Because of its excellent search facilities, it makes sense to import old emails into GMail and use that as archive facility. It is very easy to do with IMAP, but it can take time.

The old python GMail utility by Mark Lyon

Back in the day, I used a python gmail app by Mark Lyon to do the job. Than google changed some of its settings and it stopped working, so I gave up on the idea for a while.

A few years later I decided to have another look to see whether things are changed – and they have. About a year and a half ago, Google introduced its Google Email Uploader for Outlook / Windows users. For the rest of us, there’s something even easier: IMAP.

Setting up GMail IMAP on OS X

First of all, I created a GMail account purely for archiving. Then, still on the GMail page, I click on ‘Settings’, ‘Forwarding and POP/IMAP’. There I enable both POP and IMAP.

Then on the mail application on my Mac (I use GyazMail), I add the account I have just created, with imap.gmail.com as the mail server, the email address as username, and the password. “Require SSL port” is ticked, and the port number is 993. I have also GyazMail set up so that it only checks the main (Inbox) folder.

Using IMAP to import mail into Google

I split my mail into folders, then I go through this procedure for each (and here you see why this could be timeconsuming):

• in the mail program, I export the folder as an MBOX on my machine – you never know, Google may decide to go funny and then I’d have lost all my emails
• still in the mail program, I drag all the emails to the GMail inbox – this part can be slow
• when that is done, the original folder in the mail program will be empty. I switch to GMail in a web browser
• I select all the mails I have just imported, and give them a label. Because they are labelled, and GyazMail is set to only read the Inbox, they will disappear from my mail program
• Delete the folder and start again from the next one

The process can be quite slow, but I do it in the background as I go along, so it’s not too bad.