How to import a message archive

You can import the message archive from your previous mailing list or group into Gaggle Mail. Everything comes across: all messages and attachments, with no limit on the size of the archive. Once imported, every message is immediately visible in the group's Message Archive and fully searchable.

Migrating from Google Groups? You don't need to export anything. Our Google Groups Migration Tool transfers your members and message archive automatically.

Step 1: Get your messages into an .mbox file

Gaggle Mail imports messages from .mbox files, the standard format for mailbox exports. How you get one depends on where your messages are now:

Mailman	Archives are already stored as .mbox files on the server. Ask your list host or IT team for the list's .mbox file
LISTSERV (L-Soft)	Archives are stored as notebook log files, not .mbox. Send us the log files and we'll convert them for you
Groups.io	Use Export Group Data from the group's admin area, which includes the messages as an .mbox file
Email clients	Apple Mail and Thunderbird can export a mailbox folder as .mbox, and Google Takeout exports Gmail as .mbox. Useful if a member has kept a complete copy of the list's messages in a folder
Anything else	Get in touch and tell us what you have. We can convert most archive formats into .mbox for you

Step 2: Upload it to your group

Go to the group, click Settings in the sidebar, scroll to the Import Messages section and click Import messages:

Choose how the imported messages should be combined with anything already in your archive:

Append – adds everything in the file to your existing archive
Replace – deletes everything in your current archive and replaces it with the messages in the file
Merge – adds the messages in the file, skipping any that are already in your archive so nothing is duplicated

Select your .mbox file and click Start import. You can close the page; the import carries on in the background.

How long does it take?

Small archives import in minutes. Large ones take longer: allow a few hours for archives of 100,000 messages or more. There is no upper limit on archive size, so multi-gigabyte archives with many years of history are fine.

Make sure the Message Archive is switched on for the group before importing, and check who can view it if the old archive was private.

Need help?

Migration help is free. If your archive is in an unusual format or you're not sure how to export it, send us a message. On the Enterprise plan we handle the entire import for you.

Importing the archive is Stage 3 of moving a group to Gaggle Mail. For creating the group and adding members, see How to migrate to Gaggle Mail.