Transfer Horde emails to a new server

I use Horde as the primary webmail app for both myself and for many of the clients hosted at Dynamic. Occasionally it becomes necessary to move the emails saved on the server to a new server or email account. This can easily be done with the Linux/Unix scp (secure copy) command.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Copy all email and folders over to the new server using scp. Make sure the email you are copying to is already set up on the new server.

   Log into the old server via SSH and type the following

   scp -p -r -P [port] /var/qmail/mailnames/[domain]/[email] root@[IP of destination server]:/var/qmail/mailnames/[domain]/
    

   You will be prompted for the root password of the server you are moving emails to. Once entered in you will view all the files being copied over.

2. Log into the new server and change the ownership of the files moved. Before you do this the ownership will be root.root and will not show up if you log into Horde.
   cd /var/qmail/mailnames/[domain]/[email]/
   chown popuser:popuser *.* -R
    

Done!

Note: Not all servers are the same, so (like any SSH command) do this at your own risk.