Transferring Email accounts via IMAP from server to server??

M

modem

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Apr 7, 2004
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I was told the other day that it was possible to transfer the email data
(folders, emails, attachments, etc) by doing something called an IMAP pull from
one server off of another server. Is this possible? Using the IMAP protocol to transfer the file/folder/data structure of all email accounts on one server to that on another server??

Here's why I'm asking. Currently I have email hosting for one of my
domains with everyone.net hosting service. I've had that since 1998 long before my webhosting days. My goal is to get away from their awful looking web interface onto my own hosting servers.

I haven't decided if I would use roundcube/atmail/squirrelmail, etc. I'm thinking about possibly not using those and using something that has a full server & client suite like Zimbra or the full version of atmail.

My question is... is such a thing like "IMAP Pulling" legit, or would I basically have to mass email all several hundred of those clients and say print your emails out because I can't save them??

Bradley
 
Does everyone.net allow you to backup the IMAP folders? If so, perhaps you can back them up and figure out later how to restore them to DirectAdmin (it may be anywhere from easy to hard, depending on how everyone.net IMAP is configured).

Otherwis your users can transfer email between accounts (or you can for them if you have their password information), but it's neither easy nor quick. There's a good explanation of what's required here.

Jeff
 
Thanks for the reply about that. Unfortunately at the moment, my 'admin' account with everyone.net does NOT have IMAP access/controls over the those who have signed up for email service. If I want IMAP access, I would have to specify to everyone.net I am ready to remove the data to a new server and until I tell them I am, they won't even quote me a cost on that so I am not doing anything until I research this more.

I looked at the article you linked to and it appears that this would be a time consuming manual process of getting the username/passwords (everyone.net charges $50 to get access to that) then using OE to download and upload to a new server which could take days or a week or more. Of course that would mean the data would be out of sync or they'd be locked out of email for a long time period.

At this point I may tell them to print out their emails and data will be deleted if I decide to go another route.
 
It appears everyone.net does everything they can to keep you from leaving. Thanks for warning us.

Jeff
 
You are probably right and that's the feeling I've been getting that they are being very intentionally un-cooperative on letting me go. I initially asked for a copy of the data that could be exported and re-imported into a mail server say Zimbra for example. I was emphatically told no that it was not possible to export the data at all. Then of course all the costs for everything in between really shows they don't want to let me or any customer go without using the clients email data as a hostage.
 
They should be ashamed.
If I were you I'd definitely write a negative note on webhostingtalk.com then notify them of your action, it's amazing how that forum can easily oil things up :)
 
Tillo - I have thought of that, but it's still a bit premature for me to do that at this point. I haven't decided on a email server/client combo to use that I would want to import my data too. I'm still on the fence of using the DirectAdmin default clients along with Exim/Dovecot combo.

However I want to keep all of those free email clients under a separate non-DA area on my server. Email packages like AtMail and Zimbra (many others I know) have their own server & client packages with their own webbased email administration areas. That's sort of what I'm looking for.

Until that time arrives, I'm not sure about contacting Webhostingtalk and saying that Everyone.Net is being intentionally stingy with client data. Though that is a card I'm holding up my sleeve for once the time is right.
 
Hello, I know this is very old, did you ever find a way to get your emails out? I am in the same predicament

Tony
 
Not the answer, but maybe a quick solution.

Add your "old" IMAP account to some application like MS Outlook, and add your "new" IMAP account also.

Then draw the e-mails from "old" to "new".

I guess easiest way is DirectAdmin back-up transfer. But this works also when they don't use DirectAdmin at all.

(more, maybe better solutions are most welcome)
 
Tony,

I have been working on a solution for this as time has permitted. I contacted Everyone.net back in October and as of then, they can NOT export passwords for the accounts. Also they will make IMAP access available for around $100 for every 50 accounts.

My solution has been two fold. First, I wrote a script that lays on my website that collects the usernames and passwords of those who log in with their accounts. Secondly is I'm using an IMAP script I found online that will allow me to take user names (that I got from everyone.net), the passwords I collected, and have it auto log in to each individual account on Everyone.net, sync the data up with my server, log out, goto the next account, and do so till done.

Mind you, it's in theory, I haven't done the imap syncing on a grand scale, but it works GREAT when running it via command line from linux for one account one at a time.

Bradley
 
Tony, I'm not sure why you're double-posting. Please don't. I've closed the other thread, though I've left my reply.

The part I don't understand is why you don't have and can't get, the passwords, since you imply you have the right to move the accounts.

Scraping passwords people use to login without them knowing it may or may not be legal in your jurisdiction; while I'm not an attorney, I am located in California, and I can say with certainty that California law (Everyone.net is located in Sunnyvale, California) can be interpreted to make it illegal.

Of course if you're the site owner or the reseller you should be able to change your clients' passwords.

Why can't you just ask your clients?

Jeff
 
Jeff,

Thanks for your response. Sorry about the double posting. I found the thread on a Google search and posted. I saw that the last entry was 2 years back and thought that nobody was going to see this so it appeared to make more sense to start a new thread.


Tony
 
Jeff, regarding the legality of obtaining the passwords, I didn't consider it to be an issue. We are an email provider and issued the passwords in the first place. The customer then can change it whenever they want. We have determined that over 70% of them are unchanged and not a problem. Customer's call us from time to time when they have forgotten it. Everyone.net used to display the password on the admin screen but no longer. We now just issue a new password when the customer has forgotten. As far as contacting a couple of thousand customers and telling them we are changing their email service and we need their password may not be a good thing. We hope to make this transparent as possible with little or no effects on the customer other than better service. Thanks for bringing that up though.

Tony
 
Thanks, Tony, for the clarification. I hope you didn't take my points personally; I try hard to supply enough information in posts to help others, not just the original poster. I simply wouldn't want the casual visitor, searching Google for a way to scrape passwords, to find the post and think it was okay to do under all circumstances.

Obviously under your circumstances you should have the right to manage the account and the passwords.

I'm not sure you realize this or not, but:

DirectAdmin doesn't store email passwords in clear-text and cannot retrieve them (and that was probably why Everyone.net couldn't either). But as long as you have root shell access to your DirectAdmin server you can save the password file, which as long as the new server uses the same encryption method, should allow you to copy over the passwords.

Jeff
 
Bradley,

Thanks for your reply. I think I need to do something similar. Customer logins to their websites aren't always the same as their email logins though so I need to get them from an email login. I'm thinking that I change the mx records for the domain to point to mail server emulator that captures the info and sends their request to the outsourced server to complete the transaction. Then I can use a script like imapsync to move all the accounts to another server. I need to find whether this would work under directadmin.

Tony
 
script

modem said:
Tony,

I have been working on a solution for this as time has permitted. I contacted Everyone.net back in October and as of then, they can NOT export passwords for the accounts. Also they will make IMAP access available for around $100 for every 50 accounts.

My solution has been two fold. First, I wrote a script that lays on my website that collects the usernames and passwords of those who log in with their accounts. Secondly is I'm using an IMAP script I found online that will allow me to take user names (that I got from everyone.net), the passwords I collected, and have it auto log in to each individual account on Everyone.net, sync the data up with my server, log out, goto the next account, and do so till done.

Mind you, it's in theory, I haven't done the imap syncing on a grand scale, but it works GREAT when running it via command line from linux for one account one at a time.

Bradley
Click to expand...

Bradley,

would you be willing to share this script? I have been looking for a solution to switch accounts from Plesk to DA for a while and I have very few accounts and this sounds like a winner to me!
 
Ryan, check your private inbox for my reply.

ryandenis said:
Bradley,

would you be willing to share this script? I have been looking for a solution to switch accounts from Plesk to DA for a while and I have very few accounts and this sounds like a winner to me!
Click to expand...
 
I thought I had replied to this but realized I hadn't and wanted to clarify a few things too. Like Tony, I have no intention on scraping passwords from users, but rather Everyone.net has very much limited the ability as an administrator to perform very basic functions with user accounts. In fact Everyone.net has taken away the ability to list all users in a single screen without ordering a 'report' from them that requires me and other admins using their infrastructure to pay for just seeing what users they have.

Like Tony, my business has issued all of the accounts and their passwords initially and have (or at least did as long as Everyone.net doesn't remove features) full administrative access. The goal is to make a transition from one platform to another very painless and smooth. The email users I have are very loyal and any downtime they have experienced has resulted in very quick and concerned phone calls to my office.

That is why I came up with the idea of 'catching' passwords in a custom script that runs as they log in. Those passwords will be eventually dumped into a script so that the script reads the account name and passwords, performs and IMAP pull of the data to the new server in a quick and efficient manner.

I appreciate the concern regarding lawful jurisdiction and potential legal matters. Because of that I do NOT encourage the average person who reads this forum to do this without checking out laws first. Thankfully it's ok in my jurisdiction. As well I won't be just handing this script out lest someone takes it and advertises it elsewhere where it could be unlawful or at least leaving users feeling violated with their service.

I have notified my users that while I'm not scraping the passwords, that I will be "preparing to move their accounts from one server to another" and thus are OK with that. My own personal ethics dictate that this happens in a secure area of our office without anyone else being apart of this to ensure no user account data is breached or viewed in anyway by no one.





jlasman said:
Thanks, Tony, for the clarification. I hope you didn't take my points personally; I try hard to supply enough information in posts to help others, not just the original poster. I simply wouldn't want the casual visitor, searching Google for a way to scrape passwords, to find the post and think it was okay to do under all circumstances.

Obviously under your circumstances you should have the right to manage the account and the passwords.

I'm not sure you realize this or not, but:

DirectAdmin doesn't store email passwords in clear-text and cannot retrieve them (and that was probably why Everyone.net couldn't either). But as long as you have root shell access to your DirectAdmin server you can save the password file, which as long as the new server uses the same encryption method, should allow you to copy over the passwords.

Jeff
Click to expand...
 
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