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Unfortunately not, it isn't. Tried to do it when migrating from Google to Mailfence, but gave up since it missed some messages, randomly timed out and couldn't

Unfortunately not, it isn't. Tried to do it when migrating from Google to Mailfence, but gave up since it missed some messages, randomly timed out and couldn't continue. In the end I had to remove all messages, and process them using Claws client, which gives much better control and a feedback which messages were transferred and which failed. The only issue I had is that some messages were transferred multiple times, but Claws even has a solution for that by using "delete duplicate messages".

criddell 4y ago
You transferred your email from Google to a different host and you used Claws to do it? How did that work?
- tut-urut-utut 4y ago
  Installed Claws and configured both old Gmail and new IMAP account locally. Basically, I did it semi-manual, since it was the only way it worked. Clicked to "get all messages" on the Gmail account. This is important. Otherwise, it would need to first fetch messages before doing the copy. For smaller labels / folders, I was just right-clicking label and choosing copy. It would then create a folder in the new account and copy all messages. For labels with a lot of messages, I would create a folder manually, open a label by clicking on it, select manually let's say 500 messages, and calling copy. If copy is successful, I'll mark copied messages in another colour, and proceed copying the next bunch. In case of any error, and there will be errors, I would just retry copying. That way, I ended up with duplicated messages in the target folder, but that was easy to clean up using Claws option to remove duplicated messages in the folder. The errors may be due to network timeouts, rate limiting on both Gmail and new provider side. It may be tedious if you have many folders with many messages. I wanted to avoid using any external tools for the purpose, and was too lazy to try to program something. YMMV. I also took the chance to actually clean and reorganize my mail archive as a part of the process, and ended up not transferring / deleting two thirds of my mail archive during the process.
ancientsofmumu 4y ago
I'm a (paying) Mailfence customer as well, and use it as a destination sync backup of my primary domain using imapsync, encountered a similar problem so opened a ticket to Support. The general problem is that Mailfence has what I guess you could call DDoS protections in place and opening too many simultaneous IMAP threads trips their defenses. I have my ~/.mbsyncrc set to only use one thread when writing to Mailfence to avoid tripping the trigger and it runs like clockwork now (cron timer doing IMAP sync writes from the primary). $0.02, hope this helps.
- tut-urut-utut 4y ago
  Thanks for the confirmation. I supposed it was some kind of rate limiting. I guess Claws worked for me since its IMAP operations are single threaded, and with Thunderbird, it was easy to trigger multiple parallel connections, e.g., by opening an IMAP folder while copying of messages is running.
scintill76 4y ago
Seconded, though it may have been a decade since I tried. I recall the GUI locking up and probably didn't complete the operation. Even ~2 years ago, I had similar issues just trying to move a few hundred messages between folders on the same IMAP server. IIRC it worked, but takes a lot of patience. That time, I also didn't really care if it ate those messages instead of moving them. I wouldn't trust Thunderbird for more than a few dozen messages I could hand-verify. For anything more, use a dedicated tool that provides logs and can gracefully restart.

criddell 4y ago

You transferred your email from Google to a different host and you used Claws to do it? How did that work?

tut-urut-utut 4y ago
Installed Claws and configured both old Gmail and new IMAP account locally. Basically, I did it semi-manual, since it was the only way it worked. Clicked to "get all messages" on the Gmail account. This is important. Otherwise, it would need to first fetch messages before doing the copy. For smaller labels / folders, I was just right-clicking label and choosing copy. It would then create a folder in the new account and copy all messages. For labels with a lot of messages, I would create a folder manually, open a label by clicking on it, select manually let's say 500 messages, and calling copy. If copy is successful, I'll mark copied messages in another colour, and proceed copying the next bunch. In case of any error, and there will be errors, I would just retry copying. That way, I ended up with duplicated messages in the target folder, but that was easy to clean up using Claws option to remove duplicated messages in the folder. The errors may be due to network timeouts, rate limiting on both Gmail and new provider side. It may be tedious if you have many folders with many messages. I wanted to avoid using any external tools for the purpose, and was too lazy to try to program something. YMMV. I also took the chance to actually clean and reorganize my mail archive as a part of the process, and ended up not transferring / deleting two thirds of my mail archive during the process.

ancientsofmumu 4y ago

I'm a (paying) Mailfence customer as well, and use it as a destination sync backup of my primary domain using imapsync, encountered a similar problem so opened a ticket to Support. The general problem is that Mailfence has what I guess you could call DDoS protections in place and opening too many simultaneous IMAP threads trips their defenses. I have my ~/.mbsyncrc set to only use one thread when writing to Mailfence to avoid tripping the trigger and it runs like clockwork now (cron timer doing IMAP sync writes from the primary). $0.02, hope this helps.

tut-urut-utut 4y ago
Thanks for the confirmation. I supposed it was some kind of rate limiting. I guess Claws worked for me since its IMAP operations are single threaded, and with Thunderbird, it was easy to trigger multiple parallel connections, e.g., by opening an IMAP folder while copying of messages is running.

scintill76 4y ago

Seconded, though it may have been a decade since I tried. I recall the GUI locking up and probably didn't complete the operation. Even ~2 years ago, I had similar issues just trying to move a few hundred messages between folders on the same IMAP server. IIRC it worked, but takes a lot of patience. That time, I also didn't really care if it ate those messages instead of moving them. I wouldn't trust Thunderbird for more than a few dozen messages I could hand-verify. For anything more, use a dedicated tool that provides logs and can gracefully restart.