Help me move email accounts from Godaddy to our own server!

Why do you have to start by shutting off passwords? I'd do something like this: 1) Create new email accounts 2) Migrate existing email archives over 3) Change DNS / MX records to point to new servers 4) Send users login/access info for new email accounts 5) Cut off old accounts only when everything is known to be migrated successfully In other words, you may have a (brief) period, presumably late at night on a weekend, when nobody can access their email, because the DNS change is underway, but they don't have login info yet. But you won't have any emails lost, because all email will either hit the old accounts (which you will let them keep access to until you're 100% done with the migration), or the new ones.

MX records might take a while to propagate, so for some time after changing those mails might still arrive at the old host instead of the new one. If Godaddy allows you to set up forwarding, this might work: - Change the TTL on your MX record to something lowish (1h?) - Set up the new mail server, with some secondary MX record (@temp.yourcompany.com) - Set up forwards from the old account to the temp email - While doing the forwards, tell users to login at the new server for new mails, though they still have access to the old account for old mails - Change main MX record - Copy (not move) over old mails - Once done with one account tell the user and change his old account password if you want - Wait a week or so for the MX record to update everywhere This way you won't lose any mails, and the users will have full access to their current and old mails at any point in the process.

Replace "secondary MX" with "temporary MX" in my reply. Secondary MX has a specific meaning which has nothing to do with what I was talking about.

@Cironian: They don't have forwarding, unless the account is a forwarder by itself. (So they couldn't have access to their Godaddy acount AND have a forwarder account). @straw: How do I have them switch to the new servers before the DNS/MX is changed?

I thought that one of the cardinal rules in doing these migrations was to never lose email ever. Can the users deal with not having 100% of their email in one place for a short time? If so, I'd consider doing a first IMAP migration, then switching the MX record, then doing a second IMAP migration that would just be the diff that would cover any mail that came in while the first migration was ongoing (and would, of course, be a hugely lower volume of mail than the first migration). Standard disclaimer: IANASystemAdministrator, so there may be something fundamentally flawed about this, so take this with a grain of salt.

Are you handy with the command line? I've used http://www.athensfbc.com/imap_tools/ to migrate multiple large mail accounts, and it's worked very well. Specifically, look at imapcopy.pl, migrateIMAP.pl (like imapcopy.pl, but for moving multiple users all at once), and pop3toimap.pl.

@Betelgeuse: Once the domain name points to the new server, any IMAP/POP off the Godaddy server will no longer work because the @branchcompany.com account names would not be valid on Godaddy.

@zsazsa: Oooh neat...thanks

To have them switch before you change the MX records for the domain, just have them use alternate servers for their config (newsmtp..com, newpop..com). I'm assuming you'll have to issue new passwords anyway. On the other hand, if you've got grabbing mail from their old account to the new account set up, and you can get their old passwords, then you don't really need to have the users do anything: Just switch the DNS and let the mail catch up with them.