re: transferring email account to new ISP
Wednesday, October 7, 2009 at 5:44 am
Windows XP Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by Dan Sarandrea, MCSE
(7132 messages posted)
As Ricer noted, most traditional email client programs (like Outlook, Outlook Express,
etc etc) when set up with defaults, download mail from the mail server and save it
into various folders located on your computer. They will be in the "user profile,"
whose default location is c:\documents and settings\YOUR_USER_NAME. On a well-used
computer there are myriad folders and subfolders within this profile that contain
all your data and settings.
If you were using webmail with the ISP's web-based email interface and did not use
a computer-based program, all of your mail is still on the ISP's server. This is
problematic when it comes time to switch ISPs as you are experiencing.
So, how to (1) save all the mail that's up on the original ISP's servers and (2)
how to get this mail onto the new ISP's mail servers?
First, ask the original ISP if they have any kind of mail transfer service.
Next, ask the new ISP if their web based email interface has the ability to access
other email accounts. If so, adding your old account info to the settings in the
new interface and then logging onto your old email account from the new ISP's interface
"might" bring all your mail over to the new ISP's interface if the new interface
conforms to IMAP standards "and if" the new interface has a way to save email onto
the new ISP's servers from another account.
If the above isn't available to you, then Plan C is to use a computer based email
client that conforms to IMAP standards to connect to your original ISP account, then
choose the option to archive or locally save all of the mail and folders in the old
account to your computer.
That solves the saving part of the equation. If the new ISP email interface allows,
you can then connect to the new ISP account and synch your folders, thus copying
the locally saved email from the original ISP to the new ISP's email servers.
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