Switching an email account from POP to IMAP

POP accounts don’t support server-side synchronization of messages, such as showing whether you’ve read a message or not. When accessing your email from multiple devices you want to use an IMAP connectionon all computers/devices you use to check that email account.

With IMAP, your mail clients (apps) have a larger set of communication options with which to talk to the server, and most importantly the messages remain server-side for access on all devices.

All HIS -hosted email accounts support POP and IMAP

Here is an outline of the steps you’ll want to take with your mail app to switch from POP to IMAP. These steps will likely need to be completed on a computer rather than a tablet or mobile device as mail apps on those devices often don’t support transferring messages across accounts.

Before you start, make sure you know your email username (it is usually your email address) and password. You can check them by login to your Webmail account.

• Disable the POP account in your mail app, but do not remove it entirely
• Set up a new account of type IMAP using the configuration provided by your mail host. It’s recommended to name both the POP and IMAP account clearly so that you can tell them apart (most mail apps provide an option to name the account).
• Confirm the IMAP connection is working: make sure you can see your messages in the inbox and that you can receive and send mail. Now what to do with your old mail: Depending how ig is your POP mailbox, and how much disk space you have with IMAP on the server: You may leave it in the inactive POP mailbox, or move the messages to your new IMAP account, and they will be copied to the server. Make sure you have enough disk space to store them.
• Look for the local inbox connected to the POP account and select all messages within (or all recent messages if you only need access to the most recent ones). Drag them to the IMAP account inbox. This will copy the emails back to the server. With thousands of messages and/or a slow Internet connection this could take hours. Less messages and/or using a faster Internet connection should take less time.
• Log in to Webmail and confirm the messages are showing up.
• When all the messages you transferred to the IMAP account are visible under the IMAP account, it’s now safe to remove the POP account from your mail app.