In this article, I will show you a trick to copy your emails and then paste them into another email account. This is very beneficial when you move your hosting account from one provider to another.

There is already a blog present that can be helpful for this. Please check http://blog.arvixe.com/how-to-use-imapsize-to-backup-and-restore-your-imap-email-account/

However, the method described in the article above requires you to install a new software that does not always work properly (as in my hosting transfer case). I will show how to copy emails from one account to other via any IMAP client software like “Outlook Express”, “Mozilla Thunderbird” or “Microsoft Outlook 2010”. Normally, “Outlook Express” is preinstalled on Microsoft Windows XP operating systems. You may also try this method with other POP/IMAP clients. This method will always work and can be used to copy all the mail folders to other email account.

This method assumes that you have access to your emails at both old and new hosting providers. I suggest performing this action right before changing the Name Server at registrar. In this case, your old mail server would be mail.domain.com and the new mail server would be, for example (at Arvixe), mail.servername.arvixe.com.

Step 1. Create all of your email accounts at the new hosting provider (like Arvixe).

Step 2. Configure your source and target email account with IMAP settings in a POP/IMAP Client. (See http://blog.arvixe.com/setting-up-your-pop3imap-email-account/ for steps)

Step 3. Now you have two email accounts in your email client. One is the source account and the other one is the target email account. Configure your email client to show all of the folders for the source and target email accounts.

Step 4. Select the emails under your source email account’s folder and copy them by pressing Control-C on your keyboard. You may also copy them by selecting Copy in the right mouse click menu.

Step 5. Select your target email’s folder and press Control-V to paste. You may also paste them by selecting Paste in right mouse click menu.

This trick can be applied for all the source folders like ‘Sent Items’, Draft etc. If your source account is POP, you can only copy your INBOX emails to the target email account.

Follow these steps for your other email accounts to copy them at your new hosting provider.