Switch to Mailotte
Switching from Gmail
Twenty minutes of setup, a few hours of unattended import, and about a month of low-effort tail. The tail is where the risk actually lives.
Before you start
Gmail no longer accepts your normal password from mail apps. You need an App Password, and Google only offers them once two-step verification is on:
- Turn on 2-Step Verification at myaccount.google.com/security if it isn't already.
- Go to App passwords and create one. Name it "Mailotte" so you can revoke it later without guessing.
- Copy the 16-character password. Google shows it once.
Paste that into Mailotte, not your Google account password. Revoke it from the same page once the import finishes — Mailotte does not need it again.
The order that works
Switching email is not hard. It is unforgiving about order — do these in the wrong sequence and you lose mail you never find out about.
- Create the Mailotte account first, and leave the old one running. You are adding a mailbox, not replacing one. Nothing is switched off until you decide to switch it off — and you should probably never switch it off.
- Get your Gmail app password. See the box above. This is the step people get stuck on, and it is the only fiddly part.
- Start the import. In Mailotte, open Settings → Import email, pick Gmail, and paste the address and app password. Mailotte tests the connection before it starts, so a wrong password fails in seconds rather than halfway through.
- Choose folders, then leave it alone. Pick the folders worth keeping. A large mailbox takes hours; you can close the tab. An interrupted import resumes from per-folder checkpoints rather than starting over.
- Turn on forwarding from Gmail. This is the safety net for every account you forget. Anything still pointing at the old address keeps arriving where you now read.
- Change your address where it matters, slowly. Account-recovery routes first, then anything financial, then the ordinary ones as they surface in your forwarded mail. Forwarding turns this from one long afternoon into a background task.
How much can you bring?
The import is capped per plan, because pulling an unbounded mailbox is expensive:
| Plan | Messages per import |
|---|---|
| Free | 10,000 |
| Zen | 50,000 |
| Haven | 250,000 |
Check your message count in Gmail first. Every new account starts with a 14-day trial of Haven, so the largest cap is available while you migrate even if you settle on a smaller plan afterwards.
Gmail-specific things worth knowing
- Select your labels <em>and</em> "All Mail": Gmail labels are IMAP folders, and a labelled message appears under its label and under All Mail. Mailotte is built for exactly that: it imports the labelled folders first, so messages land in the right folder, then All Mail last as an archive catch-all. Nothing arrives twice — messages are matched on Message-ID and the second copy is skipped.
- Deselecting "All Mail" is the mistake to avoid: It is not a duplicate of your labels. It also holds everything you ever archived without labelling it, which for most Gmail accounts is the bulk of the mailbox. Leave it out and that mail simply never arrives — and you will not notice until you go looking for something old.
- Duplicates do not eat your plan allowance: A message skipped as a duplicate is refunded against the import limit rather than counted, so there is no quota reason to trim overlapping folders.
- Spam and Bin are usually not worth it: They import fine; they are just rarely worth the time.
What does not come across
Contacts and calendars. The import moves mail over IMAP, and IMAP carries mail only — so your address book and calendar stay where they are. Export them from Gmail before you stop using it. Filters and rules do not transfer either, and that is usually a gift: most people are maintaining filters for a life they no longer live.
Your old mail app keeps working
Mailotte speaks native IMAP, SMTP and POP3 with an app password — no bridge, no desktop helper. Apple Mail, Thunderbird and your phone's mail app connect directly, so switching provider does not have to mean switching software on the same day.
Questions
Will my Gmail labels become folders in Mailotte?
Yes. Gmail exposes each label as an IMAP folder, so they arrive as folders with the same names. Nested labels (Work/Invoices) keep their nesting.
Do I have to turn on 2-Step Verification just to import?
Yes, if it is not already on. Google only offers app passwords on accounts with two-step verification, and it no longer accepts an account password from mail apps at all. You can leave 2-Step on afterwards — you should.
What happens to my Gmail filters?
They stay in Gmail. Filters and rules are provider-specific and do not transfer. Most people find this is a good moment to stop maintaining filters for a life they no longer live.
Will I lose my old email?
No. An import copies your mail to Mailotte and leaves the original mailbox untouched. Keep the old account open until you have confirmed everything you care about arrived.
How long does it take?
About twenty minutes of setup, a few hours of unattended import for a large mailbox, and roughly a month of low-effort tail as forwarded mail reveals the accounts you forgot to update. Anyone promising a clean switch in ten minutes is not counting the tail, which is where the risk lives.
Do I have to stop using Gmail?
No, and we would not recommend closing the account. A dormant mailbox with forwarding on costs nothing and catches the annual renewal, the once-a-year statement and the friend who never updated your contact card.
What about my custom domain?
That is the one genuinely technical part. Your domain's MX records point at the old host, and SPF, DKIM and DMARC authorise it to send — all of them move together, and DNS takes time to propagate. Change MX last, after the new setup is complete and its DKIM key is published, and expect a window where both hosts receive mail. Custom domains are on the Haven plan.
Switching from something else?
- Switching from Outlook
- Switching from Yahoo
- Switching from iCloud Mail
- The provider-agnostic checklist — if your old host isn't listed.
- How Mailotte compares — if you haven't decided yet.