Google, in theory, is now transferring all 44,513 email in 200 email automagic batches over a POP connection from my Gmail account to my new Google Apps account. Wonderfully, Google Apps meets my requirements for portable data and portable identity. Freedom for the win.
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Have thought of doing this too but, unless I’m mistaken, Google Apps are still hosted on Google servers (logins are usually mail.google.com/[site].
Where’s the freedom win?
I think you missed the point: portable data and portable identity.
Portable data means I have full control over my email. If I want to move my email to a new service, I can do so with a number of standard protocols. Say Zimbra offered wicked cool statistical analysis of who you talked to and what you talked about over time. Getting my data into Zimbra could be done by importing my local mailbox or giving Zimbra access to my existing account over POP. In fact, I have a continuous backup of my data too because I use Google Apps through Apple Mail which keeps an archive of the entire thing.
Portable identity means who I am known as remains a constant, regardless of service provider. My email address is @danielbachhuber.com, instead of @gmail.com or @fb.com. All I need to do to switch providers is change my MX records.
To be honest, it doesn’t much matter where my email software is running as long as I have the freedom to choose.
Part two: You should make the switch. Google Apps is badass.
It’s actually mail.google.com/a/[site]… But you get the point.
I made the switch to Google Apps a while ago, but left all my older emails in my gmail account. It would be nice to have them all in one place, how did you set up the transfer?
Google Apps mail offers POP import from other accounts. All you have to do is turn on POP in your Gmail account and have Google Apps import all of your mail into your new account. It took a few days for me, I had something like 40,000 email in my Gmail account, but it did the import reliably as far as I can tell.
Yea, but you lose all your labels. Dammit, I thought you had found a magical way around that. 🙂
Ah, true. I generally use Highrise or search now for keeping track of the important stuff.