Import mail from another account

Copy the mail you already have at Gmail, Yahoo, iCloud, Fastmail or another provider into one of your mailboxes. It is a one-time copy, and the account's app password is never stored.

Nothing in the other account is changed or deleted. Importing is on unless an administrator has switched it off with the feature switch mail.import_imap, which a mail administrator finds under Settings → Mail → Features. If you do not see Import from account in Mail settings, see If you do not see it.

Before you start

• The mailbox is the one you have open. The mail goes into the mailbox selected in the Mail sidebar. To import into a different mailbox, open it first. You can only import into a mailbox you own or share.
• You need an app password for Gmail, Yahoo, iCloud and Fastmail. An app password is a separate password a provider makes for one program, so your normal password is never handed over. Mail shows the steps for each provider on the screen.
• IMAP has to be allowed on the account. If the account belongs to a company or a school, an administrator may have turned off app passwords or IMAP. Ask them if sign-in fails after you followed the steps.
• A shared mailbox shows a notice. Everyone who shares the mailbox can read the mail you import.

Import step by step

1. In the Mail sidebar, click Settings, then Import from account. The link ends with #mail-settings/importmail. There is also an Import mail from another account button under Mailboxes.
2. Read the limits at the top, then choose where the mail is now: Gmail, Yahoo Mail, iCloud Mail, Fastmail or Another provider.
3. Follow the steps for your provider and make the app password. Enter your address and the password. For Another provider, also enter the mail server name, such as imap.example.com, and choose port 993 (encrypted from the start) or port 143 (STARTTLS).
4. Click Sign in and list folders. Mail signs in and lists up to 500 folders, with a message count for each folder the provider answers for in time.
5. Tick the folders to copy. Mail suggests a set and shows where each folder will go. Spam and Trash start unticked. Click Start copying.
6. A bar shows progress, such as "Copying Inbox. 400 of about 2,100 messages looked at, 0 of 3 folders finished." Click Stop to stop between two batches.
7. When it ends, you see the total, such as "Import finished. 2,050 imported, 40 already here, 3 skipped (too large or marked deleted), 7 could not be imported.", and a line for each folder with its own counts. After a finished import, click Go to the mailbox, or Import another account.

Provider notes

For a large Gmail archive, Google Takeout and Import and export is usually faster.

Where each folder goes

How imported mail behaves

Importing is not delivery, so imported mail stays quiet.

• It arrives already read, adds nothing to your unread count, and sends no notification.
• Rules, blocked senders and the auto reply do not run on it.
• Each message keeps the date in its own Date header, so it sorts where it belongs. A message with no usable Date header gets the date the other account received it. Starred messages stay starred.
• Mail recognizes a message by its Message-ID header, or by its content when it has none. A message that is already in the mailbox is skipped and counted as "already here", so running the import twice files nothing twice.
• A message that sits in several folders on the other account is filed once, in the first folder copied (Inbox, Sent, your own folders, Spam, Trash, then Archive). The other copies count as "already here".
• Messages over 25 MB, and messages marked deleted on the other account, are skipped and counted.

Stop, continue and start again

Click Stop to end the import after the batch in progress. Leaving the Import from account screen stops it too, for example by opening a folder, choosing another settings tab or closing the browser tab. Everything already copied stays.

After a stop, Continue picks the import up again while the page is open, and Forget the password and finish clears the password from the page. If you leave, your browser keeps the counts and positions for 14 days, for this mailbox and this account only, never the password or the user name, and drops them when an import finishes. Come back to Import from account, sign in to the same account, and Mail offers to Continue where it stopped. A new import skips what is already there either way.

What we store and what we do not

• The password. It is typed into the page and sent with each request to your workspace over an encrypted connection. The workspace uses it to sign in to the other account, and then forgets it. It is not saved, not written to any log, and not kept in your browser's storage.
• Nothing is changed in the other account. Mail only reads: it opens each folder read only and fetches messages without marking them read.
• A count-only record. Each folder listing and each batch of messages leaves a record with who ran it, which mailbox, the provider, the kind of folder, the counts, how long it took, and the outcome. It holds no password, no server name, no user name, no folder name and no message content. Only mail administrators have read access to these records, and nobody can change or delete one by hand. Records older than 30 days are deleted the next time anyone in the workspace signs in and lists folders, so they can stay longer in a workspace that stops importing.
• The copy is yours. Imported mail is stored in your mailbox like mail you receive, under the privacy policy. It is a one-time copy, not a sync. New mail still needs forwarding from the old account, or a domain connected here.

Limits

If something goes wrong

Every failure says what happened and what to do. The common ones:

Who can import

Everyone with a mailbox can import unless an administrator changes Who may import mail from another account under Settings → Mail → Policy. The setting can restrict it to mail administrators, or turn it off. It covers importing .eml and .mbox files too. See Mail administration & deliverability.

If you do not see it

Import from account appears when two things are true.

• The feature is on. Under Settings → Mail → Features, mail.import_imap is the switch. It is on unless an administrator has switched it off, and a mail administrator can check it there and switch it on or off.
• Your administrator allows it. If the policy says mail administrators only, the tab is hidden for everyone else. If it says nobody, the tab is hidden for everyone.

Related

• Import & export your mail
• Mail settings
• Mail administration & deliverability
• Shared team inboxes