Morning everyone. I'm currently on a windows based server but I'm moving to a Linux based server. The hosting company are able to move all my files etc but have said there isn't a way of transferring my email. They have said to make sure I have a backup of it all on my PC etc. All my email is synced to outlook on my PC but I worry that when the new accounts are setup on the new server when it syncs it will assume everything has been deleted and wipe everything.

Any suggestions or am I over thinking it?

Maybe,

 

Surely if the email address is the same with the same domain name, it will just see it as 'your' emails and not bother.

 

Just make sure you have all your .pst files backed up.

It will depend on what type of account you have.

 

If its ActiveSync/Exchange get a backup as you'll need to create a new mail store in Outlook and add your new account (in fact the best way is to create a new profile in Outlook). (If it is Exchange ask them if they have IMAP setup, then use an IMAP sync tool to sync the mail with your new account if it has IMAP).

 

If its IMAP get a backup, as once you get the new server details in Outlook may sync the empty mailbox with its local store wiping everything out (don't trust outlook!). (If it is IMAP, there are tools to sync IMAP mailboxes).

 

If its POP you'll be fine, bang in the new details. Your emails are stored on your PC anyway not the server.

If its POP you'll be fine, bang in the new details. Your emails are stored on your PC anyway not the server.

 

Not strictly true - a lot of POP3 clients (including Outlook) have the option to leave POP3 mail on the server as well, to emulate (poorly) the awesome multiple-client-ability of IMAP. They keep track of a specific set of message headers which have been downloaded, so it knows what has been seen and downloaded already and can be ignored, then just uses the correct POP3 commands to grab only what's needed before updating its state file.

 

Depending on how the hosting company do the migration, the message headers may change in a way which could cause any historical email to be downloaded again and duplicated. This is "less bad" than losing emails, but it's also not ideal, so even if you're using POP3 I'd check exactly how your emails are handled.

Its all good. The whole lot migrated without any loss or duplication.