- You likely only changed DNS records, so old mail is still sitting on the previous mail servers. icloud isn't a 'typical' mail server so migrating old email to it would really just be copying all of those old emails into your single icloud mailbox. what've you done so far will only affect new email being sent to the domains you've imported to icloud.
- icloud aliases all of your custom domains to the single icloud mailbox. So no, you won't have separate mailboxes for each 'account', everything will happen within the one mailbox.
- configure thunderbird for your icloud account/mailbox only since all of the emails point to that single destination.
this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2023
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Perfect answer. Thank you.
What do i have to do to copy the mails from 2023? I (think I) have no access to the old mailserver but i have all the copies in my thunderbird.
I am a little bit disappointed. I have three accounts to separate different kind of work and private stuff. So I have to work with folders and rules?
Got it.
Prepare to be continually disappointed. I switched my domain over when it was first announced, and although it certainly works, there are definitely some needed features lacking. Other than centralizing how emails are delivered, there isn't much of a benefit to using a custom email domain. Plus, I've yet to find an iOS app (other than Mail) that works with them.
Regarding migration, have you tried simply dragging and dropping the email from the old account onto the new one? I haven't used T-bird for this, but it works in Mail.
Could you elaborate on what features are missing? I'm currently using mailbox.org as an email host, but considering swapping over to iCloud+
Sure. By far the biggest issue is once you do it you are locked into using default iOS/MacOS mail apps. I’ve yet to find an alternative email client that can distinguish between your default iCloud account and your custom address.
Receiving email isn’t the issue, it’s replying from your custom address. I suppose a client that can use email aliases would work, but honestly I stopped looking for one on iOS.
It isn’t all bad though. Using iCloud’s storage and system basically means you don’t need to pay for a mail account at your domain registrar.
Thanks! Although I'm using Android; and since I need aliases with mailbox.org anyway, presumably I have that covered with K-9. For MacOS I'm happy with the default Mail client anyhow; it's nice enough to hold all my stuff that isn't browser based.
Their web client seemed kind of crappy, but usable at least, if I remember right. Not often I need to log in from a computer that I don't own, but once in a while it comes in handy.
I am ok with the mail-app.
You are right: Tested to drag an old mail in thunderbird from the old account to the new icloud-account and it worked! Also works in the apple-mail-app but i do not have a mac, so it is easier in thunderbird in my case.
For migrating your best bet is probably Thunderbird or Outlook, whatever you prefer. Use that app to export a copy of your mailbox from the old mail servers, then import all of those into your single icloud mailbox using the same application.
I've never migrated mail into an icloud mailbox though so there may be some hiccups there that I'm not aware of.
Seems to work in thunderbird. Thanks
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There's an article on Apple Support about importing mail here: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/icloud/mmf9877972f7/1.0/icloud/1.0
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I think this is a Thunderbird issue. They are separate in Mail.app. It even allows you to use a catch-all rule if you're the domain owner. Maybe you could set up smart mailboxes (or whatever the Thunderbird equivalent is, I've not used it in probably 15 years)?
1: there’s a third party app called MailJerry - I’ve used it before for these types of migrations
2: if you set the mail rules on iCloud.com, the emails will go in to their respective folders at the server level and you won’t need to configure it every time you set up a mail client.
1: Seems too late in my case. I yet edited the DNS-configuration so i do not have access to the old servers.
2: YES! This looks good! Will try this. THANKS
You can still access the mail without the dns entries.
If you used to enter, say for example mail.domain.com in your mail client. That would have pointed to an IP address of a mail server.
Use that IP address instead of the domain name.
I used to do email migration for a web design company and it happened all the time where dns switched before email was migrated.
If your email was hosted by a third party like Google etc then the dns won’t matter.
- I did not see the + to import mails but this would not work either because the old mailservers do not work anymore.
...
For #3, you need to log in to your iCloud account, head to the profile and security options, and make an application password.
Thunderbird will find all the appropriate settings once you provide your main iCloud email, and you just need to use the application password and everything will just work.
Just found it. Thank you. But there are is also only one account and only the mails that came in after i configured icloud+.
Thunderbird doesn't understand aliases by default (apple's mail apps on MacOS and iOS do). You'd need to add the alias under Account Settings -> Manage Identities for each alias (which is any custom email domain accounts you add, assuming you want to send mail as that user). There is only one account: the iCloud login. Everything else is treated as an alias, and doesn't create its own inbox - everything goes into the singular inbox.
As the other posts said, email won't migrate automatically. The easy way to do it, though, is setup your old email and the iCloud email in email and just drag and drop your email from the old email to your new iCloud one.
I just created a backup with all my old emails and imported it into the icloud mailbox