Migrate email from an IMAP account

1. Sign in with a super administrator account to the Google Admin console.

   If you aren’t using a super administrator account, you can’t complete these steps.

2. Go to Menu  Data > Data import & export > Data Migration (New) .
3. For IMAP, click Migrate.
4. For IMAP server address, select your server from the list or manually enter your server name (for example, imap.example.com).

   For assistance with this information, go to Connection information for common IMAP-based webmail providers .

5. Click Test connection.

   If the connection is successful, you get a Connectednotification.

Connection information for common IMAP-based webmail providers

If your provider isn't listed here, check your provider's documentation for this information.

Once you connect your IMAP and Workspace accounts, you must map your user's email accounts to copy their email addresses to Workspace. The mapping options depend on the number of users in your organization. 

You need to provide each user's IMAP password and their IMAP and Workspace email addresses. Some IMAP servers require the user to create an application specific password (ASP). For details, go to Application specific passwords or your IMAP server documentation.

You can’t use the data migration service to migrate a single IMAP user to multiple Workspace users. You need to provide one-to-one or many-to-one mapping.

If you have 20 users or less

If your organization is small, you can directly enter information for each user that you’re migrating.

If you prefer to map your users with a comma-separated values (CSV) file, go to If you have more than 20 users . If you begin the following steps and then switch to the CSV upload process, the CSV file removes any data that you manually entered.

1. For IMAP email address, enter an IMAP email address for a user.
2. For IMAP password, enter the password for the user’s IMAP account.
3. For Workspace email address, select the user’s Workspace address from the list or enter it manually.
4. Click Add user.

   You can review the user’s IMAP and Workspace email addresses in a table after the text fields.

5. (Optional) To delete a user mapping, next to the user's row, click Remove. Removing the mapping doesn’t delete the user or their data.
6. Repeat this process for each user in your organization.
7. Click Save changes.

If you have more than 20 users

Create and upload a CSV file that contains an IMAP email address, IMAP password, and Workspace address for every IMAP user that you want to migrate. You can create a new CSV file with the required columns or download a sample file and add rows. The completed CSV file must be smaller than 128 MB.

You can migrate up to 100 IMAP users at a time. If you need to migrate additional users or folders, you must start another migration.

To create the CSV file:

1. Using your Workspace administrator account, open a spreadsheet program or click  Download a sample CSV file.
2. In the first column, add the header Source ImapUserand enter the user’s IMAP email address.

   You can download a list of users from your Admin console. For details, go to Download a list of users .

3. In the second column, add the header Source ImapPasswordand enter the password for the user’s IMAP account.
4. In the third column, add the header TargetGUserand enter the user’s Workspace email address.

   Example:

   Source ImapUser	Source ImapPassword	Target GUser
   user1@example.com	password1	user1@other-company.com
   user2@example.com	password2	user2@other-company.com

5. Save the spreadsheet as a CSV file.
6. Upload the file to the Google Admin console:
   1. Click Upload CSV.
   2. Select the fileclick Open.
   3. Click Tasks to confirm that the mapping file is successfully uploaded.
7. If the CSV file doesn't load successfully, go to (Optional) Delete a CSV file .

(Optional) Delete a CSV file

If there is an error during the CSV upload or the upload gets stuck, you can delete the current configuration and upload a new one.

1. Select the CSV file you want to remove.
2. Click Delete.
3. Click Yesto confirm that you want to delete the CSV file.
4. Go to  Step 2: Select users to migrate  and start a new upload.

Select migration settings to specify the type of messages that migrate. You can adjust some or all of the following options:

1. Click Start dateand enter the date that you want messages migrated from.

   The new data migration service migrates messages from the selected date to the date that you start the migration.

2. To migrate email messages that have been deleted, check the Migrate deleted emailsbox.
3. To migrate email messages with the Spamlabel, check the Migrate spam emailsbox.
4. If you don't want to migrate messages that have specific labels, check the Exclude specific folders from migrationbox, and enter the label names, separated by commas.

   For details, go to How to exclude folders from migration .

5. Click Save.

How to exclude folders from migration

• Enter each folder or subfolder separately.
• When you add a subfolder, use the full path and separate the parent folder from the subfolder with a forward slash (/).

  Example: You want to exclude the folder Traveland its child folder, Asia. To do so, you enter Travel, Travel/Asia.

You must be signed in as a  super administrator  for this task.

1. Click Start migration.

   This action also grants domain-wide delegation and creates a client ID for Data Migration (New) in the target account. For more information, go to Control API access with domain-wide delegation .

2. The status changes to In progress, and the following information is updated in real time:
   • Discovered tasks—Total number of items (messages, labels, and other tasks) that were migrated, skipped, or failed
   • Warning—Number of items that were migrated, but failed to complete as expected
   • Failed—Number of items that failed to migrate, due to an error
   • Skipped—Number of items that were skipped
   • Successful—Number of items that were migrated successfully
   • Users processed—Number of users whose migration has completed
   • Emails discovered—Number of email messages that were migrated, skipped, or failed
   • Emails migrated—Number of email messages that were migrated
   • Emails skipped—Number of email messages that were skipped
   • Emails failed–Number of email messages that failed to migrate

   When the migration is complete, you get an email with migration statistics. Any reports are attached.

3. To export and interpret the reports, go to Understand email migration reports .

Run a delta migration to migrate data that was added to the IMAP account after the migration. For details, go to Run a delta migration .