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How to Import Old Emails into Gmail on Windows 10

Learn to access your emails from the same place

7 min. read

Updated onJuly 23, 2024

updated onJuly 23, 2024

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Key notes

Gmail is one of the most popular webmail services, and if you use any of Google’s services, you probably have aGmailaccount.

One problem when creating a new email account can be your old messages. If you have important emails that you want to keep, today we will show you how to import old emailsintoGmailon Windows 10.

Quick Tip:

If importing your emails from one client to another is your priority, you might as well go for Mailbird since that is its specialty.

Besides being fast, modern, and reliable, Mailbird’s main selling point is its ability to automatically import the entire contents of an email account, allowing you to have them all under one UI.

Mailbird

How can I import old mail to Gmail?

1. Use the Import mail and contacts feature

Gmailcomes with a built-in option that allows you to import old emails from different email providers. It is called the Import mail and contacts feature and can be accessed via Gmail’s settings.

By using this feature, old emails from your old account will be forwarded to your newGmailaccount automatically.

OpenGmailand log in to your new account.
Click theGearicon in the top right corner and chooseSettings.
Go to theAccounts and Importtab.
Click on theImport mail and contactslink.
Now sign in to your old email account by following the instructions on the screen.
If you did everything properly, you’ll see theStart importoption as soon as you log in. Click on it to start the process.

Keep in mind that you should inform all your contacts that you won’t be using the old email address anymore.

2. Import old emails and forward all new ones to yourGmailaccount

If you create a newGmailaccount and you want to receive email messages that are sent to your old email account, you need to change a few settings.

This method works for bothGmailand third-party email accounts, but keep in mind that some email providers might not support this feature.

After changing these settings on your old account, you need to configure your newGmailaccount. To do that, follow these steps:

As we already mentioned, this feature also works with third-party email providers, but you need to enable POP on your old email account to use it. After that, try to add your old email account using the above steps.

If you cannot add it, you might want to contact your old email provider and ask them if POP is supported on your account.

You can stop receiving new emails from your old account by changing a few settings. To do that, follow these steps:

Remember that deleting your old email account will only prevent new emails from being forwarded to your new account. Any old emails that you receive will remain on your account.

As you can see, this method is a bit complicated, but it allows you to use your old email account alongside your newGmailaccount without any problems.

This is extremely useful if you want to keep using your old email account or if you didn’t notify all your contacts about the change of your email address.

One flaw of this method is that it doesn’t allow you to import contacts from your old email account, but you can easily transfer contacts manually toGmail. If you want to import contacts from another account, you need to do the following:

To import contacts from anotherGmailaccount, you need to first export your contacts as a CSV file. To do that, follow these steps:

Now you need to import those contacts to your newGmailaccount. To do that follow these steps:

If you use a desktop email client, such as Thunderbird, for your emails, you should know that all your emails are saved locally on your PC. If your email provider doesn’t offer webmail service, you can still import old emails from your desktop client.

You need to enable IMAP for your Gmail account and add Gmail to your email client. After doing that, simply select the emails that you want in your old email account and drag them to Gmail’s Inbox folder in your email client.

Remember that this process can take a while, depending on the number of email messages, so you must be patient. Be sure tounarchive emails, especially if you’re looking for old messages.

Elsewhere, if you use both Outlook and Gmail, you’ll find theGWSMO toolhelpful in integrating both platforms.

We hope you found this guide helpful, but if you’re using AOL, there are simpler ways to useAOL Mail forwarding, and we have a guide dedicated to it, so don’t miss it.

One of the biggest problems when switching to a new email account is your emails, but as you can see, you can easily import old messages into Gmail by using any of our solutions.

How to Import Old Emails into Gmail on Windows 10#

Mailbird#

How can I import old mail to Gmail?#

1. Use the Import mail and contacts feature#

2. Import old emails and forward all new ones to yourGmailaccount#

How to Import Old Emails into Gmail on Windows 10

Mailbird

How can I import old mail to Gmail?

1. Use the Import mail and contacts feature

2. Import old emails and forward all new ones to yourGmailaccount