Slashdot Mirror
Transferring Mail from AOL?
Bazooka Joel asks: "My father has been a long time user of AOL. He subscribed to AOL's dialup service about 5 years ago and created his first email account with their services. We now have cable internet from a local company, but he still pays $15 a month just to access his email. I have tried to get him to switch to Gmail, but he is stubborn. He finally relented and said that if I could forward all of his old mail (thousands of messages) and import his contact list into Gmail, he would cancel his AOL subscription. After searching the 'net, I found a way to import his contacts. However, I cannot find a program that will forward all of his old mail. Can anybody lend me a hand?"
A quick google turned this up:
http://aoleave.com/
It looks to be exactly what you are looking for, but it seems to be a little out of date so it may not necessarily work.
You could use IMAP to grab the mail off of AOL's servers in any IMAP-capable email client, according to their site.
Netscape allows you to get your AOL mail via IMAP (at least it used to). You could download it that way, and then use one of the various utilities out there to forward your mail to Gmail (Google for them). Some do a simple forward and everything looks like it came from you, and others I think are a bit smarter about it (I think they use redirect instead of forward).
Or, if that doesn't sound appealing, here's a better idea:
AOL Mail supports IMAP. Gmail supports POP3. Download Mozilla Thunderbird (or some other e-mail client) and set up two accounts for it (the gmail and AOL). The one application will then allow him to receive all his old AOL e-mails and any new e-mail that may be sent to his new gmail account.
Don't cancel the AOL account right away. Have him start by sending all new emails from gmail, even if they are received by AOL. Within two or three months, all his contacts should be sending mail to the new address.
For reference, the AOL Incoming Mail Server (IMAP) is imap.aol.com (port 143). By default, POP3 is not enabled in gmail. To turn it on, click "settings" from the main in-box page and then "forwarding and POP"
An effective signature identifies a particular user amongst a base of thousands.
Can you download the email from AOL, or is it webmail only? I would look at a combination of fetchmail http://www.catb.org/~esr/fetchmail/ to get the mail and gmail loader http://www.marklyon.org/gmail/ to load it to gmail.
Even if the AOL email is webmail only, someone may have a tool to get the email and put it into mbox format. A quick google shows that web2pop http://www.jmasoftware.com/english/ might be helpful.
What ever way you go, it'll probably be held together with spit and duct tape, but it's only a one time thing.
Good luck.
Using any box with mutt running on it:
- mutt imaps://user@imap.aol.com
- tag everything using "t"
- hit "b" (bounce all tag messages to:)
username@gmail.com
And you're done.
I haven't done this with AOL, per say, but I did it with a few other imap mailboxes I had to transfer everything to gmail.
I found this app, called GMail Loader:
http://www.marklyon.org/gmail/
I'd actually recomend his dad downgrade his AOL service to the $5/mo service so he can still use his AOL.
I hope the OP knows that if anything breaks with the new setup he's forcing onto his Dad, it's going to be his fault. Instead I'd recomend he save his Dad some money.
/* oops I accidentally made a comment, sorry */
If you can access the email via POP, then just use fetchmail.
Use the flags --smtphost gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com and --smtpname YOURDADSEMAIL@gmail.com
Should do the trick.
Although this is a little OT, the app says it doesn't have support for outlook pst files, but does for thunderbird. IIRC, thunderbird can import pst files, so outlook-->thunderbird-->gmail may work for those who want to go outlook->gmail.
http://members.aol.com/adamkb/aol/mailfaq/imap/
You can download new messages, old messages, saved messages, etc. Combined with an IMAP-aware utility that can download all mail from an account (imapsync, fetchmail, whatever) you're set.
I'm not sure how AOL works, but you can give Mark Lyon's handy little application a try to forward the old mail to a gmail account. You could download your AOL emails to some local Unix style mailbox and use the app after. There is IMAP support planned, but it's not implemented yet as far as I know. Hope that helps. If not, mod me down!
Why not set up the IMAP inbox for AOL in any sane mail client, download the mail. Reconfigure the client for POP and gmail. Problem is solved.
i hate pansy republicans
or you can do it for free with ypops.
http://yahoopops.sourceforge.net/
Like this comment? I accept Bitcoin! - 153sc8UUBXyp12ofQqfAWDmJrzyiKCYC1x