# How to migrate from kmail to gmail? [solved]

## gcasillo

I recently decided to shut down my home mail server and use Google Apps/GMail for all of my e-mail needs. Very happy so far, but I need to figure out a way to migrate/export a bunch of old work e-mails to my GMail account. I used KMail and my work account used a maildir setup. Unfortunately, GMail doesn't have much of an e-mail import for local directories.

Any recommendations on how to move a few hundred e-mails to GMail relatively quickly and painlessly?Last edited by gcasillo on Thu Jul 01, 2010 2:43 am; edited 1 time in total

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## mikegpitt

I did this years ago when I switched my company's email over from GoDaddy to Google for Domains.  The process I used is a bit rusty in my head now, but I believe I set up a mail client to access the new GMail account as well as the old email account.  (I used Thunderbird for the transfer, but I guess you can use KMail.)  Then I simply copied over all the emails to the new account.  At the time Gmail only supported POP3, but I'm guessing the process would work identical with IMAP.

The only issue that this approach has is that all your past emails will have the same date, but should at least be in sequential order.  GMail's search features are great, so you shouldn't have too many problems locating older emails.

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## gcasillo

Thanks for your suggestion. That's what I ended up dong. Just creating a connection to the GMail server and copying over e-mails. Took a while but it worked.

Definitely worth mentioning the caveat again that e-mails that are moved over lose their original timestamp. That really blows, because I have e-mails back a couple of years when I first met my wife, and it'd be REALLY nice if I could refer to the e-mails by those original dates. It mystifies me that Google hasn't come up with any worthwhile importer. Oh well.

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