Mountain View, California — Lagging behind its arch rival in the mail competition, search engine giant Google has now found another trick to woo users from Microsoft and Yahoo. According to announcement made on the Gmail Blog, Google now permits millions of its Gmail users to migrate their e-mail and contacts information from Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL and other services to Gmail.
Although the company took a long time in announcing, back in May, Google first extended this migration offer only to people signing up for new Gmail accounts were permitted to import their contacts from other Web-based mail services, but the company has now extended that offer to all of Gmail’s millions of users.
Google Gmail Software Engineer Marcin Brodziak explained the logic behind catering to new users before opening up the migration to all Gmail users:
“We made this feature available for all newly created Gmail accounts first, since people new to Gmail benefit most from being able to move their stuff with them. But many old-time Gmail users (including us) also have old accounts lurking. Often, these accounts predate Gmail, and occasionally we have to log into them to look at some old confirmation e-mail or find the e-mail address for someone with whom we have lost touch.”
Gmail has now opened the option to import old messages and contacts for everyone. “Now, with just a few clicks anyone can copy all of that to your Gmail account,” he said.
The migration process is very easy and will eat up hours or days, but could alleviate headaches of users with e-mail languishing in older accounts. This was a pretty clever move that made the process of transitioning from one account to another much simpler. The move will also help Google entice more users as people seek to leave older messaging and collaboration applications.
Although longtime Gmail users for the last decade probably would not find the option as useful; as most of them have already transferred over their contacts and any critical emails. Still, some procrastinators are bound to be pleasantly surprised.
A post on the Official Gmail Blog explains that the import process is very simple, users who wish to migrate their e-mail content must go to Gmail Settings, click on the Accounts and Import tab, and click “Import mail and contacts.” A window will pop out asking for the e-mail account alias the user wishes to migrate e-mail from. Once that is entered, users are asked to enter the password for that account.
Once the password is entered, Gmail users will see checked boxes inviting Gmail to import contacts, import mail, import new mail for next 30 days and add labels to all imported mail. Users can then check the boxes they most need and click to start the import process.
You can import from Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL, or other third party webmail or POP3 accounts via a wizard. There is also a “Learn More” link if you get confused.
Google says it will take anywhere from several hours to a couple of days before the imported content appears in Gmail, but Google confirms that this is to be expected: “Copying mail over usually takes a couple days, occasionally up to a week — but eventually it all arrives,” says the post announcing the new features.
However, users can go about their Web surfing business, closing Gmail and their browser; Gmail will continue importing mail and contacts in the background. Users can check the status of their imports by returning to the Accounts and Import tab under Settings.
One important note: the copying of mail may take up to a week, so do not become restless (especially after all this time).
This migration offer is announced as Gmail exceeded AOL as the No. 3 most visited e-mail Website in the month of July, according to market researcher comScore.
Gmail, which debuted as a beta program in April 2004 and ceased to be a beta just last month on July 7, logged 37 million unique monthly users in July, compared with 36.4 million from AOL. The migration option could help Google pad its rising Gmail market share even more.