Migrate email from an IMAP account

1. Sign in with a super administrator account to the Google Admin console.

   If you aren’t using a super administrator account, you can’t complete these steps.

2. Go to Menu  Data > Data import & export > Data Migration (New).
3. For IMAP, click Migrate.
4. For IMAP server address, select your server from the list or manually enter your server name (for example, imap.example.com).

   For assistance with this information, go to Connection information for common IMAP-based webmail providers.

5. Click Test connection.

   If the connection is successful, you get a Connected notification.

Connection information for common IMAP-based webmail providers

If your provider isn't listed here, check your provider's documentation for this information.

Once you connect your IMAP and Workspace accounts, you must map your users' email accounts to copy their email addresses to Workspace. The mapping options depend on the number of users in your organization. 

You need to provide each user's IMAP password and their IMAP and Workspace email addresses. Some IMAP servers require the user to create an application specific password (ASP). For details, go to Application specific passwords or your IMAP server documentation.

You can’t use the data migration service to migrate a single IMAP user to multiple Workspace users. You need to provide one-to-one or many-to-one mapping.

If you have 20 users or less

If your organization is small, you can directly enter information for each user that you’re migrating.

If you prefer to map your users with a comma-separated values (CSV) file, go to If you have more than 20 users. If you begin the following steps and then switch to the CSV upload process, the CSV file removes any data that you manually entered.

1. For IMAP email address, enter an IMAP email address for a user.
2. For IMAP password, enter the password for the user’s IMAP account.
3. For Workspace email address, select the user’s Workspace address from the list or enter it manually.
4. Click Add user.

   You can review the user’s IMAP and Workspace email addresses in a table after the text fields.

5. (Optional) To delete a user mapping, next to the user's row, click Remove . Removing the mapping doesn’t delete the user or their data.
6. Repeat this process for each user in your organization.
7. Click Save changes.

If you have more than 20 users

Create and upload a CSV file that contains an IMAP email address, IMAP password, and Workspace address for every IMAP user that you want to migrate. You can create a new CSV file with the required columns or download a sample file and add rows. The completed CSV file must be smaller than 128 MB.

You can migrate up to 100 IMAP users at a time. If you need to migrate additional users or folders, you must start another migration.

To create the CSV file:

1. Using your Workspace administrator account, open a spreadsheet program. Or, in the Admin console, click Download a sample CSV file.
2. In the first column, add the header Source ImapUser and enter the user’s IMAP email address.

   You can download a list of users from your Admin console. For details, go to Download a list of users.

3. In the second column, add the header Source ImapPassword and enter the password for the user’s IMAP account.
4. In the third column, add the header TargetGUser and enter the user’s Workspace email address.

   Example:

   Source ImapUser	Source ImapPassword	Target GUser
   user1@example.com	password1	user1@other-company.com
   user2@example.com	password2	user2@other-company.com

5. Save the spreadsheet as a CSV file.
6. Upload the file to the Google Admin console:
   1. In your Admin console, click Upload CSV.
   2. Select the fileclick Open.
   3. Click Tasks  to confirm that the file is successfully uploaded.
7. If the CSV file doesn't successfully upload:
   1. Select the file and click Delete Yes to confirm.
   2. Create a new file and try to upload again.

   If you encounter this issue more than once, contact Google Workspace support.

Select migration settings to specify the type of messages that migrate. You can adjust some or all of the following options:

1. Click Start date and enter the date that you want messages migrated from.

   The new data migration service migrates messages from the selected date to the date that you start the migration.

2. To migrate email messages that have been deleted, check the Migrate deleted emails box.
3. To migrate email messages with the Spam label, check the Migrate spam emails box.
4. If you don't want to migrate messages that have specific labels, check the Exclude specific folders from migration box, and enter the label names, separated by commas.

   For details, go to How to exclude folders from migration.

5. Click Save.

How to exclude folders from migration

• Enter each folder or subfolder separately.
• When you add a subfolder, use the full path and separate the parent folder from the subfolder with a forward slash (/).

  Example: You want to exclude the folder Travel and its child folder, Asia. To do so, you enter Travel,Travel/Asia.

You must be signed in as a super administrator for this task.

1. Click Start migration.

   This action also grants domain-wide delegation and creates a client ID for Data Migration (New) in the target account. For more information, go to Control API access with domain-wide delegation.

2. The status changes to In progress, and the following information is updated in real time:
   • Discovered tasks—Total number of items (messages, labels, and other tasks) that were migrated, skipped, or failed
   • Warning—Number of items that were migrated, but failed to complete as expected
   • Failed—Number of items that failed to migrate, due to an error
   • Skipped—Number of items that were skipped
   • Successful—Number of items that were migrated successfully
   • Users processed—Number of users whose migration has completed
   • Emails discovered—Number of email messages that were migrated, skipped, or failed
   • Emails migrated—Number of email messages that were migrated
   • Emails skipped—Number of email messages that were skipped
   • Emails failed–Number of email messages that failed to migrate

   When the migration is complete, you get an email with migration statistics. Any reports are attached.

3. To export and interpret the reports, go to Understand email migration reports.

Run a delta migration to migrate data that was added to the IMAP account after the migration. For details, go to Run a delta migration.