How to move from iCloud Mail to mello

Before you start

• A mello address. mello is invite only for now: request an invite, and sign in once at mail.mello.mx.
• A Mac, ideally. Apple Mail already has your iCloud account, and the rest takes a few clicks. On Windows or Linux, Thunderbird does the same job with an app-specific password, explained below.
• Time. Forwarding takes five minutes. Copying mail takes from a few minutes to a few hours, depending on how much you have.

Forward your new mail

First, have iCloud send everything that arrives on to mello. People can keep writing to your old address while you move.

1. Go to icloud.com/mail and sign in.
2. Click the settings button at the top of the mailbox list, then choose Settings.
3. Choose Mail Forwarding in the sidebar.
4. Check Forward my email to and enter your mello address.

Leave Delete messages after forwarding unchecked for now, so iCloud keeps a copy while you move. Later, when you’re sure everything arrives, checking it frees your iCloud storage.

If you use your own domain with iCloud Mail, mail to those addresses is forwarded too.

Copy your old mail on a Mac

Put both accounts in Apple Mail, then drag your folders from one to the other. Mail copies each message with its date, its attachments, and whether you’ve read it.

1. Your iCloud account is already in Apple Mail if iCloud Mail is on in System Settings. Wait until its folders have loaded.
2. Add your mello account: in the mello webmail, open Settings → Accesses and choose Download profile, then open the file and install it in System Settings. It adds your mello mail account.
3. Select the messages of a folder, for example the Inbox, and drag them to the same folder in your mello account. Do the same with Sent Messages to mello’s Sent, and with Archive and your own folders.

To copy a big folder, sort it by date and drag one year at a time. If Mail stops halfway, it’s easier to see what’s left.

Without a Mac: Thunderbird and an app-specific password

Apps other than Apple’s can’t sign in to iCloud with your Apple Account password. They need an app-specific password, which works only for mail and which you can revoke at any time.

1. Go to account.apple.com and sign in. Your Apple Account needs two-factor authentication, which most have.
2. Open Sign-In and Security, then App-Specific Passwords, and generate one. Name it Thunderbird, for example.
3. In Thunderbird, add your iCloud account with your iCloud address and this password. Thunderbird finds iCloud’s settings on its own.
4. Add your mello account: your name, your mello address and your mello password. Thunderbird finds mello’s settings too. If it asks, they are below.
5. Drag your folders across, as on a Mac.

The same settings are in the mello webmail, under Settings → Accesses. Changing your Apple Account password revokes all your app-specific passwords, so generate a new one if Thunderbird stops signing in.

Bring your contacts

On a Mac, in the Contacts app:

1. Choose the iCloud list in the sidebar, then select all your contacts (Command-A).
2. Choose File → Export → Export vCard. You get one .vcf file with all of them.

Without a Mac, at icloud.com/contacts: select all your contacts from the Actions menu, click the Share button, and export them as a vCard.

Then, in the mello webmail, open Contacts, choose Import, and pick the file. A file can hold up to 5,000 contacts and be up to 5 MB. Contacts with an email address already in your mello contacts are skipped, so importing the same file twice does no harm. The cards come along, but not the lists you sorted them into.

Bring your calendars

The mello webmail can’t open .ics files yet, but on a Mac you don’t need it to: the profile you installed has already put your mello calendar in Apple Calendar.

1. In Calendar, select one of your iCloud calendars in the list on the left.
2. Choose File → Export → Export. You get an .ics file with its events.
3. Choose File → Import, pick the file, and choose your mello calendar when asked.
4. Do the same for each iCloud calendar you want to keep.

The events show in mello’s calendar right away, and on every device you’ve set up. Calendars that others share with you stay with them: ask them to share again with your mello address.

Without a Mac, iCloud.com can’t export a calendar. You can make it public for a moment in the calendar’s sharing options, open its link in a browser with https:// in place of webcal:// to download the .ics file, and then make it private again. Import the file with Thunderbird: add a new calendar On the Network, with your mello address and the location https://mail.mello.mx/, then choose Tools → Import → Calendar.

Hide My Email addresses

If you use iCloud+, you may have handed out Hide My Email addresses to websites and apps. They belong to your Apple Account, not to your mailbox, so they keep delivering to iCloud Mail (or to the other address on your Apple Account you chose). With forwarding on, that mail reaches mello as well, so nothing is lost while you move.

There’s no way to take them with you, so move them over one site at a time. When you update your address on a site, give it a mello private address instead: in the mello webmail, open Settings → Aliases and choose New alias. Like Hide My Email, it’s a random address for one site that you can turn off when it starts sending spam. More about private addresses.

Give out your new address

Forwarding catches your mail for now. Over the next weeks, move what matters to your mello address:

• The people you write to most. A short note does it, or simply reply from mello: your new address goes with every message.
• Accounts that sign you in by email: your bank, your phone company, the shops you use. Change the address in each one’s settings, starting with those that send password resets.
• Newsletters you want to keep. Subscribe again with a mello address, or a private one.

When a forwarded message arrives in mello, its To line still shows your iCloud address. Each one is a reminder of a sender still to update.

Afterwards

Keep forwarding on for a few months: mail still trickles in to old addresses long after you move. Your iCloud address stays tied to your Apple Account, and you don’t need to close anything. When iCloud has gone quiet, you can turn iCloud Mail off in iCloud’s settings on your devices. Photos, backups and the App Store don’t need it.

On your iPhone, add mello with the same profile: set up iPhone and Mac shows how.

You can leave mello as easily: Settings → General → Download all my data gives you every message as mbox, your calendars as .ics and your contacts as .vcf.