Migrating pop3 outlook account back to imap

[dee001]

Hello everyone, I got a customer that setup their google suite account in outlook using Pop3 years ago and now wants to go IMAP so they can see all of their folders from outlook on other devices.

My question is what would be the best way to go about this switch, their pst file is like 17GB. They also have outlook set to keep all mail on the mail server, so inside their google suite mail server is all of their mail inside of the inbox but not organized in folders.

I was thinking of doing this over the weekend and delete all mail on the google server, then set up the same email account in outlook but using IMAP and then move the mail from one account to the other inside of outlook, but the last time I tried this route it took forever and created a mess. Any suggestions

 

[johnrobert]

Never done it but have a similar job coming up, seems like your on the right track.

 

[Sky-Knight]

I would make sure the PST has a current copy of the mail, then move all the stuff in the mailbox online into an old mail folder, reconfigure outlook to be IMAP, then import the PST.

Yes it will take ages... But there is no other way.

 

[Markverhyden]

Starting several years ago I noticed that the email providers had switched POP only accounts to actually include IMAP. Meaning if you just setup the account again as IMAP everything will show up. I know this was the case with Earthlink. Log into their webmail interface and see if everything is still there. If so then it's IMAP and just adding it again as IMAP will grab everything. Of course you do need to have a backup anyways of the PST just in case.