Convert IceWarp mailbox from POP3 to IMAP

Converting from POP3 to IMAP is straightforward if there is no mail held on the mail server but if you have been using the older webmail to store messages it can be more difficult.

Problem

A customer wants to use the new Ajax-based IceWarp webmail in place of the older webmail and has a number of separate folders including a Sent folder containing emails sent via webmail.

Changing the account to IMAP converts any mail in the inbox to IMAP format. But, when you log into the new webmail for the first time, other folders that should be there too had not been converted.

Solution

We found a useful discussion of these issues here: http://forum.icewarp.com/m_2173/mpage_1/key_/tm.htm#2185 and tried using TOOL.EXE as suggested. This still didn’t convert the folders but it was possible to see any emails in the Inbox being converted to the IMAP format and moved from the root folder of the mailbox into the Inbox folder. Then we tried copying the folders across manually before changing the mailbox using TOOL.EXE and this worked OK.

So the trick is to copy the original webmail folders, usually stored in C:\Program Files\Merak\webmail\users\mydomain.com\user, into the live email folders, e.g. D:\Merak\mydomain.com\user, before changing the account type from POP3 to IMAP.

If you are using TOOL.EXE, this will be in the following format (run from C:\Program Files\Merak in a command prompt): –

tool.exe modify account user@mydomain.com U_AccountType=1

Values for U_AccountType are:-

  • 0 – POP3
  • 1 – POP3 and IMAP
  • 2 – IMAP

With this it should possible to automate the conversion of entire accounts using batch files.