Moving your business email to a new provider

Moving your business email to a new provider comes down to doing four things in the right order: set up the new mailboxes, copy the old mail across, switch the MX records so new mail arrives at the new place, and only then cancel the old service. Your address does not change, so customers notice nothing. The mistakes that lose mail almost always come from doing those steps out of order, usually by cancelling the old plan first.

Why owners switch, and what stays the same

People move email for ordinary reasons: the old host is raising prices, the mailbox is too small, the spam filter is poor, or the email came bundled with a website they are replacing. Whatever the reason, the part customers see, your address, stays exactly the same. What changes is the company that stores the mail and the servers it travels through.

Things that do not move by themselves:

Old messages and folders. They have to be copied.
Contacts and calendars. Usually a separate export and import.
Settings on every device. Phones, laptops, the shop computer and any software that sends mail as you, such as invoicing or booking tools.
Your DNS records. The new provider gives you new ones; you make the change.

Step 1: Take stock before you touch anything

Spend half an hour writing down the current setup. You will refer to it all the way through.

Every address at your domain, and whether it is a mailbox, an alias or a forward.
Who uses each mailbox and on which devices.
Roughly how much mail each one holds. Your current provider's settings page usually shows the storage used.
Where your domain's DNS is managed, with a working login. The company that manages DNS is not always the one that sends you the email bill.
Any software that sends from your address: invoicing, booking, your website's contact form, a printer that emails scans.

Then screenshot every DNS record for the domain. If anything goes wrong, those screenshots are how you put it back.

Step 2: Set up the new provider, but leave mail flowing to the old one

Sign up with the new provider and add your domain. You will be asked to prove you own it, usually with a TXT record (a short line of text in your DNS). Adding that record changes nothing about where mail goes.

Create the same mailboxes and aliases you listed in Step 1, with the same spelling. Do not change the MX records yet. For now, mail still arrives at the old provider as usual.

Step 3: Copy the old mail across

Most providers include a migration tool that signs into your old mailbox and copies everything over, folders included.

Google Workspace has a data migration tool in the admin console that can copy from most mail servers using IMAP (the standard way mail apps read mailboxes).
Microsoft 365 offers IMAP migration in the Exchange admin center for the same job.
Smaller providers often have a "import from another account" page, or will do it for you if you ask support.

You need each old mailbox's server name and password. If the old provider only supports POP (an older method that downloads mail rather than syncing it), copying folders is harder; you may need to use a desktop mail program to move messages by hand.

Big mailboxes can take a day or more. Let the copy run while mail keeps arriving at the old place.

Step 4: Switch the MX records

The MX records tell the rest of the internet where to deliver your mail. Changing them is the moment of the actual move.

A day ahead, if your DNS host lets you, lower the TTL (how long other servers remember the old answer) on the MX records to something short like 300 seconds. That makes the switch take effect faster.
Delete the old provider's MX records.
Add the new provider's MX records exactly as given.
Update the SPF record (the TXT line listing who may send for your domain) so it names the new provider. Remove the old provider from it once the move is complete.
Turn on DKIM signing at the new provider and add the record it gives you.

For a few hours, some mail may still reach the old mailbox while the change spreads. That is why you keep the old service running. MX records: why changing your website can break email explains these records in more detail if you want to know what each line is doing.

Step 5: Do a final copy and set up devices

A day or two after the MX change, run the migration tool once more so it picks up anything that landed in the old mailbox during the switch. Then:

Remove the old account from every phone and computer and add the new one.
Update the outgoing mail settings in invoicing tools, booking tools and your website's contact form if it sends through your mail server.
Re-create email signatures and filters; they rarely move with the mail.
Export contacts and calendars from the old service and import them.

Step 6: Test everything, then cancel last

Send mail to each address from an outside account. Reply from each address to Gmail, Outlook.com and Yahoo addresses. In Gmail, open your reply, choose the three-dot menu and Show original, and check that SPF and DKIM both say PASS. Submit your own website's contact form.

Only when a full week has gone by with everything working should you cancel the old provider. Before you do, download a final export of anything you might need for records, such as old invoices or contracts. Once a provider closes an account, the mail is usually gone for good.

Moving email at the same time as a new website

If the email was bundled with your old website's hosting, the two moves are linked. The safe order is email first, website second. Move the mail to its new home, confirm it works, then point the domain at the new site, keeping the new MX records in place. Doing both on the same evening is how businesses end up with a lovely new site and a silent inbox. Website hosting and email from the same company covers how to untangle a bundle.

The move in one list

Write down every address, device and sending tool.
Screenshot the DNS records.
Set up the new provider and matching mailboxes.
Copy the old mail and check it.
Change MX, SPF and DKIM.
Run a final copy, then set up devices and tools.
Test for a week.
Export what you need, then cancel the old service.

If the old email was tied to a website you are also replacing, you can see your site rebuilt first and switch the site only after the mail has settled in.