The Migration Process

You have successully completed testing and are comfortable with immediately using the new mailbox.nova.org server.

There are two types of migration, and it depends on whether you use the POP or IMAP protocols for electronic mail.
IMAP is good. POP is bad. Use IMAP!

IMAP

1. You have tested your new IMAP account, it works and you can see your (empty?) IMAP folders on the new server.
2. Configure both old and new accounts to use outbound SMTP on the new mailbox server. Confirm this works by testing.
3. COPY (DO NOT MOVE!) messages from your OLD mail.nova.org IMAP account to your NEW mailbox.nova.org IMAP account.
4. Copy all your IMAP folders, including the ones you are forgetting (like Sent and Draft), not just only your INBOX.
5. Ensure that your mail is on the new server just as you would expect.
6. DELETE all your old email on the OLD mail.nova.org IMAP server.
7. Request via email to technical@nova.org to change the delivery location of your email to the INBOX on mailbox.nova.org.
8. Keep reading email on both IMAP accounts, and copy/delete any new messages on the old server, to the NEW server.

The NVIAC postmaster will now change the delivery location of your email from the old server to the new server.

• The postmaster will double check that your old mail.nova.org INBOX is empty
• If it is, the old account and empty INBOX will be deleted.
• If it not, the account will remain until the INBOX is empty.

If and when the postmaster deletes your old account, you will notice that IMAP is now failing in your email client for the old mail.nova.org server
Delete your old mail.nova.org IMAP client configuration. You have officially migrated.

POP

POP, unlike IMAP, forces email to be copied to a local file store on your personal computer. Yes, the POP option exists, you can "leave messages on the server". But that is impossible to synchronize effectively between multiple email clients, and often times users forget to delete the old messages from the INBOX. In past years, users refusing to clean out their INBOX caused our server to run out of disk space. On the new server there is a disk space new limit of 1GB per user. If you refuse to keep your INBOX empty, eventually your account will run out of disk space, and email will stop being delivered to your account.

1. You have tested your new POP account, it works and you can download email from the INBOX on the new mailbox.nova.org server.
2. For your old mail.nova.org POP account, ensure you have not configured your POP account to "leave messages on the server".
3. Double check make sure that you have deleted all the email on the old server. Use the squirrel mail web client to check: https://mail.nova.org
4. Configure both old and new accounts to use outbound SMTP on the new mailbox server. Confirm this works by testing.
5. Continue POPing mail from both your accounts, placing both into the same local file store on your personal computer.
6. Request via email to technical@nova.org to change the delivery location of your email to the INBOX on mailbox.nova.org.

The NVIAC postmaster will now change the delivery location of your email from the old server to the new server.

• The postmaster will double check that your old mail.nova.org INBOX is empty
• If it is, the old account and empty INBOX will be deleted.
• If it not, the account will remain until the INBOX is empty.

If and when the postmaster deletes your old account, you will notice that POP is now failing in your email client for the old mail.nova.org server
Delete your old mail.nova.org POP client configuration. You have officially migrated.