Has anyone had a successful, pain free migration to Google Mail?

[essjay1]

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 know how often the migration works seamlessly.  If ever. 😉

Has anyone had a successful, problem free migration to Google Mail?

[Oldislander]

It is the Telus mail that we have had for decades...until Telus decided to force all of its customers to switch to Gmail. I receive my new mail in Gmail but all of my Mailboxes and Drafts are still in Telus, which I have kept. I guess that would be "webmail"!

[polecat]

@Oldislander  Can you still access telus webmail i can't. Polecat

[Oldislander]

I can not log in or send mail or receive but all of my Mailboxes are sitting there.

[polecat]

@Oldislander  Can you open them and read them.  I printed some important ones needed the numbers. The rest i don't care. Polecat

[RonAKA]

@Oldislander said "I can not log in or send mail or receive but all of my Mailboxes are sitting there"

If you cannot log in, I suspect you could not download those mailboxes with Thunderbird, because Thunderbird needs to log in to get them. However, if they still exist, Telus should be able to move them to your new Google mail. 

[Oldislander]

I contacted Telus and they were having a problem with the transition. They were going to do it "by hand" over a week ago and I have not heard from them and the mailboxes are still in Telus instead of Gmail where they belong.

[polecat]

@Oldislander  What site are you seeing these mailboxes and if you see them can you open them up.

[Oldislander]

They are still on my Telus mail. But I need them in Gmail to store and save similar mail that I do not want to lose...like banking.

[essjay1]

@Oldislander 

I don't understand how you can see your mailboxes in Telus webmail without being logged in.  When you say you can't log in, are you talking about Telus webmail?

It seems to me that if the mailboxes are still with Telus then they must be on Telus's servers and not yet on Google's.  If what you crucially want to achieve is to have copies of your old messages, then it might be worth the experiment to see if you can download them to a 3rd party client.  And it would be an experiment that might fail.  

If you have Windows and/or Microsoft Office, you already have either Outlook or Windows Mail in one of their various versions.  Or you could download, install, and use Thunderbird.  

I just tried creating a new POP account in Tbird.  Tbird can do that either automatically or manually.  When I chose the automatic route it filled in the settings for incoming mail with pop.gmail.com, which is not what we want.  When I changed to select Manual Configuration I could change the incoming mail setting to pop.telus.net, which is the one we want to test.  When I chose the "re-test" button, it confirmed that the settings were workable, although I did not go so far as to download any of my mail into an account that I don't actually want.

The settings that Thunderbird filled in for me during the test are:

Protocol:

[essjay1]

@Oldislander 

Sorry.  The previous post got away from me.  As I was saying:

The settings that Thunderbird filled in for me during the test are:

Protocol:  POP3

Server:  pop.telus.net  (This is for incoming mail.)

Port:  995

SSL:  SSL/TLS

Authentication:  Kerberos/GSSAPI

Username:

To complete setting up the account, even though you won't actually be using it, you will need to include the settings for sending mail.  They are:

Protocol:  SMTP

Server:  smtp.telus.net

Port: 465

SSL:  SSL/TLS

Authentication:  Normal password

Username.  

If you press the Test or Re-test button, Tbird should tell you that the configuration is recognized by the server.  Now, whether or not a Checking Mail will work is another question.  Especially since you want it to capture mailbox folder names as well as messages.  

The settings should work for Outlook or Windows Mail if you already have them.  The whole experiment is just that, but if it works it will give you copies of your messages that you can refer to even if Telus never gets your migration to Google sorted.

Good luck.  Let us know what happens. 

[Oldislander]

Thanks for the detailed information.   I am thinking of trying Thunderbird for use on my iMac as I am not a fan of Gmail;   even with mailboxes, it would not by my second choice after Telus. 

[polecat]

@Oldislander  My move to gsuite  took 6 hours  lap desk and ipad. I had to have a tech do it if i tryed it ran me in a constant loop. I knew there was lots of trouble  so printed the important saved emails and also my contacts. My emails in saved folders did not arrive and they can't help me. The contacts did arrive. Not impressed. Polecat

[essjay1]

I absolutely agree.  Everything (messages, contacts, etc.) should be backed up before letting Telus or Google touch anything.  That way even if they mess up so much that you lose your messages you have data you can probably work with whether in a new email application or even, if really necessary, in a data file that can be read in a text reader.  

Although, if people have only ever used email inside a browser (like webmail or Gmail) I'm not sure how one would back up the data.  Also, I am totally a Windows person, so I have no idea how to deal with the problem in an Apple environment. 

[RonAKA]

@essjay1 that is good information. I never really thought about those that use a cloud browser based email system only. I suppose some do not even have a PC or Mac, and try to handle everything with a smartphone. I suppose that is possible but I sure could not do it. 

If someone is on a browser cloud based storage email that is compatible with Thunderbird all you have to do is an IMAP installation of Thunderbird and you have both a computer based email system with your own files on your hard drive, as well as a cloud based browser system you can access anywhere. When you install Thunderbird and link it to a browser based cloud email system, the first thing it does is download all your email and save it on your hard drive. After that it mirrors what is changed on either the browser based system (like Gmail) or on Thunderbird. The mirroring is virtually instant. 

[misswoolly]

Is the end of October now the cut-off date?  I was told originally it was the end of September.  We still haven't heard anything from Telus and I'm getting a bit worried.  Is there any way to contact someone to find out if we are going to receive a notice or if we have somehow been lost in the process?  Thank you.

[RonAKA]

@misswoolly - I looked back through my saved links with respect to the migration. See this one:

TELUS email powered by Google: What you need to know

It contains this information about how to schedule your migration. It appears you can use the Wi-Fi app to jump the queue and schedule your own time, rather than wait for an invitation.

"

Step 1: Schedule your migration

• You will receive an invitation from us. Follow the directions in the email to securely schedule your migration date and choose the details of your migration. (Please note that due to the number of customers who use TELUS email today, we will be migrating all accounts using a staggered approach.) You will receive an invitation anywhere from June 2020 onwards. Can’t wait to get your invite? You can get an early access pass through the My Wi-Fi app, in the Notifications section. This app is free, and it helps you take control of your TELUS Wi-Fi
• Schedule your migration by logging in to TELUS Webmail: This way, you will securely be able to choose your migration preferences. If you don’t remember your password, please visit telus.com/reset
• Learn how to schedule your TELUS email migration
• "

However, make sure you are prepared for your migration. I would make sure you have backups of any mail that is on the Telus server. If you are not using an email software program to view and manage your email, you should consider downloading and installing one like Thunderbird. Use the POP3 method to link to the Telus server. It will download your mail and keep a copy on your hard drive. It will also accept the Gmail account that will get set up so you have all your email in one place (but not in the same account). 

[Oldislander]

It only transfers part of Telus mail. No mailboxes and several other things disappear and Telus personnel have no idea how to deal with it.

[RonAKA]

@Oldislander 

Yes, that is why I like to have Thunderbird download all my mail and not trust Telus to do anything. That is what I did and never lost anything. I did forget that there was some email in my Telus Webmail, Sent Mail, folder, but Telus did successfully transfer that to Gmail. 

[misswoolly]

Thank you for posting this information.  Much appreciated.

[BigBen121]

I have survived the migration and it went really well - I was surprised.  In this household there are two iphones, two ipads, one android phone, a macbookpro, mac mini and two windows PC.

All the apple products went really fast without and issues setup was very easy and the information Telus provided was easy to follow.

The PC's were more of a challenge  - both run Outlook 365 and I thought I would use my skills by manually setting them up - no go.

I ended up using the GSuite sync tool which worked really well - all the mail and all the folders we have were imported as expected to both machines.

The hiccough were contacts but that was not a Telus/Gmail issues as I have mine in icloud and my wife's are in outlook.com. However it was easy to import once the conversion was done. All in all I was surprised how easy this was and how relatively quickly it went!

[canucks4life]

Curious if we're now able to keep our telus.net Email address after the migration no charge if switching Internet providers 🤔