Migration
Move off Gmail without losing a message.
The whole path, in order, including the parts that go wrong. Nothing here is irreversible until the last step, and the last step is a DNS record you can change back.
There is no one-click importer yet
We have not built one. This is the manual route, and it works today with a free mail client and about an hour of attention. When an importer exists it will be announced, and this page will keep the parts of itself that are still true.
Before you start
- A Ruber mailboxFree is enough to test the whole path. Use an address on ruber.me if your domain is not ready.
- A desktop mail clientThunderbird is free, runs everywhere, and signs into Gmail with OAuth so no app password is needed.
- Your domain, if you are using oneAccess to the DNS for it. Skip this if you are starting on our domain and moving later.
- TimeAn hour of attention, and a few hours of copying in the background for a large archive.
The order matters
Copy first, forward second, change DNS last. Done in that order there is no point at which mail can fall on the floor, because two mailboxes are receiving it until you decide otherwise.
- 01
Create the destination first
Create the mailbox you are moving to. If your domain is ready, add it first and we write and verify MX, SPF, DKIM and DMARC for it; if not, take an address on ruber.me and bring the domain across later. Mode is a per-mailbox setting, so nothing you choose now closes anything off.
Do not point your MX at us yet. That comes near the end, once the copy is done.
- 02
Turn on IMAP in Gmail
In Gmail, open Settings, then Forwarding and POP/IMAP, and enable IMAP. It is off by default on a lot of accounts and nothing else will work until it is on.
While you are there, note which account type you have. A personal @gmail.com address and a Google Workspace address behave differently at the next step.
- 03
Add both accounts to one client
Add both accounts to Thunderbird — Gmail first, then Ruber. Thunderbird signs into Gmail with OAuth, which opens Google's own consent window rather than asking for a password. That matters: Workspace accounts cannot use app passwords at all any more, and this route works for both account types.
For the Ruber account, the settings are below. Let Thunderbird finish downloading both accounts before you go on — dragging folders it has not fetched yet copies nothing.
- Incoming
- IMAP — mx1.ruber.me, port 993, SSL/TLS
- Username
- your full Ruber address
- Authentication
- Normal password
- 04
Copy the archive across
In Thunderbird, create the folders you want on the Ruber side, then drag mail across from Gmail a folder at a time. Start with one small folder and confirm it arrives before moving the archive.
Copy your labels, not All Mail. Gmail exposes labels as IMAP folders and also exposes All Mail, which contains a copy of everything — drag both and every message lands twice.
Leave it running. Ten thousand messages is a coffee; a hundred thousand is an afternoon, and Gmail will throttle you part way through. Thunderbird resumes.
- 05
Forward new mail while you switch
Back in Gmail, under Forwarding and POP/IMAP, add your Ruber address as a forwarding address and confirm it from the message Gmail sends. Then choose to keep Gmail's copy in the inbox rather than deleting it.
From this point nothing new is stranded. Mail still arrives at Gmail, and a copy lands in Ruber, which means you can start using the new mailbox for real without committing to it.
- 06
Live in it for a week
Use the new mailbox as your daily one for a week or two before changing any DNS. Send from it, file into it, search it. This is the part people skip and it is the only step that tells you whether the move is going to stick.
If you are still on our domain and waiting on yours, this is a perfectly good place to stop for a while.
- 07
Point the MX
When the copy is complete and the mailbox feels right, point your domain's MX record at mx1.ruber.me. New mail then arrives at Ruber directly rather than by way of Gmail.
Lower the TTL on the record a day beforehand if you can — it shortens the window where some senders still resolve the old value. During that window mail can arrive at either place, which is why forwarding stays on.
- 08
Update the accounts that matter
Change the address on the accounts where losing it would actually hurt, in this order: your domain registrar and DNS provider, then anything holding money, then password reset and two-factor recovery addresses, then everything else as it turns up.
The registrar is first for a reason. If the recovery address for the domain still points at a mailbox you are about to abandon, you can lose the domain that the whole setup depends on.
- 09
Keep Gmail running for a month, then stop
Leave Gmail forwarding on for about thirty days after the MX change. It costs nothing and it catches the senders who cached the old record and the accounts you forgot.
When a month has passed with nothing arriving, turn forwarding off. Keep the Gmail account itself — it is a free archive and a second copy, and closing it deletes the only other place your history exists.
How long the copy takes
Rough, and rough on purpose — it depends on how hard Gmail decides to throttle you on the day. Nothing here needs supervising.
| Under 5,000 messages | Minutes |
|---|---|
| 5,000 to 25,000 | Under an hour |
| 25,000 to 100,000 | An afternoon, with throttling |
| Over 100,000 | Overnight — start it and leave it |
What trips people up
Labels are not folders
Gmail is not folders. A message with three labels appears in three IMAP folders and in All Mail, so copying everything you can see gives you four copies of it. Copy the labels you actually use and skip All Mail.
App passwords are gone for Workspace
Basic authentication for IMAP ended for Google Workspace on 1 May 2025, so app passwords are not available on those accounts at all. Personal Gmail accounts can still create one, but only with 2-Step Verification on. Using a client that speaks OAuth avoids the question entirely.
Filters do not come with you
Filters, labels-as-rules, vacation responders and Gmail's categories are Gmail features, not mail. None of them travels over IMAP, and you will be setting them up again on the other side.
Contacts and calendar are not email
Contacts and calendar are separate products that happen to live behind the same login. Export them from Google Contacts and Google Calendar yourself; nothing in a mail migration touches them.
Gmail will throttle a large copy
Gmail slows IMAP down under sustained load, and a big copy will crawl at some point. That is Gmail rate-limiting you, not a failure. Leave the client open and it picks up where it stopped.
Copied mail keeps its history
Anything a sender delivered while your MX pointed at Gmail was received by Google before it reached us. Copying it here protects it from that point on and does not change where it has already been.
Start with step one. It costs nothing and it is reversible.
Take a mailbox on ruber.me, copy one folder into it, and see whether you like using it before anything touches your domain.