Overview
This article explains how to import an email backup you created at your old hosting provider into your DreamHost mail server.
Prerequisites
Make sure you complete the following before proceeding:
- Back up your email messages.
- Add an .eml extension to all of the email message files, which ensures that your mail client recognizes them. See this article to learn more about how to add an .eml extension to email files.
How to import email
You can either import or copy your email into DreamHost. The following sections explain both options.
Option one — Importing your email
Importing emails to your DreamHost mail server is done through an IMAP connection using a third-party mail client. It is as simple as dragging and dropping the mail files from your home computer to the inbox for the email address.
- Add an email address (or addresses) to the DreamHost panel.
- Configure your email client with the DreamHost address to upload the backups to. See this article for instructions on setting up an IMAP connection.
- On your home computer, open the folder you moved the backed-up messages to and drag-and-drop the emails into the mail client. This uploads the messages to your mail server.
It is a good idea to open up the Webmail interface for your email address to ensure that the messages you moved to the inbox through your mail program show up in Webmail as well. This will confirm that the messages were properly uploaded to your server.
Option two — Copying your email
You can also drag-and-drop (copy) emails from your old account to your DreamHost account. See this article for more information about this alternative option to transfer email.
Webmail is a read-only interface for mail, so you cannot download mail this way. You’d need a third-party mail client.