---
title: "Import from any other mail server"
description: "Copy a mailbox from any provider or server that offers IMAP."
url: "https://openemail.uk/docs/knowledge/trust/import/other"
area: "Knowledge base"
category: "Moving in"
---

# Import from any other mail server

Copy a mailbox from any provider or server that offers IMAP.

## Before you start

- The old mailbox has to offer IMAP, which nearly every provider and hosting company does. If the provider offers app passwords, make one and use it; otherwise use the password of the mailbox.
- The old mailbox is only ever read. Nothing in it is moved, marked as read or deleted, so it keeps working exactly as before while the import runs and afterwards.

## Connect and start

1. In OpenEmail, open Migrations, then From a mailbox, and choose Another provider.
2. Enter the old address and its password. Leave the mail server empty: it is looked up from the address.
3. Choose Check mailbox. If no server is found, enter the IMAP host your provider documents, choose the connection it uses and check again.
4. Choose the address the mail lands on, decide whether spam and trash come too, and choose Start import. You can close the page: History shows the progress.

## How the server is found

- The lookup tries the providers OpenEmail knows, then who receives mail for the domain, then the public list of mail settings that Thunderbird uses, then the record the domain itself publishes for IMAP.
- Only an encrypted connection is used: port 993 with TLS, or port 143 with STARTTLS. A server that offers neither cannot be imported from, and neither can one on a private network.
- The username is the address unless you enter another one, which some hosting companies need.

## What comes across

- Every folder becomes a label. The folders the server marks as Sent, Junk, Trash and Archive are filed as Sent, Spam, Trash and Archive, and read and flagged state are kept.
- A message the address already holds is skipped, so running an import twice, or after uploading an export file, adds only what is missing.
- Contacts and calendars do not come over this sign-in. Export them as a .vcf and an .ics file at the provider, then upload the .vcf with Import contacts on the Contacts page and the .ics under Import in the Calendars dialog.

## Afterwards

- The password is kept sealed until the import finishes, for 30 days at most, then wiped. It is never shown again and never written to a log.
- If you used the password of the mailbox itself, change it at the provider once the import is done.

## Related pages

- [Bring your old mailbox](https://openemail.uk/docs/knowledge/trust/import.md): Everything an import brings, from a live mailbox or from an export file.