This document offers a general explanation of the process for migrating mail using your own domain from another email provider to May First. It includes our recommendations, deeper explanation of each step and links to more specific how-to documents.
Migrating your email from another provider to May First will normally consist in some combination of the following steps however we recommend this particular order.
Make a list of all of the existing email addresses you are using for your domain. Also make a note of any email "aliases" you have setup to forward to another address.
Before creating new emails for your own custom domain, make sure you have a hosting order in the May First control panel for this domain. You can create a new hosting order for your domain if you don't already have one.
Creating a new hosting order in the control panel will order will automatically setup the correct DNS records for using mail with your domain however these records will have no effect unless your domain is using the May First nameservers. See more details in the DNS section below.
Read through our explanation about how email works at May First to understand the relationship between mailboxes and email addresses at May First. Make a plan for the mailboxes and email addresses you will need and create them in the control panel.
At this point your DNS records should still be pointing to your old mail provider so the new email addresses you create won't actually receive mail for your own domain yet. You can still test your mailboxes by logging into our webmail interface at https://roundcube.mayfirst.org
You can also configure an email client app on your desktop or mobile device to access your new mailbox. For now can test incoming mail by sending mail to the username@mail.mayfirst.org version of your address.
You can preserve your mail history offline by downloading your existing mail locally for archival and backup purposes.
If you need to keep old mail accesible online you will need to import or copy your old mail to your new mailboxes.
If you have a large amount of old mail now might might be a good time to decide how much mail you really need to preserve. Make sure you have assigned enough space in each new mailbox for the old mail you will copy to it and leave enough space for new mail.
There are multiple methods for copying old mail into your new mailboxes.
Manually copy using desktop app
Connect to both your email account and new May First mailbox in parallel using a desktop email app like Thunderbird and manually drag mail from one account to another. This method will give you full control over which mails are migrated. See this guide for more details about manually migrating email via a desktop app.
Large file export and import
Some services like Gmail will allow you to export a file in either mbox or eml format which you can use to import email into your maibox using roundcube. Depending on the amount of mail this file can be very large. See more details on exporting data from Gmail.
Once you have all of your new May First mailboxes and emails prepared now it is time to begin directing mail for your domain to May First servers. You will do this by changing your DNS records, read through all of the details to understand theprocess.
Before you begin you'll need to identify which DNS nameservers are assigned to your domain. In most situations we recommend configuring your domain to use the May First nameservers. This will allow you to edit the appropriate records directly in the May First control panel.
If you are configuring your domain to use May First nameservers for the first time this change can take anywhere from 24-72 hours to become effective.
If you have created a new hosting order for your domain the correct DNS may have already been created for you. Examine the DNS tab in the control panel in the hosting order for your domain to check that they are set. These DNS records only become active once your domain begins using the May First nameservers.
If you will not be using the May First nameservers make sure you can access your current DNS provider for your domain to apply changes there.
There are several types of DNS records related to email.
If your mail related DNS records for your domain have not been created in the May First control panel or if they are currently configured to send mail though another provider you may have to create or edit them manually.
Before making the final change to your mail related DNS records, consider lowering the TTL (Time to Live) values for the current active DNS records 24 to 72 hours before making your final DNS changes. Lowering your TTL records will ensure that other DNS servers on the internet will begin using the new records more quickly and begin directing new mail to the correct server. This minimizes downtime during the transition. After the change is confirmed, you can increase the TTL back to a longer duration for efficiency.
Choosing an off hour when no one is likely to be receiving mail for your domain or sending mail from your domain is recommended. This will minimize the amount of extra syncing for any mails are still arriving at your current provider.
At this point you are ready the make the final change. Your domain should already be using the May First nameservers so that you make these changes in the May First control panel or you should be ready to make these changes through your own external DNS provider.
MX type records will direct incoming mail from other providers to the correct servers at May First. See this guide for creating or editing your MX records manually.
SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records will affect delivery of outgoing email from your domain. These records help authenticate mails sent from May First servers for your domain as valid emails to help ensure other servers can accept delivery. See the following guides for setting or editing these records manually.
How to set up an SPF record for your domain
How to set up DKIM signing for your domain
How to set up a DMARC policy for your domain
Wait enough time for your DNS changes to propagate. How much time this take will depend on the TTL (Time to live) values set for your DNS records.
Once enough time has passed you can try sending mail from email addresses for your domain to external addresses that you control. Also try sending mail to the new email addresses for your domain from an external addresse that you control to quickly check that everything is working as it should.
You can test your mailboxes by logging into our webmail interface or by configuring an email client app on your desktop or mobile device to access your mailbox.
If you already copied desired old mail from your old acount to your new May First accounts you might want to check one last time that there aren't any new mails that need to be copied over manually since your last sync.