Migrate email to Gmail servers
I'm looking to migrate my email off Inmotion servers and have it hosted at google apps. I see a tutorial for how to point the MX record and have all the email go there. I'm nervous about doing this, however.
Once I change the MX record, will I have any way to access the mail on my inmotion account? Do I migrate it to gmail before changing the MX record?
Hello Mooseo,
Thanks for the question about moving your emails to Google. You should migrate all of the emails to your Gmail account(s) first. That way you won't lose any old emails.
You can also use email clients like Outlook, Thunderbird, or Apple Mail to download emails to a local drive. This would still need to be done per account, so it might be labor-intensive and take some time. You would also have to send those emails to the new Gmail account(s).
Once you have all of the emails from all of your accounts in a local drive or sent to Google, then you can change the MX record without having to worry about missed/lost emails. If emails are arriving during the migration period, then you may want to extend your account (the old one) until your DNS propagation for the changes is complete. Typically, DNS changes take less than 24 hours. Once the DNS has finished propagating, then it should arrive at the new location.
If you have any further questions or comments, please let us know.
Kindest Regards,
Arnel C.