How to Transfer Email Address to Another Provider (Step by Step)

Let’s dive in and make your email transition seamless, with extra attention to ensuring no new emails get lost or bounce along the way. Ready? Let’s do this!

Setting the stage: what this guide is about exactly?

This guide is for you if:

• You already have a custom email address under your own domain name – for example, something like yourname@yoursite.com
• That email address is currently being hosted somewhere already *
• You want to move that email address to a new host but keep the address itself the same
• Your new host runs cPanel (usually the case)
• You want to make sure that no emails that arrive in the meantime get lost in the process

* Just in case you’re not 100% on what it means to have your email address hosted somewhere, here’s a quick theory lesson: Every email address needs to be hosted on a mail server, which is a computer that manages the sending, receiving, and storing of emails. When you sign up for an email service like Gmail or Outlook, your email account is created on their mail servers. However, if you have a custom domain name and want to run a custom email on it (e.g. yourname@yoursite.com) then the role of an email server is being handled by a third-party host, like Bluehost, A2 Hosting, Zoho, or others. These servers handle all the email traffic for your address. Hosting is necessary for any email address to function because it provides the infrastructure required to manage and store your emails.

This guide is not for you if:

• You have a Gmail email (@gmail.com) and want to move it to another provider, like Outlook or others. In this case, read this guide to learn how to set up a professional email address in Gmail, Google Workspace, or Office 365
• You want to change the domain name of your email address – for example, go from yourname@yoursite.com to yourname@yourNEWsite.com
• You want to change the main identifier of your email address but keep the domain – for example, go from yourname@yoursite.com to yourNEWname@yoursite.com

Overview of how to transfer email address to another provider

The most straightforward and quickest way to transfer email address to another provider is the following:

1. Sign up with the new provider / host and configure your domain name there.
2. Create the exact same email address on the new server.
3. Redirect your domain name – point it at the new server.
4. Configure your email tool to receive/send emails using the new server.
5. Clean up the old server.

1. Sign up with the new provider, set up domain

Before you do anything else, you need to have your new web hosting account set up completely and with everything paid for. I assume that you’ve done that already, so we’ll not spend too much time explaining the basics. However, if you’re still on the fence and not sure which email hosting provider to go with, here are our favorite platforms:

👉 You can read our guide on email hosting for more info on what each of these companies has to offer. It’s the second-to-last link in the additional suggested posts at the bottom of the page.

The first thing you should do in terms of configuring your new email hosting is set up your domain name there.

To begin, log in to the cPanelcPanel is a web-based control panel that simplifies the management of web hosting services, making it possible to do even for inexperienced users. Here is basic info (LINK) on what cPanel is, how it works and how it compares to other similar panels. of your new email host.

Accessing cPanel can differ from one email host to another. Here’s how you can handle it:

• Hosting dashboard: Some hosts show visible links to cPanel right in the main user hosting panel. For example, Bluehost has a link to cPanel right in the Advanced section of the panel (see image below).
• Direct URL access: Try going directly to the public URL of the cPanel instance of your domain. You can try using: https://yourdomain.com/cpanel or https://yourdomain.com:2083.
• Subdomain method: Similar to the above, but this time try: cpanel.yourdomain.com.
• None of the above work? Contact your web host through the support chat. Works every time!

Once in cPanel, go to Domains.

Click on CREATE A NEW DOMAIN. What we’re going to do here is set up your main email domain with the new host.

Fill out the following form, simply put your email domain details there. So if your email is yourname@yoursite.com then put yoursite.com in the domain field:

• Document Root. It can be an entirely new directory name. I usually just enter my domain name with a _ instead of the dot, e.g. mysite_com.

Click on SUBMIT.

With this done, your new server is now ready to “receive” your domain name.

💡   At this stage, most people choose to move their websites to the new host as well. Here’s how to do that without downtime.  

2. Create an identical email address on the new host

In cPanel, go to Email Accounts.

Click on + CREATE.

You’ll see the following form:

• Domain. Select your domain name from the list – the one you added a minute ago.
• Username. This is the identifiable part of your email address – the part that comes before the “@” sign. This step is crucial! The email address has to be identical to the one you’re currently using. This means that it has to use the same spelling and capitalization. For example, if the email I want to migrate is karol@imawesome.com then in the Username field, I must enter karol.
• Password. Enter a password. It can be the same you’re using right now, but it can also be completely new.
• Storage Space. Best set to Unlimited.
• Leave everything else as is.

Important: Depending on your host and its setup, you might not see some of the fields listed above.

Click on + CREATE.

You’ll see your email account on the list.

With this done, you now have the same email address set with both your new email hosting provider and the old provider.

3. Redirect your domain name

This is a good moment to redirect your domain name to the new host.

💡 Important; in the previous step, we only configured your domain name on the new server, but the domain itself hasn’t been redirected to that server yet. The new server is only “ready” to receive that domain at this point.

The difficult part about this step is that these things tend to differ from host to host and registrar to registrarA domain name registrar (LINK) is the company that registered the domain name for you..

In general, you have two paths that you can choose:

• a) Redirecting your entire domain name to the new host (including your email, website, etc.)
• b) Redirecting just the emails going through your domain

…

a) Redirecting your entire domain name

This path involves moving not only all the email addresses under your domain name but also your website, databases, plus everything else that uses your domain name. Basically, this is your path if you’re moving to a new host completely.

In this case, the simplest way to redirect your domain name is to change the nameserver addressesNameservers are specialized servers on the internet that handle the translation of domain names into IP addresses, making it possible for users to access websites using easy-to-remember domain names instead of numerical IP addresses. assigned to your domain name configuration. You can do this change through your domain registrar – the company where you originally registered the domain name.

To do this:

First, check what the nameserver addresses of the new host are. You can find that info either in the user panel at your host, or you can start a support chat and ask for the details there. If you’re using a popular host, like Bluehost, for example, then you can just google this info:

Next, set these new nameserver addresses with your domain registrar. Again, depending on which registrar you’re using, you can find this setting in different places.

👉 Here’s a separate guide written by Colin on how to change nameservers on GoDaddy, Namecheap, HostGator, and Bluehost.

To make the task easier, you can also reach out to the hosting support team, and they’ll guide you through the process or even set the new nameservers for you.

For example, if you’ve registered your domain name with GoDaddy – a popular registrar, you can find the nameserver settings in the main user panel. First, click on DNS next to your domain name:

On the next page, switch to the Nameservers tab and click on Change Nameservers. Enter the new nameserver addresses there.

You will find similar interfaces with other domain registrars.

…

b) Redirecting just the emails going through your domain

In this case, you’re only getting a new provider for your email while leaving your website and everything else with the current web host.

To do this, we’re going to use what’s called your domain’s MX records. If you want to get a bit technical, an MX (Mail Exchange) record is a type of DNS record that specifies the mail servers responsible for receiving email on behalf of a domain. MX records direct email messages to the correct mail servers. From a user’s point of view, though, an MX record is a simple note that specifies the address of the mail server you’re using.

Just like with nameservers, setting MX records works differently with each web host and domain registrar.

First, go to your new email hosting provider and find out what their MX addresses are. The fastest way to get this info is to reach out to the support team of the host.

Once you have these values, you’ll need to set them with your domain registrar. Again, depending on which registrar you’re using, you might find this setting in different places. The support trick works here as well. Simply reach out to the registrar’s support team and ask where to set the MX records for your domain.

For example, if you have your domain on GoDaddy, log in to your user panel, and click on DNS next to your domain name:

On the next page, in the DNS Records tab, click on Add New Record.

From the dropdown, select MX and fill out the remaining fields accordingly – based on the MX values given to you by the new hosting provider.

When you approve the changes, your domain will be redirected successfully.

4. Configure the new provider in your email tool

Let’s recap what has happened so far:

• We’ve created an identical email address with your new provider
• We’ve also set a redirect that will send all new emails to that new provider

The main thing to do now is to configure that new email address in your email tool (Gmail, Apple Mail, Thunderbird, whatever you’re using).

Go back to cPanel on your new host, and click on Email Accounts.

Click on CONNECT DEVICES next to the email address that you’re migrating to the new host.

On the next page, you’ll see all the details needed for configuring this email in any email tool.

• The first section is where you can find auto-config files for some of the popular tools.

• The second section shows the raw config details, which you can use to configure your email by hand in any tool.

⚠️ Note; In this model, you’re going to have two instances of the same email address configured in your email tool. There’s the version still hosted on the old server and the one hosted on the new one.

At this stage, when someone sends you an email, it should be delivered to your new host. However, within the next two days or so, you might still be getting an odd email landing on your old server. This is because domain name redirection doesn’t take effect right away.

In some cases, it takes up to 48 hours for all traffic (including emails) to be correctly redirected to the new server.

This is why you shouldn’t delete your old email configuration from your email tool right away. This is essentially what prevents you from losing any email in the process, so you don’t have to worry that someone will send you an important message right as you’re reconfiguring your servers and that email getting lost. This will not happen if you follow the setup process as outlined here. 👍

That being said, the core of the work is done now!

5. Clean up and done!

After a couple of days, you can delete that old email config from your email tool. You can also cancel the old email server. Your email address has now been fully migrated to the new provider!

I hope this has been helpful! If you have any questions about the whole process of transferring an email address to another provider, don’t hesitate to ask in the comments below.