Forward email to a new email account when the provider doesnt support forwarding

Question

I want to gradually move from my primary email address that I use everywhere, to a new email with my own domain.

Because this will a while to move all my accounts to this new email, I wanted to forward messages from the old email to the new one.

The issue is that my old email provider doesnt support forwarding.

I am using Zoho as my mail hosting for my new domain and like Gmail, it provides a way to connect to an existing IMAP server. The problem is that it creates a separate Inbox and their filters system doesn't work with this IMAP setup. I want a single inbox and with advanced filter capabilities.

I am experimenting go-getmail, which is a tool that allows syncing between two IMAP servers and it works quite well. I managed to get all my emails in a single inbox working. but Zoho filters don´t work with IMAP.

So, I tried modifying the library to read incoming messages from my old email via IMAP and then forward them to my new Email Account using SMTP.

It works and filters are applied. The problem is that most messages now are going to SPAM because of failed SPF checks.

I read about SRS, but If I understood correctly, it works at server level, which I dont have access to. I am just using an SMTP client to forward the messages.

So, my question is, is there any order way I can around to forward messages from my old email or I am really stuck into it, or using other email providers as clients via IMAP?

Thanks.

Answer 1

SPF checking is an excellent tool in the fight against SPAM, but forwarded messages will often be marked as SPAM, as you have seen. To avoid this, you can receive the messages on the "old" host and you can build there a new message addressed to the "new" host, if you are allowed to use the necessary tools. But be warned, that the handling of returned messages will not work as expected. This is not a recommended way.

The best will be to use an IMAP account on the "old" and another one on the "new" host. Inform the sender that they should only use your new E-Mail address. After a reasonable time delay, you can delete the old account. In my opinion, this is the best way.