How to Export and Import Horde Emails

Looking to Backup or Transfer Your Horde Email Folders?

You might think you can simply transfer the folder files via FTP. While in some instances this is possible, in most the file formatting prevents this method from being successful. Here is an approach that should work in most versions of Horde (webmail). Note that if your folders contain a large amount of email you will probably need to divide them into smaller folders.

Exporting Your Emails from Horde

• In the navigation menu at left click on your general "mail" folder (which should contain all your mail sub-folders)
• Next, in the menu bar at top, click on "Folders."
• Now select the folder you wish to export by checking its box.
• Next, select "Download Folder(s)" from the "Choose Action:" drop-down box.
• You will be given an .mbox file to download. Store it in a location you'll remember.

Voila. That wasn't too hard was it? Next sign in to the Horde account in which you wish to import the mail folder you just saved.

Importing Your Emails Into Horde

• Click "Folders" in the menu bar.
• Select "Create Folder" from the "Choose Action:" drop-down box and give your new folder a name (preferrably the same name as the one you just exported from).
• Now select this folder by checking its box.
• This time, select "Import Messages" from the "Choose Action:" drop-down box.
• Next you'll browse to the download location you used above and select your .mbox file to import and click "Import."
• Your messages should automatically be imported into your newly created folder.
• Double check the new folder and make sure the messages are there and that they are intact.

Voila Rinse and repeat for all your folders. For folders that are too large (your browser stalls or stops loading on export), you most likely have messages with attachments that are too large to handle. I recommend sorting the messages by size, downloading the attachments from the largest messages and forwarding them on with your preferred email client along with the message body. Then move (or delete) these messages from the folder you wish to export and try again. Eventually you will have gotten the folder down to a reasonable enough size and the export will succeed.