Since launching back in 2004, Gmail has set the gold standard for webmail clients, offering a large amount of storage and a highly usable interface, free of charge. But for many people it has remained out of reach – no matter how appealing Gmail might be, they’ve racked up thousands of messages on other services that they simply can’t give up. Today, that changes. Gmail just released a new feature that allows users to import their Email archives and contacts into their Gmail accounts effortlessly.
The new feature, which is being powered by TrueSwitch, supports importing from all of the usual suspects, including AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail, and dozens of others (you can find a whole list here). To start with it is only enabled on new accounts, with support for existing accounts being added over time (Google warns that this roll-out will be considerably slower than normal). You can also optionally choose to import messages sent to your old account for up to thirty days.
Now, there have been ways to import your mail archive into Gmail through other routes, but for the average computer user these were both too confusing and time consuming to be considered viable options. Now things are as easy as entering your other mail service’s password and letting Gmail go to work over the next 24-48 hours, importing all of your Email and contacts. It’s making a once frustrating process nearly painless, and it’s going to attract new users in droves.
Of course, users will still be switching to a new Email address. This shouldn’t be a problem for users with providers that support POP3 or mail forwarding (which would allow you to have Emails sent to your old mailbox forwarded to your new Gmail inbox), but not all webmail providers support these features.
I wonder how TrueSwitch does it. Is it through a hotmail API, screen scraping?
All large number of email providers have methods for import and export using Esaya [1]
http://www.esay...P_migration.htm
This solution appears to build upon the Google Apps import for POP/IMAP but extends to the prior art and work of TrueSwitch in their desktop solution but now migrated to the cloud/app side of Gmail itself.
i.e.
http://www.true...ort.htm#howdoes
It also looks like Googlesystem was discussing it a few months ago before the reliance upon a desktop app was assumed.
When you migrate accounts and systems that involved POP and/or IMAP sync you have to work with the other service providers to negotiate how hard and when you will poll, store, queue, and release — otherwise you get shut down for crushing them or impacting their own SLAs.
So, a huge part of this is probably Google allowing a third party to arbitrate in matters of rate limiting — it’s just being considerate after all.
gmail sucks with heap of their text. only good thing is “conversations” which clubs replies together.
Amen. Their UI, though functionally powerful, is an aesthetic disaster.
yeah.. spoils our mood on every visit..
Gmail doesn’t suck man, only your comment sucks. This is a remarkable feature which can be extremely useful for users who want to use a single, one-point account to maintain mails they receive. A welcome feature for all users, indeed!
I guess an iMacros script could do that as well?
So why did you say “Stuck with Yahoo mail” fanboy? Biased. Completely.
I completely agree. Gmail isn’t the end all and be all. I wonder when Google will start rolling out ACTUAL money making products/features instead of all these money losing drivel?
Hotmaill works for me, and works well. After a rough period for a year or so with spam, their system has gone leaps and bounds and I barely get any, and never seem to experience problems getting legitimate mail either.
Hardly what I’d call “stuck”.
banshee and Twirrim: You choose to use whatever you use, so you should be ok with everyone else having a choice too
Absolutely, my protest was with TechCrunchs’ “Stuck on” tone, which implies people couldn’t possibly be using them for any good reason.
My Hotmail:
Inbox (785)
Spam (4)
Now… HOW are they filtering spam again ??
Yes, that is one feature which Gmail has to deal with. Any idea on how they are doing it? Because I dont want spam mails to occupy my inbox. Also, what about sent items? Any option for loading them in your Gmail account?
One of the biggest problems in switching email accounts is notifying all of your contacts that you have a new email address.
Since hotmail doesn’t offer free email forwarding, that can be a big challenge.
That being said, this service is pretty cool.
Live Hotmail offered this TrueSwitch functionality when it launched way back in 2007. This isn’t that new of a thing TechCrunch.
Of course, since it’s anti-Microsoft/anti-Yahoo and pro-Google, it must be reported on.
By the way, Gmail sucks @$$. Labels? Gimme a break. Folders > Labels. Case closed. Ugly, confusing & convoluted UI? C’mon TC! Blatant spying and data-collecting using people’s emails? Yeah – where do I sign up!?! That’s right — Gmail.com!
Agreed, mainly that Google Sucks ASs… I see no reason to switch…
lol.
But recently they have forgotten that they are G’s b*tch for twitter…
I’d probably have said it differently, but google does have a way of doing things.
Agreed. Folders > Labels. Its damn confusing for me. Infact at the time of invitation-only I thought myself to be lucky to have that invite but two days of email with it, I immediately went back to my Yahoo. This blog seems to be Google-Always right, Yahoo-Always wrong. At least that seems to be the case for this post. Or else why would he use the tone “Stuck with Yahoo”.
Innovations always seems to upset conservative people…
(People generally don’t like change, for better or worse)
“Innovations always seems to upset conservative people…”
You must’ve said the same thing when everyone slammed the Segway. Do you know anyone that has bought one lately?
There are true innovations and there are the momentarily hyped brilliant ones that fail to catch on in the end. Segway, Labels and Twitter come to mind as the latter.
Hotmail had this in August 2007(http://www.trueswitch.com/winlive/). Yahoo had it one week before Microsoft. Gmail is just playing catch-up.
Why did Techcrunch fail to include these basic facts? Why is Techcrunch so pro-G and anti-M biased?
Bloggers are far from being journalists. The public needs journalists not PR echos.
Why didn’t Techcrunch notice that this happened shortly after Hotmail enabled POP access? LiveSide noticed it. What’s wrong with Techcrunch’s skillz? ‘Bias’ is my only answer.
http://www.live...-makes-hay.aspx
Techcrunch is not journalism in any sense.
Please contact me to learn ow to survive the end of this system of things. -Matthew 24:3.
gla_bella@hotmail.com
Everyday there are at least two stories about Google, I am kind of sick of it.
They also report when Google farts, it’s beyond ridickulous…
Just thing how wonderful it would be if G bought Twitter… (joy!!!!!)
If you don’t like the site, why are you here?
I don’t mind stories about Google, they actually make revenues…
Just another wonderful example of the effectiveness of Google in addressing common problems that are also impactful.
If there is one thing I enjoy about Google–and there are lots of things I do not–it is what seems like a focus on filling practical vacuums. This helps maintain their relevancy and their overall reach, as practical vacuums generally have affect a large number of users. It just strikes me as an excitingly simple but potent ethos.
|digitalzaar|
jesus h! how much are they paying you to astroturf!
Ha. Google isn’t paying me at all.
I just prefer companies that actually intend to improve lives of users with their software, which is what Google does via labs, apps, docs, etc.
The fact of the matter is that there are far too few online companies that strive to do something very simple, very well. Maybe this is because simple isn’t sexy, but if online business is about making money (it should be) then sexy should be measured in dollar signs. Which makes Google sexy by all accounts.
so, what do you have to say about the fact that yahoo and hotmail have had this service since 2007? get a clue.
Pretty awesome !
Gmail, upon launch, was no good and is still no good.
The way it groups emails – sometimes e-mails that are, to me, unrelated – into “conversations” is a deal breaker for me.
how is grouping conversations by the subject line so hard to understand and ‘unrelated’? do you prefer to have several lines of the same topic cluttering your inbox?
http://mail.goo...mp;answer=10708
Yahoo! Mail offers this already (also powered by Trueswitch). They’ve offered it for a few years at least…
Just click on Options in Yahoo! Mail and select “Import Contacts”.
According to TC (and many other “knowledgeable” tech sites) Yahoo Mail and Live Hotmail are completely full of suck. Didn’t you get the memo?
Gmail – in its never-ending cop-out of a Beta -can suck it. And so can its kool-aid gulpin’ fanboys.
Ha. The two of you are hilarious.
First off, SBacon1999 the point of post is not that you can import contacts (which is all that Yahoo! offers) it’s that you can import your MAIL. Did you even read the post?
Secondly, Scott. C, it is wholly Napoleonic to hate a company because it is successful. Which is really the only thing one can take from your posting. Sad.
|digitalzaar|
A few months back I spent about 3 days trying to get all my Yahoo! mail moved to GMail.
I had to shard my folders so each contained no more than 1000 messages (to prevent Yahoo’s archiver from timing out). The archiver delivered them as Outlook Express messages, but GMail’s uploader only speaks MBOX. I downloaded Thunderbird and imported the mail as EMLs, converted them to MBOX, and sent them on over to the GMail upload utility.
It was less than fun – glad to see Google trying to fix it.
Google is outsourcing some gmail functionality to another company? Is anyone else impressed by this?
god that’s evil… google don’t play chess they play chekers….. but wait how much money they will earn or lose if they add let say 10 million new members……… sound like a huge bet
I don’t like Gmail – toooooo much spam.
Yahoo mail is great.
HA! I left yahoo because of the spam!
Gmail has been great- if I get it there it is because of who I gave it too, and the filters take care of it well.
I actually use my yahoo acount as the junkmail account to use on people/sites I don’t trust yet.
This is great news — I remember them announcing a partnership with TrueSwitch some time ago and I couldn’t find any way for my dad to completely move over his antiquated and spam-ridden Yahoo! Mail archives.
Keep us posted on when this rolls out to everyone!
There’s a _way_ better system for migrating, because it’s not ISP-linked. Check out http://www.remail.me. You can switch from one ISP to another, or even within domains. (Yeah, I worked on it, but I did because it’s rockingly great. Seriously.)
Oh Glorious and Most Benevolent Mortimer Fernsnorter:
Please buy yourself a beer and send me the bill, as the remail.me link you so kindly posted on this Crunch of Tech commenting sectional area is the m-f-ing answer to all my dreams. Seriously. I can finally be free of my Shotmail account!
Youdaman.
Bat Boy Jr, Esq.
Why??????
I’ve had Y-mail since the 90’s… (My last archived mail is May ‘98)
But I should inform all my contacts from the past 11 years that for real no reason (other than it is hip with the youngsters) they should go into their Rolodex, PDA, smartphone and take time out of their already busy day to switch my contact information.
But then again there was a story a while back that G mail was for the young and Y-mail was for the old…. I guess the fact that I was not living with my mum in the 90’s does make me old (???) Bring on the Geritol.
i think the fact that you know people who keep your contact info in a rolodex is also a sign that you might be a bit old…
I’m on live mail and happy, Frack Gmail, I’m sick of the way Tech Crunch will kiss arse to anything Google.
Soon enough Google will allow you to export all your Facebook friends, status updates and everything into Google Open Social with a perfect integration with Android, FriendConnect, FriendFeed, and we will all have much better social networking out of it.
This is definitely a good idea. They should have done this sooner!
This is a nice feature, now all I’m waiting for is gmail chat to work with MSN and FB. It better come tomorow!!
People are all hyped about Twitter & Gmail…as if most emails aren’t pretty much the same. Back before the WWW came into being, AOL had a GUI on Apple computers, you could IM other members, see their profiles by clicking on their s/n in a chat room, make a profile with pictures and personal fluff, besides an email system comparable to most others today. That was the 80’s. Their email now has all the 2.0 features of anybody else, I use several of the others and its still as useful. That it has a stigma, because right as the WWW came into being all the newbies went there, doesn’t take away that it had most of the features of the WWW–BEFORE the first web browser existed. All this Twitter hype–its pretty much a combo of al these features that came before, like a mailing list combined with IM’s–BFD! Get over yourselves already…
WTF? Nice opening line…
“Since launching back in 2004, Gmail has set the gold standard for webmail clients”
LOL. That’s the first time a TC article has made me actually laugh out loud.
Gimme a break.
Good article. Gmail rocks!
Google want to stay on top So giving more attractive options to Gmail users.
Here’s one reason folks should pay attention to GMail as opposed to AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc. GMail is the only one of these services that uses SSL which means than as an IT Security person, I can read email from all webmail but Gmail (when the https option is on) going through the network at work. I’ve stopped using my Yahoo account and have transitioned completely off of it because of that.
I guess you forgot to mention YippieMove in your coverage. They’ve been doing that for a while….
end of the world; google is unstoppable
I love Y! mail, Yahoo had this option whit TrueSwitch years ago. TC, this post isn’t nothing interesting. gmail stinks out….
But Yahoo is not giving more options to users.Why Yahoo?
Gmail with unique features really wonderful.
Labels are hard to get used initially to compared to folders but once you do, you barely notice the differences.
the one thing that gmail appeals to me the most is the collaboration of similar emails. Now, I CAN’T go back to an email system that does not do that.
It makes everything so nice and convenient.
I think my work email SUCK considerably lacking this feature.
If only Yahoo would let all incoming mail be forwarded to Gmail..
Use this link. I transferred everything to gmail last week and it worked like a charm. I have multiple emails and the fact that now I can get everything in gmail is great. Labels rock…I can label 1 message with as many labels as I want and not have to duplicate it so it can go in multiple folders. Labs rocks! I dont care about google or anything like that….I care that they offer more than anyone else and are making an effort to make it better. with Hotmail and yahoo I am loaded with spam…not with gmail.
http://sajeevna...-mail-free.html
Really nice one.. TrueSwitch is good
I have Yahoo Mail, Live Hotmail, Gmail, Excite Mail, Exchange Server and anything else you can think of.
I use Yahoo Mail for my main personal account. No spam and it’s easy.
I use gmail for two work accounts. I find it to be overly cluttered with options I never use. I like the conversations but that’s not a dealbreaker for me.
I just need mail to be mail.
And I dislike Google’s corporate philosophy on privacy, which appears to be “we’ll take as much info from you as we can without stirring up an outright revolt.” See Streetview. That attitude doesn’t engender a great deal of trust from me for the future. I will always hesitate to sign up for any service from Google that would require a great deal of trouble to drop.
seriously “gold standard for web clients” give me a break..hardly. Since when is importing emails and contacts – a miraculous innovation.
gmail is useful but ugly as hell and sometimes hard to navigate….with tons of text ads. Its slowly heading in FeatureCreepVille
Great news! Thanks TC.
Infact hotmail can import messages from other account such a gmail,aol, yahoo plus. This 2 bi direction.!
interestingly enough, fon has been offering this for a while.
http://www.gmailuploader.com/
has nothing to do with their business, i think the developers were just bored.
gmail is easily the best web app out there. just the attention to little details is great, like alerting you when it thinks you wanted to send an email with an attachment but forgot. also, the calendar is getting better and better.
contacts is still the achilles heel, no easy way to syn, upload, etc. and it automatically adds anyone who sends you and email to your contacts, which is great for autofill, but sucks when you try and sync.
Wake up guys, Yahoo! Mail is offering Trueswitch since more than 4 years. Anyway it remains a good thing for Gmail users.
Does anyone know if you can import your .pst folders in to gmail with this new feature.. That would be F**** amazing..
josh
Josh@resumebucket.com
http://www.resumebucket.com
‘The gold standard for webmail clients?’
A little less blatant bias would be welcome here. Gmail is inferior to Yahoo and Hotmail in that it doesn’t even have something as simple as preview panes for e-mail.
Secondly, it doesn’t have tabbed e-mail/message reading, which Yahoo does. In Yahoo, you can open multiple e-mails in different tabs, and chat on yet another tab, all at the same time. Gmail lacks this convenient functionality.
And of course, Gmail’s chat/IM feature is not compatible with any others. Yahoo and Hotmail are at least compatible.
Also, Yahoo allows insertion of graphics, icons, emoticons and formatting in the e-mail signature, while Gmail is plain vanilla text.
If Gmail were as good as you say, it wouldn’t be stuck languishing at less than 5% market share. Yahoo has by far the highest market share because it is by far the best webmail client. The consumer voted and Gmail lost.
“And of course, Gmail’s chat/IM feature is not compatible with any others. Yahoo and Hotmail are at least compatible.”
Gmail uses XMPP (also called Jabber), an open protocol. Nothing refrains Y! or MS to add support for XMPP in their own proprietary protocols… Yahoo! and Hotmail (gosh…) use the most proprietary protocol you could possibly imagine! If only people would open their eyes and realize what closed protocols means to them (just wait 5/10 years and you’ll all laugh with your Word 97 .doc files that you won’t be able to open on MS Office 17 unless you buy the $50 plugin…)
With GTalk using XMPP, I can connect to my company’s IM server (a XMPP server) and speak seamlessly with my coworkers even if I’m not using my company’s IM network. And having the IM functionality built in directly in the webmail is a huge plus, even more now that you have webcam support directly from the webmail…
More info:
- XMPP: http://en.wikip...a.org/wiki/Xmpp
- Yahoo! Messenger Protocol http://en.wikip...a.org/wiki/YMSG
- http://en.wikip...cation_Protocol
And for people that dislike labels, that’s your right, but I guess you haven’t seen the power of it. For example, if my dad sends me his new mobile phone number I can label his mail with “Family” and “Important” and find it wherever I want later… Try doing this with folder without duplicating content…
this is great!! the only problem I have with it is that it only imports mail from the old account for the next 30 days. which means I still have to manually set up forwarding or pop to receive new mails from the old account after month, because there will always be people who send important mail to the old email address.
TrueSwitch is a brute-force solution.
Forwarding is almost as evil as auto-responders. You can’t ‘reply’ because the mail comes from your old account, not the sender. And it squirts all the stuff you probably left your old account because of right into your new one.
See http://www.remail.me/what for the right way to do it.
Aw, heck: go to http://www.rema...welcome?905TCTS and get it for free until June 1st.
Gmail has set the gold standard for webmail clients, offering a large amount of storage and a highly usable interface, free of charge.
>>>>
Hilarious. If someone posted this dribble in comments you’d accuse them of astroturfing.
do not create hype on GMail, Mr. Jason Kincaid . it sucks!!!!!
How about if I want to leave Gmail? I love the interface in Gmail, but I loathe threaded discussions and the fact that I can’t turn it off. I’d love to move to hotmail, me, or some other service. But I’m stuck in Gmail.
Ha ha ha ha… I’m stuck in Gmail… good one.
You can do that with http://www.YippieMove.com . It allows you to move between more than 100 different email providers, as well as any other provider that supports IMAP.
Gmail brainwash continues…
I was one of the first users of Gmail when it was (really!) Beta, and have been using it for years in parallel to my main Yahoo email account.
The only reason I use Gmail is that for some of the Google-domain tools (like docs, Blogger, AdWords etc.) it is much easier to have everything integrated with a single Gmail account and user-name.
But in terms of plain human engineering, Yahoo beats Gmail hands down.
Except for the “conversations” feature (which some people love and some find downright confusing) – Yahoo has the more intuitive human interface, a great and easy way to manage emails in folders, ALL the import/export/pop/forward capabilities you might ever need, and a very good SPAM handling system (including the ability to manage “disposable” email aliases).
One of the key catch-phrases Gmail have always been pushing is “search, don’t sort” – in other word: “Why bother organizing your emails? let it all pile up like a heap of junk, and use Google search to find what you need when you need”.
Well the cool thing with Yahoo mail is you can do both: organize your email in folders if you want, and run sophisticated searches on all the emails, across all folders, and drill down into the search result to find what you need. So funny, but Yahoo mail search beats Gmail’s Google search…
Zenbe has been doing this for years…
That’s true. And not just for gmail. I wish zenbe weren’t so damn slow though.
It’s not at all true that switching to Gmail with previous solutions has been ‘hard’ or ‘confusing’.
http://www.yippiemove.com is a 2.0 solution which does transfers to GMail from any IMAP provider.
Google should worry about GMail uptime before trying to get millions of other users to switch. Personally, I have left gmail due to missing emails on more than one account.
Yahoo, AOL, MS had Trueswitch from ages if I remember correctly – so whats new ? Gmail is terribly slow – they want to make it even slower ?
Launched? You mean it’s out of beta? Oh, no, still beta. So a text interface is more usable? Wow, free? None of those others is free. Lots of storage? Unique!