Moving messages from POP boxes to Gmail IMAP folders

[pullman]

My mum's Mini runs 10.7.5 and she uses Mail to read her Gmail account. Until now she's used POP to access and download emails but I've now set up IMAP because she's recently got an iPhone so I thought it would be about time to stop the downloading business.

She has three local mailboxes on her computer - totalling some 1,5GB - which I would like to turn into Gmail mailboxes. I've already created them as Labels in Gmail. Both the local boxes and the IMAP folders exist in ~/Library/Mail/V2.

I want to avoid having to copy the messages in the POP boxes across the internet connection because it is a mobile broadband 3G connection with a 1GB limit.

Is there is a way to convert these local mailboxes into IMAP folders? For instance:

• can I simply copy messages from the POP mailboxes into the corresponding IMAP boxes, or will that also move them across the internet connection?
• can I use some Mail app rules or such which would be recognised by Gmail as labels?

Thanks in advance for any insight. I have a feeling I will have to move the messages across the net but thought I should ask first.

Many thanks and happy new year to all
philip

 

[TonyK]

Hi,

If POP/SMTP was used previously, those emails should still be on the gmail server, right?

Have you checked this? If my thoughts are correct she would not need to copy anything and just keep the old pop folders for historical reasons, if even then.

 

[pullman]

Moving messages from POP boxes to Gmail IMAP folders

Thanks Tony. The trouble is (which I incredibly forgot to mention) that there are old emails from other POP providers, ie from pre-gmail times.

Having looked into this further it seems the only option is to upload them to gmail if I want them accessible over IMAP.

Cheers
Philip