Migrating your mailbox from Gmail

You'll need three things: the mailbox already created on Inkbox SAS (so there's somewhere to migrate into), IMAP access enabled on the source account, and a password that works for IMAP login.

If your source account uses 2-factor authentication (the default on Gmail and Google Workspace), you can't use your normal password for IMAP. Generate an app password from your Google account security settings and use that instead. The migration tool never needs your regular password or any OAuth login.

From your mailbox settings, you test the connection first: host, port (993 by default), your address, and the app password. The tool logs in over IMAP and lists your folders before anything is copied, so you catch connection problems before starting.

Once you start the migration, it runs as a background job, so you can close the tab and check back later. It connects to your old mailbox and your new one at the same time and copies messages folder by folder directly over IMAP, without staging anything on disk in between.

Your source password is encrypted before it's stored, only for the duration of the job, and a temporary app password is generated on the Inkbox SAS side to authenticate the transfer: nothing extra to configure.

Gmail names its special folders differently from standard IMAP (things like [Gmail]/Sent Mail or [Gmail]/All Mail). The migration tool recognizes these and maps them to their standard equivalents automatically, so you don't need to rename anything beforehand.

The migration job reports its status as it runs, so you can check progress without guessing. If something looks wrong (the wrong account connected, or you simply want to stop), you can cancel the job at any point before it finishes.

Your messages are copied, not moved. Nothing is deleted from your old account, so it's safe to double-check before decommissioning it.

The migration only moves mail content. It doesn't touch DNS: your domain's MX records still need to point to Inkbox SAS before new mail actually arrives in the migrated mailbox instead of the old one. If you haven't done that yet, that's the deliverability guide's job.