How Do I Import a Different Email Account Into Gmail?
It’s time to tackle another tricky issue in this week’s Tech 911 column, which is almost entirely about the questions you email us. Keep them !
This week we return to the good old days of America Online, now known of course by the acronym AOL. It still exists, believe it or not, and you can even use a modem to access it … well, whatever you use AOL for. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure. And I’m not the only one who thinks so. This week, our writer Tech 911 is looking for a way to migrate email from AOL to a much more modern service.
Lifehacker reader Melissa writes:
“I was asked to help an older friend set up a new Gmail email to get away from my old AOL account. Of course, we want to forward all AOL mail to Gmail.
I know I did this for myself many years ago and it was easy. However, I opened my AOL account to check the settings and I can’t find the forwarding setting anywhere. I even tried searching the help pages. It is clear that they no longer want people to jump from the ship … exactly what I am trying to do.
Now, I think Gmail has an option to fetch from another service, but I’m not familiar with it, and the help page doesn’t explain much. Can you help me find the most up-to-date, updated instructions for this? “
You’re right Melissa in that Google doesn’t actually provide step-by-step instructions for importing an email account from another service – at least I couldn’t find anything other than this one , which seems subtle. Fortunately, it’s not that hard.
You will want to open your Gmail and download its settings, the gear icon in the upper right corner. There you will click on Accounts and Import , which will take you to a page that is not very pleasing to the eye. Find the “Import mail and contacts” section, and then click the blue “Import mail and contacts” link to the right of it:
From there, you will be asked for the email address of the account you want to import, as well as the associated password. If all goes well, you will be presented with a list of items to import, such as your contacts, your mail, and any new emails sent to your AOL account over the next 30 days. (In other words, this is not a permanent mail, so you need to make sure you move your contacts, newsletters, or any other important email you receive to your new Gmail address.)
Start importing and … wait as it can take Google up to two days before you see your old AOL messages appear in your Gmail. You can check the import status in the same Accounts & Imports tab in Gmail preferences that you used to start the process. That, or you could be patient and wait for Google to email you that the import is complete. Your call.
In terms of AOL forwarding, AOL used to offer this feature – which is why you’ll see plenty of how-to guides on it online – but it doesn’t seem to let you do that anymore. And while in theory you should be able to check your AOL email through Gmail itself, Gmailify seems to have issues with that too .