Switch email providers without losing mail

How to bring your old mail to Proton Mail, Tuta, Posteo, or Hushmail, forward new mail from your old address, change your address on your accounts, and when to close the old one.

Key points

Keep your old account for a while and forward new mail from it, so nothing gets lost.
Proton Mail and Posteo can copy your old mail for you. Tuta imports mail files on its Legend and Unlimited plans, and Hushmail charges for its migration tool.
Change your address on your accounts one by one, starting with the ones that matter most.

Bring your old mail along

	How your old mail gets there
Hushmail	a migration tool for 10 US dollars per account, or you move the mail yourself with an email program such as Outlook, Apple Mail, or Thunderbird
Posteo	a free migration service that copies up to three accounts with their folders
Proton Mail	Easy Switch, which imports from Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Outlook, and any provider that offers IMAP
Tuta	imports .eml and .mbox files in the desktop app, on the Legend and Unlimited plans only

IMAP is the standard way for email programs to reach a mailbox. Posteo’s migration service uses it too, and Posteo notes that some providers first need IMAP switched on or an app password created. For Tuta, you first export your old mail as single files (.eml) or whole mailboxes (.mbox).

Forward new mail

Set up your old account to forward all new mail to the new address. In Gmail, you add the new address in the settings. Google then sends a verification link to it, which you click in your new mailbox. That way, people and services that still use your old address reach you.

Change your address on your accounts

Go through your accounts one by one. Your password manager is a good checklist, because it has an entry for every account.

Start with the ones that matter most: your bank, government services, health insurance, and phone contract.
Then move shopping, social media, and the rest.
Unsubscribe from newsletters you no longer want instead of moving them.

Keep the old account for now

Close your old account only when no important mail arrives there anymore. Before you do, check whether the old address is the recovery address of any other account.

What you can do

Set up the new account, as the guide How to set up a private email account shows.
Import your old mail.
Turn on forwarding in the old account.
Change your address, the most important accounts first.
Give your contacts the new address.
Close the old account after a few months, when nothing important arrives there anymore.

Next step

What the free plans include and what paying adds is explained in the guide Free or paid email: what each plan includes.