"Can I transfer my AOL account to Gmail?" If you are asking yourself this question, you'll find everything you need to know about transitioning from AOL to Gmail in this article.
You may be thinking of transferring your AOL email because you want to:
Change email providers and switch from AOL to Gmail, or
Merge your AOL mail with your Gmail account, or
Create a backup of your AOL email in another account
While it is not possible to switch to Gmail and keep an AOL email address, it is possible to save the AOL emails when transitioning to Gmail.
Our article will walk you through the two ways of migrating AOL email to Gmail: the automatic method and the manual process.
We recommend using the automatic option because it produces accurate results and requires no manual work. All you have to do is just connect your AOL and Gmail accounts and start a migration.
The manual method is less reliable, has many limitations, and requires additional resources that may not be immediately available. But you could give it a try if you are ready for some challenge and are willing to do most of the work yourself.
Since AOL has yet to offer the functionality of transferring your AOL email to another account, the only way to move the email automatically would be to use a third-party app.
We suggest that you try VaultMe because it migrates content between the accounts at the fastest rate allowed by email providers and is very easy to use.
VaultMe can copy your AOL emails (with folders) to your personal Gmail or to a business Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) account quickly and securely.
Here's what makes VaultMe a perfect choice for AOL to Gmail migrations:
It offers precise results (the formatting of the messages, their read/unread status, and attachments are all copied)
VaultMe will transfer your AOL folders to Gmail preserving the structure of your account
VaultMe works online in a browser (no software to download)
It takes only a minute or two to set up an AOL to Gmail migration
VaultMe has made lots of people happy as proven by the
reviews!
VaultMe automates email migration between hundreds of email providers
While VaultMe is a paid service, having the job done quickly and accurately pays off.
If you have any questions about VaultMe, please contact us at
support@vaultme.com. We'd be happy to help!
How to copy AOL emails to Gmail manually
Transferring AOL emails to Gmail
This method has several important limitations which will be described below. Please consider them carefully and back up any critical data before you begin.
To copy your AOL emails into Gmail manually, you will need to install a desktop email app (such as
Thunderbird
or Outlook).
To transfer AOL emails to Gmail manually:
Connect your AOL account to the app using the IMAP settings displayed below.
Settings for connecting an AOL email account to a desktop email app
If you have Thunderbird installed, you may use
Mozilla's instructions
for manual configuration.
Drag and drop your emails from your AOL to your Gmail account.
But before you import your AOL mail to Gmail manually, consider the following:
The email app will use your hard drive storage for a temporary copy of your AOL email account. For the migration to complete successfully, you should have enough free storage space for the full archive of your AOL mail on your hard drive.
If you have a lot of messages and folders in your AOL account, the copying process may take several days or sometimes even weeks. We do not recommend manual copying for accounts with over 10 000 items and/or 10 GB of used storage, but even smaller accounts may take several days to sync.
Your computer will need to stay powered on during the copying process.
Some of the email messages and folders may fail to copy, especially if your power supply or broadband connection is interrupted.
Moving AOL emails to Gmail manually may slow down the work of your computer.
Transferring contacts from AOL to Gmail
To transfer your AOL contacts to Gmail, you'll need to
export them from AOL
and then
import them to Gmail.
To export your AOL contacts:
In a browser, sign in to your AOL account.
Navigate to the "Contacts" tab and click "More" in the top menu.
Select "Export".
How to export AOL contacts manually
Download your AOL address book in a .csv file.
Once you've downloaded your contacts in a .csv file, you'll need to
import it to Gmail.
To transfer your AOL address book to Gmail:
In a browser, sign into your Gmail account and go to Contact.
In the left-hand menu, click "Import".
How to import AOL contacts to Gmail
Select your downloaded .csv file and click "Import".
How to use Gmail's "Import mail and contacts" feature
With this method, AOL messages that have custom labels will not be transferred to Gmail.
Only emails from "Inbox" will be imported.
For this reason, this method cannot be considered a proper alternative to other ways of importing content, although it may still work for some users.
To import AOL's "Inbox" folder and contacts:
Sign in to your Gmail account.
Click the gear icon
("Settings") in the top upper corner and then click "See all settings."
Click the "Account and Import" tab
or "Accounts" tab.
Click "Import mail and contacts."
Connect your AOL account
in a pop-up window.
In the left-hand menu, click "Import".
Import AOL email to Gmail, Step 5: Signing in.
Copying email from AOL to Gmail manually seems reasonable only in limited cases (such as when you are migrating a small account). This option may seem "free", but it may cost you more in terms of time and effort.
We recommend that you use VaultMe as your automatic option unless you are absolutely sure that you know how to fix the issues that may arise. VaultMe is fully automated and provides accurate, predictable results.}
