---
title: "Import your old mailbox"
description: "Bring years of mail from Gmail, Apple Mail, Thunderbird or any .mbox export, threaded, dated and filed as it was, without a single notification."
url: "https://openemail.uk/features/import"
---

[Privacy & ownership](https://openemail.uk/features.md#trust)

# Bring your old mailbox Your history, threaded as it was.

Upload an export and every message arrives in its conversation, on its original date, in the folder it lived in. Running it again adds nothing twice.

[Open mail](https://openemail.uk/mail/inbox) [Get Started](https://openemail.uk/signup.md)[All features](https://openemail.uk/features.md)

In short

## What is a mailbox import?

Changing provider means moving your history too. An import reads an archive of old messages and writes each one in, dated and threaded as it was.

3

headers a thread can anchor on

2

fields a duplicate matches on

4

file types it reads

How it works

## Threads rebuild themselves

Each message is threaded by its first References entry, then In-Reply-To, then its own id, so an export that keeps them rebuilds every thread and joins mail that arrives later.

## Filed where it lived

Inbox mail lands in Inbox with its unread state, sent mail in Sent, and the rest in Archive. Gmail labels come across as labels.

## Running it twice adds nothing

A message matches on its message id and sender, never on an id made here, so a second run skips every copy already in your mailbox.

What you get

## In the product today

Dated as sent

Dates come off the message, so a 2019 thread would sort as 2019.

A quiet ingest

Imported mail skips the notifications, rules, forwards and summaries new mail gets.

Any export file

Google Takeout, .mbox, .eml, .zip and .tgz, up to 100 GB a file.

Good practice

## Getting the most out of it

1. 01
   
   Ask for the export
   
   Every provider exports an archive on request. Get yours before you move.
2. 02
   
   Keep whole messages
   
   Choose mbox or .eml, which keep every header, so the threads survive the move.
3. 03
   
   Keep the old account
   
   Leave it open until you have the export and have checked that it opens.

Where it stands

## Good to know

Questions

## Asked often

Keep going

## Works well with

Take your mail with you

One download from Settings → Export with everything in it: every message and attachment as mbox files another mail app opens, plus your contacts, calendar, labels, rules, templates, notes and settings.

Labels

Name a label, pick a colour, and filter the list down to it.

Full-text search

Forgiving words and operators like from: and has:, inside the folder you are reading.

Start

## Your domain, your mail.

Point a domain at OpenEmail and read it in a mailbox built around it. The free plan covers one domain.

[Open mail](https://openemail.uk/mail/inbox) [Get Started](https://openemail.uk/signup.md)[Read the reference](https://openemail.uk/docs/knowledge/trust/import.md)