Score:0

Server

Migration plan for hosted e-mail

Xophmeister

10/22/23, 3:35 PM

I am considering migrating my e-mail from one hosted provider to another; specifically to Proton Mail, but I don’t think that matters. My trepidation comes from my personal domain and the potential for either a temporary loss of service, loss of my e-mails, or both.

My current provider manages my domain, DNS and mail hosting (IMAP-based). I have three mailboxes, let’s call them {a,b,c}@example.com; I also have a subdomain, where everything sent to, say, [email protected] is forwarded to [email protected], but there is also a list of exceptions (say {x,y,z,…}@bar.example.com) that get forwarded to [email protected].

Here are the steps that I think I need to do:

Transfer my domain to a new registrar. (I believe this maintains the current DNS records, except perhaps for the NS records.)
Sign up for the alternative mail host (Proton Mail).
Configure the MX records for my domain for Proton Mail.
Create the {a,b,c}@example.com mailboxes in Proton Mail.
Migrate the e-mails from the old provider’s mailboxes to the new. (I believe Proton Mail has a tool to do this.)
AFAIK, Proton Mail doesn’t have forwarders but, regardless, a subdomain would [probably] be considered a separate custom domain, which is outside the scope of my intended price tier. As such, I need to set up mail forwarders outside of Proton Mail. I’ve found ForwardEMail.net, which offers a free, DNS-based solution to this. I can set this up in the DNS records for bar.example.com as documented.

Is that everything? Would you, for example, recommend taking a local backup of e-mails? Importantly, does the order matter: registrar/DNS changes take time to propagate and there’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem when it comes to migrating mailboxes? How do I overcome these?

(Meta-question: Is it worth it? Obviously that’s a personal decision, but this will ultimately be more expensive and decentralised than my current service. The current service works and is relatively easy to manage, but is a bit antiquated. Anecdotes from people who have gone through a similar process would be welcome.)

1 + 6

domain-name-system

imap

hosted

live-migration

joeqwerty

10/22/23, 3:43 PM

My first question is why you would transfer your domain to a new Registrar if you're moving your email? My first comment would be that transferring your domain to a new Registrar will not transfer the DNS records.

Xophmeister

10/22/23, 4:05 PM

I admit registrar migration is a bit of a tangential question, but it’s related in my case because my current provider manages all these services. I guess, therefore, that implies the registrar change can be the final step.

joeqwerty

10/22/23, 4:28 PM

It doesn't imply anything. Who is your current Registrar? Unless you have specific issues with them or reasons to transfer your domain to a new Registrar, there's no technical reason you need to transfer your domain just so you can move your email.

Xophmeister

10/22/23, 5:02 PM

True; what I mean is that I’m considering moving away from my current provider entirely, hence domain registration also being involved. You’re correct that it has nothing to do with changing e-mail provider, but it’s bundled together, in my mind, due to my ultimate goal. (Apologies if this was unclear or confusing.) I’m focusing on e-mail in my question, as that represents the biggest risk to me.

Xophmeister

10/22/23, 5:07 PM

(I may be using the term “registrar” incorrectly. I mean the party than manages the purchase and renewal of domain names; e.g., Namecheap, etc.)

anx

10/22/23, 9:54 PM

Your plan does not consider how colleagues or business partners might be affected, is this domain only used by you and nobody else depends on currently configured filter/features that might be difficult to replicate with the new hoster?

Score:2

Server

anx

10/22/23, 9:44 PM

Yes, if you are set on changing all of mail hoster, domain registrar and dns hoster, your order is reasonable: begin with the DNS steps. Your old mail hoster may not allow you to configure all records in exactly the way the new mail hoster recommends. Yet any general-purpose DNS hoster should be able to mirror your status quo. I have had to work around this in a similar exercise where the old bundled offer was simply not geared towards general-purpose DNS hosting and only served the requirements of their own offerings.

Is that everything?

No, if you are still wondering about "DNS propagation time", your plan is still incomplete. Do familiarize yourself with split between a) the entity that pays your ICANN fees and sends your nameserver/DNSSEC info to the top level domain operator and b) the entity that is operating your nameservers and letting you modify your zones. Even if it turns out to be something you again purchase with the same company, unbundling this will help you correctly follow established practices around the timing of lowering TTL and making changes, so you do not have to worry as much about excessively long caches.

There is no chicken-and-egg problem, there is merely quite a bit of understanding (of why the systems behaves like it does) necessary until you are able to execute the steps in an appropriate order.

a local backup of e-mails

If you do not have one, make one right away. Even if that is unlikely to end up as your preferred source for restoring your mailboxes at the destination. To be precise, I do not find it necessary to have local as in "your office" (which may be bandwidth-constricted) - but it does have to be off-site in the sense that it is in a data centre that shares little common risk with the location of your current and future providers.

decentralised service

Having more parties involved is not necessarily advantageous in mail hosting, as both the receiving server and everyone with the power to modify your DNS records can intercept, modify or simple reject mail that was meant for you. An obvious example of how this can go wrong would be a mail hoster based in Switzerland that stopped handling your mail because you have become unable to pay your fees with your (insert US-sanctioned place) based DNS hoster. You may find that reliability, customer support, price stability and a number of security topics is much better than flashy features (that may or may not also be otherwise acquired by using a different mail client).

+ 0

Elon Musk

I sit in a Tesla and translated this thread with Ai:

EN: Migration plan for hosted e-mail

Post an answer

Most people don’t grasp that asking a lot of questions unlocks learning and improves interpersonal bonding. In Alison’s studies, for example, though people could accurately recall how many questions had been asked in their conversations, they didn’t intuit the link between questions and liking. Across four studies, in which participants were engaged in conversations themselves or read transcripts of others’ conversations, people tended not to realize that question asking would influence—or had influenced—the level of amity between the conversationalists.