[SOLVED] Trying to migrate Mail from Vista machine to one with Win10

Aug 25, 2019
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For a relative who had for years been running Win Mail on her VIsta machine ...

She acquired a new machine with Windows 10 installed and I assisted with migrating all data over. Regarding the Mail system, I opened Mail on the Vista machine and clicked Export for all her Mail data, including Contacts.

Once the Win10 machine was booted, I opened the Mail utility and presumed I would be taken to a launch window that presented, among perhaps other things, an Import button. Not so !!!

To my surprise and disappointment, the first screen that appears is one asking me to select an account (within a drop-down window)!!

Is there no way to simply bring in the Exported Mail files to the Mail app in Windows 10 ??
 
Solution
IMAP is absolutely superior, and not only because you can access from multiple devices (whether you need to or not).

It's biggest advantage comes when you decide to either get a new computer or switch e-mail clients. When you do that and are using IMAP, you just set up your account again and, voila, everything is there. No muss, fuss, exporting, importing, etc. A server side protocol prevents the need for any of this. You also have the added advantage of having your e-mail consistently backed up by the service provider, as you can be sure that any professional data center is not allowing the content they store to go without routine cyclic backup, often multiple times per day.

The server names are not given by Microsoft, but by...
Aug 25, 2019
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Thanks for your response but I do not know if IMAP was the format. I suspect it was POP3.

The preference is to use Win10 Mail for this person as that's what she's used to. If you can provide detailed, fool-proof directions on how to port the earlier Win Mail into another platform, e.g., Thunderbird, I'm all ears. Outlook is unfortunately not an option for her.

You mentions "once the account is set up " She's on a CenturyLink account. I want to attach the first screen that is launched, where Windows mail is insisting that you select from the the listed options an "Account", but this forum will not let you upload an image or file (without URL). Coming from the earlier Vista scenario, the choices make no sense whatsoever.
 

britechguy

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Jul 2, 2019
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I truly have no idea what you're referring to. In any e-mail client I have ever used the first thing you MUST do is to set up an account before you can ever import or export anything. You simply have to do it first.

You also need to check to see what access method is being used on the existing e-mail client. If it is (or was) IMAP then this is all a moot point, as no importing will be necessary.

I have to imagine that you still have access to the original machine and e-mail, don't you? Check out exactly how the account is set up in the existing email client. Once the access method is known I can at least try to give specific advice.
 
Aug 25, 2019
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Firstly, for CaptainCharisma, Outlook is not an option on the Win10 machine.

I understand this Britechguy, but nothing in the list jumped out at me as appropriate:
(Why doesn't this forum allow pasting or attaching files ????!!!!) Ugggh

Outlook.com
Exchange
Google
Yahoo
iCloud
Other account (POP/IMAP)


The server in question is 'q.com', which is related to CenturyLink.
Next time I;m there. I may try 'Other account" and see where that leads ...
 
D

Deleted member 14196

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Other account is what you want. It should allow you to set up the pop three email account and then you should be able to import
 
Aug 25, 2019
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OK ... Within Winmail 'Add Account', I was able to find 'Other Account' and added the email account. Within fairly short order - as other here said - it downloaded all the messages from the server - all 400 of them!

Many messages had accumulated over the years because my relative had never set a switch to clear the messages from the server upon download - a practice I have used for years in Outlook.

I want to make this setting within Winmail. Unfortunately, I do not find this switch within Winmail. Under Account Settings, all I see is:

Change mailbox sync settings
Options for syncing your content


This leads to a single sync option for email: ON/Off

Finally, at the very bottom of this screen (which I can't display here) is Advanced Mailbox Settings
This again presents the sync option switch (On/Off) but no "Clear messages off he server after each download" switch !!

Any thoughts?
 

britechguy

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Jul 2, 2019
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What server? And by that I mean are you dealing with an IMAP server (which usually has a name beginning with imap) or a POP server?

You do not delete messages from the server for IMAP, which is by intent, so everything can be viewed from multiple devices. They are only deleted when you actually delete the message from your inbox or whatever folder you've filed it in.

My guess is you are using IMAP, and if so, there's nothing more to do other than, perhaps, to spend a little time actually getting rid of old e-mail that is not needed for any future reference.
 
Aug 25, 2019
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I understand and am aware of everything you are saying. Thanks.
My guess was that it was POP3, though the behavior I have been seeing suggests it may be IMAP.

It is Qwest (Addresses are of format ***@q.com), whihc ius somehow married to CenturyLink. I may have to check wit the ISP provider to verify which flavor (POP3 or IMAP) it is, unless you may happen to know.
 

britechguy

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Jul 2, 2019
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All I can find indicates that Centurylink (in all its guises) uses only POP. And, thus, if you look at the account settings you are likely to find an incoming mail server that begins with "pop" if that's what's been set up.

They may be one of the very few holdouts that don't support IMAP. I haven't used anything but IMAP almost since its debut as a common protocol. I'd rather my e-mail messages stay on servers in data centers that are subject to much more frequent and rigorous backup protocols than I have for my own machine at home.
 

britechguy

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SMTP is the outgoing mail protocol, and it doesn't matter whether you're using IMAP or POP for incoming, you will be using SMTP for outgoing.

There are always two servers, incoming and outgoing.

Example incoming:

Incoming_IMAP_Server.jpg


Example Outgoing, after the Outgoing Server control above the arrow shown above is activated:

Outgoing_SMTP_Server.jpg


Since INCOMING port 993 is virtually always used for IMAP (see above in Incoming example) you are almost certainly using IMAP.
 
Aug 25, 2019
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Unfortunately, MS Winmail presents no windows as clear and information-rich as the ones you presented. BTW, how did you manage to paste those in ???

Since my post yesterday (and before you last one), I searched on Google (a link similar to what Ketchup listed) and found this from CenturyLink.net:

For POP3, Incoming Server uses Port 995
For IMAP, Incoming Server uses Port 993


It's most unfortunate that Winmail does not echo the account type (POP3 or IMAP) in any of its windows !!!
The only thing it does is, on the Advanced Mailbox Settings, present '993' - I guess presumimg users woudlbe smart enough to translate this to IMAP. Outlook (for example) is never this cryptic - it always spells out POP3 or IMAP. A smarter (certainly more user-friendly) way to dieplay the account on that page might have been something like:
IMAP.centurylink.net:993.1

NOT mail.centurylink.net:993.1

Can I please get an amen?


Now that we're past that, I may find a way to switch the mail type to POP3, which probably must be done on the CenturyLink side. In this sense, I disagree w/ Ketchup (and many others who prefer IMAP). IMAP is fine if youneed to access from several sources. Many of us don't have that need.

I now roll back to the earlier part of my post:
What's up with Sync switch? Does anyone have any experience or guidance on this switch setting?
 

britechguy

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IMAP is absolutely superior, and not only because you can access from multiple devices (whether you need to or not).

It's biggest advantage comes when you decide to either get a new computer or switch e-mail clients. When you do that and are using IMAP, you just set up your account again and, voila, everything is there. No muss, fuss, exporting, importing, etc. A server side protocol prevents the need for any of this. You also have the added advantage of having your e-mail consistently backed up by the service provider, as you can be sure that any professional data center is not allowing the content they store to go without routine cyclic backup, often multiple times per day.

The server names are not given by Microsoft, but by the e-mail service provider. So if you find those cryptic (and I'm not saying they aren't) it isn't Microsoft you should be blaming.

Tom's Hardware does not host images. You must host images you wish to use elsewhere. Many people use imgur or other photo hosting site. Once they're hosted somewhere, if you want them presented inline in a message then you use the image control (immediately to the right of the link control) and paste in the URL of the hosted image.

I have the Mail App set up on another machine, and I'm going to try to get some screen shots from it to answer your questions (since you're not the first, nor last, to ask them). You absolutely can see something nearly as detailed as the Thunderbird screen shots I presented, but without the settings that are specific to Thunderbird itself, for the Mail App.
 
Solution

britechguy

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First, so I'm not "reinventing the wheel" please take a look at the HowToGeek article, How to Set Up and Customize Email Accounts in Windows 10.

If you want to see the server settings for a given account under the Win10 Mail App:

1. Hit the settings icon (gear) at the bottom of the control bar on the left side of the Mail App window.

2. In the list of Settings that appears on the right, choose the Manage Accounts option.

3. In the list of account(s) that appears in the Manage Accounts dialog, select the one you need to deal with.

4. In the Account Settings dialog that now opens, activate the Change mailbox sync settings control.

5. At the very bottom, there is the Advanced mailbox settings control. Activate it.

6. After activating multiple fields will appear, the first of which is your incoming mail server and port, the second of which is your outgoing server and port. These are reasonably self explanatory (and if they aren't, then do a web search on things you don't know about based on the labels presented).
 
Aug 25, 2019
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One additional comment about POP3 vs. IMAP.

Others here (Ketchup79 & Brian) have argued that IMAP is ideal for the sake of perserving email messages. I get that. But with POP3, using mail clients like Outlook (I'm sure others as well), there is a switch to request that messages either be retained on the serve or cleared upon download.

So, it strikes me that if one had POP3 and the setting to retain messages, this woud be functionally equivalent to IMAP. Is this thinking right?
 

britechguy

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The answer to your question is, "Yes and no."

There is no instance using POP, at least that I know of, where messages can be retained on the server "in perpetuity." You can tell it to retain them for some set period after they are first downloaded, but that's it, and I doubt that anything has changed about POP.

IMAP retains all messages until they are deleted, and if you have a Trash folder, actually after if you consider the Trash folder as deleted. You usually get something like 30 days until your e-mail client itself tells the server to nuke items in the Trash folder once they reach that age.

POP is an anachronism that was retained mostly for compatibility. If people really, really want local copies of their entire e-mail message for important messages, then they can create a folder within the e-mail client that is a local, not IMAP, folder and copy those rare few messages there.

Since I have never, over the course of many, many years now, had a message lost that is kept on an IMAP server managed in a data center it is not at the top of my list of concerns. In fact, it's probably very near the bottom. I've got the proverbial better things to worry about.
 
The problem with POP3 using the keep option is email deletion. POP3 will not delete selective message from an email server, it's all or nothing. So if you download and delete emails from 2 different computers, it won't take long for them to get out of sync.

I am not sure why on earth one would want POP3 over IMAP unless you were in one of the few places where IMAP wasn't available (and even then, web-based services that do offer it are available for free).
 

britechguy

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I am not sure why on earth one would want POP3 over IMAP unless you were in one of the few places where IMAP wasn't available

You and I are in complete agreement. Try as I might, and I have tried, I cannot find any advantage of any sort in POP3 over IMAP.

Lots of people seem to want to cling to it for reasons that completely elude me, and that when explained often contain misunderstandings of how e-mail works in general and how the protocols themselves actually work.