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Has anyone had a successful, pain free migration to Google Mail?
Most people discussing the migration of Telus email to Google Mail are coming with questions and/or complaints. This is unnerving as I contemplate initiating the migration. It would be helpful to k...
If we restrict the scope to mail only, then yes, I had a seamless pain free migration from Telus mail to Gmail. I was using Thunderbird and POP3. Incoming mail was downloaded from the Telus server each time I logged in. I very rarely used the Telus Webmail, only when traveling. And if we put aside the risk of having your mail stored on a Google floating barge in a third world country, I am more happy with the Gmail system than the Telus system. I can now access my mail on my phone. I still use Thunderbird and am quite happy with that arrangement. I now use IMAP instead of POP3. That means the mail stays on the Google server (so I can access it from my phone or anywhere I have internet), but Thunderbird mirrors it and downloads a copy of the mail to my home PC where it is saved on my hard drive. Changes made in Thunderbird are immediately also made on the Google server, and vice versa. The only issue I am having is that I occasionally have to resign into Google and enter my password. Not sure what is causing that...
The Calendar is another matter. I was using Thunderbird Lightning. There is an add on for Thunderbird that is supposed to sync a Google Calendar to the Lightning calendar. That did not work and it seemed to be caused by the flavour of the gmail account that Telus created. The add on worked for direct gmail accounts, but not the Telus created account. I finally found a work around with another add on, that simply displays the Google Calendar as a tab in Thunderbird, and does not use Lightning. That seems to work fine.
I don't know what you are using for an e-mail on your computer, but one piece of advice I would give you is to go into the Telus Webmail and download all the mail on their server. If you have an email system that saves your email on your hard drive, then you will have all your old email regardless of what Telus does.
Hope that helps some,
While I sympathize with both your situations, I have nothing to contribute in the way of help. Sorry.
It seems to me that there are two basic ways to hopefully survive the conversion from Telus mail to Telus Gmal. There are pros and cons to each, and it is worthwhile thinking about which will work best for you.
1. Use 3rd party email like Thunderbird set up for POP downloading of email. This program downloads all your new mail to Thunderbird and keeps a copy on your local hard drive. When it downloads the email it is then gone from the Telus Webmail server, and it only exists on your local hard drive. The big advantage of doing this, providing you check right before are transitioned that all your Telus mail is downloaded, and nothing remains on the Telus server, is that you are in control of your data, and Telus can't lose it. Then after the Telus Gmail account is set up, you create a second account in Thunderbird that links to the Gmail account. I think it makes most sense to use IMAP for this new account. That way you can take advantage of the web based Gmail that allows access from your phone or tablet, or browser. Thunderbird will mirror any changes you make locally in Thunderbird to the Gmail account and vice versa. Your old POP style account now essentially becomes dead historic data. You can still access it, and if you really want you can copy email from it to your new Gmail account in Thunderbird, and it will be mirrored up to the Gmail account. I have not done that though.
2. If you are a Telus Webmail only user or possibly are using an IMAP connected third party app, your email is then stored only on the Telus server. Your fate then is totally in the hands of Telus. You are depending on them to successfully transfer all your email from the Telus server to the Gmail server. IF they do that properly it is probably the most painless and least disturbing method. But, if you view the many posts here, it seems that Telus does not always do the job well. After the transition is made, then you can still use a third party program like Thunderbird. Using IMAP it lets the email reside both on your computer and on Gmail. The only real difference is in the reliability of getting there...
- Thanks for the info. Have been considering trying Thunderbird if I have nothing to lose in the process.
RonAKA Oldislander I am totally gmail (gsuite) So my gripe is storing emails in a folder or what ever and that email is not connected to all the mail like in gmail also having all emails for days weeks hanging around in all mail. I like a clean email platform like webmail was an easy to use and not having gmail going yoho u have read all your mail. Delete all mail and you delete mail in labels the pits. I want my storage safe within the email platform and not on another google platform. Will thunderbird do this for me. Polecat
polecat, I am not sure I follow what your concerns are with gmail or Gsuite. I don't know that much about Gmail as it is all new to me. So far what I have done is create a few folders in Thunderbird as was my practice with the former Telus server mail. These show up as folders in Thunderbird and Labels in Gmail. My email handling method is to leave everything in the Inbox until I deal with it by either deleting it or moving it to one of my folders. And I really only do that in Thunderbird. I just use Gmail on my iPhone for convenience when away from my computer and really don't do much in it, other than read an email, or delete it, and occasionally reply. With Thunderbird and IMAP a copy of each email is kept on both the Gmail server, and on my hard drive. More than one Label can be applied to one email in Gmail. In Thunderbird you can only put your email in one folder. Not sure what Thunderbird would do if you applied more than one label to a single email. Have not tried it. In short, Gmail is more powerful, and more complicated in this respect. Thunderbird is simpler, and what I like...
As for the old Telus Webmail, I really don't remember much about it. I only used it a few times a year when traveling.
To be clear, Thunderbird is just an email client software and there is no Thunderbird server that stores your email. You still need an email serveer account like the GSuite one from Telus, or plain old Gmail.
