What happens to my email when I switch hosting?

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kenthai
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I plan to change the DNS entries on my domain to point it to InMotion. How does this affect my email? Right now I have email accounts created that automatically forwards the email to my Gmail account. Do I have to recreate my email addresses for my domain? What happens to all my previous email?
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Arn
Hello Kenthai, Thanks for the question! Different hosts have different ways of hosting email, but the way emails are routed from one place to another is standard. Changing your DNS in effect changes where emails will be sent. When make the change, then you will need to create the accounts again at the new host. You can actually setup the email accounts before the change if you wish. If your previous host was using the same system as us (cPanel), then you could simply export the entire cPanel account from the old host and then have it imported into our hosting service. Your email and web traffic are controlled by the DNS settings which can be set to direct ALL traffic (email and website traffic) to one host, or split up. If you want all traffic to go to one host, you simply need to change name servers and then both email and website traffic will go to your new host after a short period of propagation. Once propagation is complete, then the definition of where the domain name points to (in terms of the host) changes and that's where traffic will go. It's not an instantaneous change on the web, but it's fairly quick - usually up to 24 hours. We have an article about moving your emails from your old host to InMotion. Check that out for a good summary of the process. Once the email moves, the forwarders will no longer exist, and you will need to rebuild them. You can find more information in our article on creating email forwarders. I hope this helps provide the information you need. We have a great education on everything email, so check it for more details. If you have any further questions, please contact technical support available 24 hours a day / 7 days a week. Arnel C. InMotion Hosting Community Support Team