migration form has two parts:

• Source (old server) – IMAP host (e.g. mail.oldprovider.com), port (993 by default), the source mailbox's email/username and password, and a Use SSL/TLS toggle (on by default).
• Destination (this hosting) – pick the destination mailbox from the list and enter its password.

After clicking Start Migration, the migration is queued and runs in the background – you do not need to keep the form open.

Progress and statuses

The Migration History section loads automatically when you open the Migration tab and, while any migration is pending or processing, refreshes every 5 seconds. While running you see a percentage progress bar; once done, the number of messages and folders synced and any errors. A migration can be in one of these statuses: pending, processing, completed, failed or cancelled.

A single migration has a 6-hour time limit; one that would run longer is stopped and marked as failed. A failed migration is not retried automatically.

If a migration fails, the record includes the reason (for example a wrong source-server port, rejected source or destination credentials, or the destination mailbox being over quota) – not just a raw error code.

Cancelling and deleting a migration

A migration that is pending, failed or cancelled shows a trash icon in Migration History. Clicking it opens a confirmation dialog that displays a short verification code on screen – the confirm button stays disabled until you type that code into the field. For a migration that is still pending, the action cancels it and the history entry stays (its status changes to cancelled); for one that already failed or was cancelled, the entry is permanently removed from the history. A migration that is currently running, or one that already completed, cannot be cancelled or deleted this way.

Credential security

Both the source and destination mailbox passwords are stored encrypted in the database and are used only to run the transfer – they are never included in the panel's migration-status response.

Next steps

• Creating the destination mailbox before migrating: Mailboxes: creating, listing, changing password and deleting.
• Server, port and encryption settings if you are not using the migration and connect the old server directly in a client: Setting up an email client.