Moving to a new imap server

[Nicolas Sebrecht]

On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 03:12:42PM +0530, Sriram ET. wrote:
>    Due to a very strange manner in which our IT folks have managed a mail
>    server migration, I am forced to deal with the following situation.
>    I was using offlineimap to sync my email with 'oldserver' (Lotus Domino)
>    till now. I have to start using 'newserver' (on Courier) from now on. None
>    of my email has been migrated from oldserver to newserver. However since I
>    have all my mail on my local drive, I was hoping something along the
>    following lines should work:
> 
>     1. Update .offlinerc RemoteRepository account details with credentials of
>        newserver
>     2. Update nametrans to deal with differences between Lotus and Courier
>     3. Clear any synchronization state on Local so the next run will trigger
>        a bulk copy from Local to newserver
>     4. Live happily ever after.
> 
>    Can someone suggest if this approach can work in practise or theory? If
>    yes, what exactly should I do for Step 3?

I would do the following:

0. Make a tarball of the local maildir.
1. Write a new offlinerc for newserver.
2. Make a first sync (mostly empty).
3. Untar the archive to the updated maildir of newserver.
4. Have fun with nametrans rules.
5. Sync again to have local mail on newserver.
6. Live happily ever after.

In the past, I've migrated my mails from one server to another this way.

-- 
Nicolas Sebrecht