Smith College Technology And Resource Adviser

TRANSFERING MAIL TO ANOTHER SMITH MAIL ACCOUNT USING THUNDERBIRD

In an IMAP client like Thunderbird, you can set up multiple accounts and easily copy all the messages that have a given label (or individual messages) from one account to the other.

You must first enable IMAP access for both accounts and configure Thunderbird to access both accounts, then you can initiate the transfer. Just follow the instructions below.

Note: In this document, we will refer to the account from which messages are to be copied as the source account, and will call the account that is to receive the messages the target account.

PART ONE. Setting Up IMAP Access in Smith Mail

You must enable IMAP access in both the source and target Smith Mail accounts before you can perform the transfer process:

Go to Smith Mail (http://mail.smith.edu) and log in with your username and password.
Click the Options button (gear icon) at the top right of the Smith Mail page and choose Mail Settings.
Click the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab.
In the IMAP Access section, choose Enable IMAP.
Click Save Changes.
Source account only: Follow the instructions below if you wish to transfer only some of your mail to the target account.
Repeat steps 1-5 for the other account involved in the transfer.

Source Account Only: Limiting Which Labels Appear in the IMAP Client

After you enable IMAP for the source email account, if you don't want the entire account transferred, you can select which labels will be visible in Thunderbird (the intermediary IMAP client), as follows:

NOTE: You cannot choose to hide the Inbox label.

Click the gear icon at the top right of the Smith Mail page and choose Mail Settings.
Click on the Labels option.
Locate the Show in IMAP checkbox at the far right of each label name.
Place a check in the box beside each label you want to appear in the IMAP client, as shown below. Do not check the box for any label you do not want to appear in the IMAP client

PART TWO. Using Thunderbird to Transfer Files

If you don't already have Thunderbird installed on your computer:
1. Go to: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/
2. Download the Thunderbird Setup program to your desktop.
3. Double-click on the Thunderbird icon to launch the installer.
Open Thunderbird. The mail account setup process should begin automatically.

Click on File, New, Existing Mail Account.
Enter your name and Smith email address, then click Continue.
Thunderbird will automatically attempt to find mail server settings. When it’s done, the screen should look like this (with your username):
If you do not want the password to be saved for this account (you will have to type it in to access the email), uncheck the “Remember password” box.
Click Create Account. The account will appear at or near the top of the left column.
Repeat steps 2-6 for the other account.

PART 3. Transferring Mail from the Source Account to the Target Account

Click the Get Mail button, or open the File menu, select Get New Mail For, and select the first email account you want to check.
Repeat this process for the other account.

Once the mail lists have been updated for both accounts, click on the small arrow to the immediate left of the source account name to expose the list of folders for that account, as shown below.

Locate each folder you wish to transfer to the target account, click on it, and drag it onto the target account name.

To verify the transfer, click on the dropdown arrow to the left of the target account to expose the folder structure.

You may also drag individual messages onto folders in the target account.

When you are satisfied, you can remove the source account from Thunderbird if you wish:
1. Right-click on the source account name in the left panel and choose Settings.
2. On the Account Settings – yourname@smith.edu page, click on Account Actions at the bottom and choose Remove Account.