Re: [SM-USERS] Importing or transferring messages from one account to a new account/server

[Paul L. <pa...@sq...>]

On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 9:38 AM, Alan in Toronto
<Ala...@fi...> wrote:
> On Fri, April 18, 2008 11:39 pm, Paul Lesniewski wrote:
>  > On Fri, Apr 18, 2008 at 1:54 PM, Alan in Toronto
>  > <Ala...@fi...> wrote:
>  >> SquirrelMail 1.4.13
>  >>  Courier IMAP (in a cPanel release)
>  >>  maildir mail storage format
>  >>  Apache, cPanel virtual web hosting account
>  >>  (sorry, I usually provide more details of my setup, but I've just moved to a new
>  >>  host and I don't have all their details yet.)
>  >>
>  >>  Hello all:
>  >>
>  >>  I'm moving from one host to a new host, new server. I need to transfer messages
>  >> and
>  >>  mail folders from my old IMAP server to the new server.
>
>  >>  2. Someone
>  >>  mentioned using a local mail client (Outlook, Thunderbird, etc.) to login to the
>  >> old
>  >>  mail account and download all the mail folders and messages, then login to the
>  >> new
>  >>  account and somehow transfer (drag and drop?) all the folders and messages to the
>  >>  new account? Would that work, and would that be a better method?
>  >
>  > Yes, that is exactly what would work.  It has to be done on a per-user
>  > basis, but if that suits, then it's extremely easy.  Just set up both
>  > IMAP host accounts in Thunderbird (or similar) and drag any messages
>  > from one account to the other and you're done.
>
>  Hi PauL
>
>  That worked great!
>
>  I have Outlook 2000 on my PC (which I never use), and lo and behold it allows setup
>  of multiple IMAP accounts. It displayed the folder list and messages for both
>  accounts/servers, and I just used Copy to copy them to the new server. Nice.
>
>  The process works, but it is tedious (one folder at a time) and slow because it
>  downloads from old server to my PC (Outlook), then uploads to new account/server.
>
>  A direct server-to-server transfer would be faster. Would it be difficult to code a
>  plugin to enable SquirrelMail to access a second IMAP account, and thereby be able
>  to copy folders and messages from the "logged in" account to the second account?

Yes, it would be difficult.  As I mentioned, IMAP is not really
designed for putting messages onto the server.  It would take a whole
bunch of parsing and validation and real hassle.  1.5.x has some small
framework in place for being able to be logged into more than one IMAP
account at a time, though, but the meat of the code is not implemented
and moving/copying messages between accounts is a big question mark
and would probably only be implemented on a per-message basis anyway,
at least at first.

>  Thanks for all the excellent help and advice, as usual!