Moving Personal Mail from Exchange 2007 to Google Apps
Now that I’ve joined NetConnix, I don’t see the need to spend close to $30/month on Exchange 2007 hosting for my mailbox. I started looking around a few days ago and considered Google Apps but initially dismissed it due to the lack of IMAP support. Strangely enough, I was reading my RSS feeds this morning and noticed this entry on Slashdot about Google finally adding IMAP support. I was sold, so started the transition this morning. It is a bit of work to transition from Exchange/Outlook to Google Apps I found out. I started researching and found this blog entry by Scott Hanselman which detailed the transition of his family to Google Apps. I wasn’t worried about my wife and kids – they’ve been using Google Apps on the phillfam.com domain for quite some time. I was, however, interested in exactly how I was going to move 2GB of mail from a PST to Google Apps. Scott Hanselman recommended gMove from limit none but being the cheapskate that I am I new there had to be a cheaper way, and there is, if a little bit time consuming. So, without further ado, the method I found to migrate my mail from Outlook 2007 to Google Apps for free is as follows;
- Launch Outlook Express
- Setup IMAP connection to Google Apps
- Import mail from Outlook to Outlook Express local folders
- Drag and drop mail from Local Folders to Google Inbox
It is most definitely not the fastest method on the planet – I’ve imported 240MB in over the past four hours – but definitely works if you’re not willing to spend the money for a software tool to do it for you.
After getting everything setup I switched my MX records about 4 hours ago and have already started receiving mail without issue. I’ve got all mail from jphillips(at)jphillips.us and jwp(at)phillfam.com redirecting to jeremy(at)jeremyphillips.org now so update your address books for my personal e-mail address.
If you’re interested in switching your domain to Google Apps now that IMAP is up and running, click the link below to sign up.
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