I need to move everything from my old Gmail account to a new one using Python. This includes all my emails, folders, sent items, and draft messages. I think IMAP might work for this but I’m not sure how to handle Gmail’s specific folder structure. Has anyone written code to do this kind of complete Gmail migration? I would really appreciate a working example or at least some guidance on the best approach for Gmail specifically.
migrating gmail can be tricky. labels act as folders, so u gotta handle that. imaplib is ur best friend here, but watch for oauth2 stuff. also, drafts and sent items might have odd names like ‘[Gmail]/Sent Mail’. good luck!
Did this exact migration for my company last year. The biggest pain is Gmail’s labels vs regular IMAP folders. You’ll need OAuth2 auth for both accounts, then connect with imaplib. Grab all the label names from your source account first, then loop through each one to pull down messages. When you upload to the new account, keep the original flags and labels intact. Here’s the gotcha - Gmail’s special folders like All Mail and Trash will create duplicates since everything lives in All Mail anyway. Skip those. Don’t forget rate limiting, and batch your operations if you want decent performance.
Did this same thing six months ago when I switched domains. Gmail’s API beats IMAP hands down for bulk migrations - nobody talks about this. The API keeps message IDs and threading intact while IMAP screws it up. Use the gmail python library instead of wrestling with imaplib auth issues. Enable IMAP on both accounts first and go with app-specific passwords over OAuth2 if you want easy setup. Watch your storage limits on the target account - Gmail compresses differently than IMAP extracts. Took me 4 hours for 15GB with decent error handling and retries.