How-to · Intermediate · 1–2 hours or a support ticket
How to Migrate Email to a New Host
Move mailboxes to a new host with the history intact and nothing lost — a practical, jargon-free walkthrough with the classic mistake flagged before you make it.
Straight answer first
In a line: move mailboxes to a new host with the history intact and nothing lost — a intermediate-level task that takes 1–2 hours or a support ticket.
Below you get the exact steps, the classic snag, and a tip from the support desk. Where our platform handles a step for you, the guide says so rather than making you do the robot's work.
Written by the Hosting Seller staff · Checked 1 August 2026
Intermediate
Skill needed
5
Stages to finish
Free
Help included
Tested
On our own kit
You do not need to be technical for this. The walkthrough is written for first-timers, tested on our own platform, and honest about which parts are genuinely fiddly and which are merely unfamiliar.
One promise before you start: nothing in this guide is irreversible. Where a step could bite, we say so and give you the undo.
The overview before the detail
From start to finish, you will create the new mailboxes first, copy the history over imap, overlap the switchover, run the sync again once dns settles and point the clients at the new server.
Each stage is a few minutes of steady clicking — the time it takes depends mostly on how familiar the control panel already feels. The detailed steps sit further down this page; skim the whole route once before you begin.
The mistake nearly everyone makes
Changing MX records before the destination mailboxes exist. Mail arrives at a server with no matching account and bounces straight back. In email migration the order you do things in is essentially the whole job.
Forewarned really is forearmed here. This one mistake accounts for most of the frustration the subject produces, and it is entirely avoidable once somebody names it.
The trick worth borrowing
Screenshot the folder counts for each account before you start. Thirty seconds of inventory turns 'I think everything arrived' into something you can actually check off, one folder at a time.
It costs a minute now and pays that back every time the job comes round again — which, like most hosting jobs, it certainly will.
The parts we have already done for you
Several steps in this guide exist only because hosting historically made you do them. On our plans SSL issues itself, backups run daily without being asked, and one-click installers replace the manual setup entirely. What is left is the part that is genuinely yours.
And when a step misbehaves anyway, support answers at any hour with the actual fix, not a knowledge-base link and a shrug. Half our best guides began life as a pattern in the ticket queue.
The hosting this guide is written against
Tutorials age badly when they are written against imaginary hosting. These are written against ours: the same panel, the same installer and the same defaults you will meet.
What you pay on day one is what you pay at renewal, so the year-two invoice holds no surprises worth opening early.
- Step by step, tested exactly as printed
- The snag flagged before you reach it
- The dull steps are already automated
- People on hand at any hour if you stall
Why Hosting Seller
On every plan, as standard
No jargon toll
Terms are explained where they appear or linked to the glossary — nothing assumes you already know.
Help on the counter
Stuck on step three at midnight? Support answers at any hour, mid-guide included.
Written from real tickets
Our guides come off the support desk, so the snags flagged here are the ones people genuinely hit.
Works exactly as written
Every step tested on the platform we run — no 'your host may differ' hand-waving anywhere.
The snag, named early
The classic mistake for this exact job is flagged before step one, so 1–2 hours or a support ticket stays 1–2 hours or a support ticket.
Automation where it belongs
SSL, backups and installs run themselves here, so the guide covers only what is genuinely yours to do.
First Steps
From choosing to live
- 1
Create the new mailboxes first
Build the same addresses at the new host and leave them empty and ready. The destinations must exist before a single message moves or any DNS record changes.
- 2
Copy the history over IMAP
An IMAP-to-IMAP sync tool — or our migration team, at no charge — mirrors folders, flags and structure from the old server to the new one. It is the only method that preserves everything.
- 3
Overlap the switchover
Change the MX records while the old server is still running. Mail in flight retries and lands correctly, and anything that reaches the old box can still be swept up afterwards.
- 4
Run the sync again once DNS settles
A second IMAP pass after DNS has settled collects whatever was delivered to the old server during propagation. That mop-up is what makes 'nothing lost' literally true.
- 5
Point the clients at the new server
Update the server names on each device, or keep the same mail.yourdomain pattern and nothing needs changing at all. Passwords may differ; the history is already sitting there waiting.
In the Box
Packed with every plan
- A 30-day money-back guarantee on every hosting plan
- WebP image optimisation built in and costing nothing
- SSH, Git and Composer on the plans built for developers
- One-click installs for WordPress and 400+ other applications
- Nothing added at setup — no joining fee, ever
- A domain free for year one when you order annually
- Site migration done for you by our staff, at no charge
- DDoS filtering handled out at the network edge
- Staging copies so changes get tested before they go live
- Mailboxes that carry your own domain name
Across the Counter
The questions we get asked most
Does any mail get lost while the DNS is switching over?
Not if you overlap. Sending servers retry for hours or days, so whichever end answers takes the message, and the second sync afterwards sweeps up whatever landed on the old side. Losing mail requires switching the old server off early — so do not.
Will you move our mailboxes across for us?
Yes, free with hosting, including the IMAP history sync and getting the DNS sequence right. Mail migration is exactly the kind of job where experience prevents the quiet losses, so hand it over and spend the afternoon elsewhere.
How quickly can I be up and running?
Minutes, not days. The account opens the moment the order clears, the domain — free for year one on annual plans — attaches straight away, and the one-click installer puts WordPress or any of 400+ applications on the page before you leave your chair. Already have a site elsewhere? Hand it over and we move it free, usually inside a day.
What uptime do you commit to, and who is watching?
We commit to 99.9% uptime and watch it continuously. That figure is an operational target rather than a poster line, and the alerting behind it usually has an engineer on a problem before the first customer notices anything is wrong.
What happens to my files if I leave?
The site and the files stay yours. Pull a full backup from the panel whenever you like, before or during cancellation. Domains remain registered in your name for the term you paid for and can move to any registrar once the standard 60-day window has passed.
Can one plan hold more than a single website?
From the Pro tier upward, yes — several sites, each with its own domain, mailboxes and certificate, all under one account. If those extra sites belong to clients rather than to you, reseller hosting is the better fit: it gives each one proper separation.
What does round-the-clock support actually stretch to?
People at the counter at every hour, and a scope that takes in the practical work: mailbox setup, DNS records, WordPress trouble, restores. Not 'the server responds, ticket closed'. Ask us something hard before you order — the reply is a fair sample of what you would get afterwards.
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Packing up and moving host? Take our checklist.
A plain running order for a move nobody notices: what to copy first, how to carry email across without dropping a single message, when to point DNS, and the two slips behind nearly every hour of downtime we get called about.
Give your website a proper home.
Every plan carries the essentials other hosts ring up as extras — and support that actually replies.
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