How to transition a mail account from POP to IMAP?

[billcour]

I am thinking of changing from POP email to IMAP. I have one simple question and one more complicated one.

1. How much space does Sonic give for IMAP messages?

2. What's the best way to manage the transition?

2.a. My mail client is Mac mail.app. It doesn't appear to have a way to change an account from POP to IMAP. Instead, it seems to expect me to create a new IMAP account. If I do that, I imagine I'll have to create a new mailbox name, which means notifying every correspondent, etc. That's too much for me. Is there a way to "flip a switch" to direct all future incoming messages to IMAP?

2.b. How do I replicate my local POP folder structure and rules on the IMAP server? If this is a "see your client documentation" issue, no problem, I'll take care of it.

Bill

[polpo]

1. I have no idea. It should correspond to the disk quota on your shell account.

2. You can manage the transition completely in Mail.app. You can simply drag and drop folders and messages to copy them between locations. See 2.b. below.

2.a. Just create a new account in Mail.app, but use the exact same login info as the account you're using for POP. Because they're being accessed by different protocols, to Mail.app they're different accounts. Once it's created, put something like "Sonic (IMAP)" in the Description field so you can easily tell it from your POP account. At this point, take the POP account offline under the menu Mailbox->Online Status->Take "[account name]" Offline. This will ensure that any new mail that comes in while you're transitioning will remain on the server for IMAP to see.

2.b. Just drag and drop your folders for your POP account (they're in the "On My Mac" section in newer versions of Mail.app) down to the section corresponding the IMAP account. This will create a copy of the folders, preserving any hierarchy.

The only folder you can't drag and drop is the Inbox. Go into the Inbox, select all messages (⌘-A), then drag the messages to the Inbox for the IMAP account. Hold down Option while dragging if you want to copy rather than move.

As for rules, you'll need to update them to reflect the new location of the folders on the IMAP server.

Once the transition is done, you can delete the POP account in Mail.app.

[Guest]

Thanks, very helpful instructions.

Can I run both POP and IMAP in parallel for a couple of days to be sure all is working, then delete POP? By "in parallel" I mean that incoming messages are received by both POP and IMAP.

Bill

[thulsa_doom]

Bill,

You can have both POP and IMAP running at the same time, just make sure your POP3 account is set to leave all messages on the server or you'll end up with chaos.

[polpo]

Sure, just make sure that the POP account is set to not delete incoming mail on the server (having POP delete the mail delete the mail from the IMAP account's inbox). I'm not on my Mac right now so I'm not sure where that setting is.

I just though of one potential complication with running both, though: if you copy mail from your POP Inbox to the IMAP Inbox, pushing it back to the server, POP may want to re-download that mail all over again. So perhaps if you want to run POP and IMAP in parallel, don't copy over the Inbox until you're ready to turn off POP.