Insights / October 2026 · 5 min read
Moving business email without losing a single message
How we move a company's email to a new provider: the inventory, the order of operations, and the one thing you must not do first.
Email is the part of a website project that scares people most, and with good reason: a mistake silently loses mail. The method below is the one we follow.
1. Inventory before anything changes
We write down every DNS record for the domain and list every mailbox with its size. That list is the contract: when we are done, everything on it must still work. It also tells us who controls the domain, because we cannot change what we cannot access.
2. Do not cancel the old hosting first
The most common mistake is cancelling the old host because "the new site is ready". If the mailboxes live on that host, they disappear with it. The old hosting stays running until the mail has been moved and checked.
3. Agree a window
The records that route mail (MX, SPF and DKIM) are changed at an agreed time, and everyone knows when. Changing them in the middle of a working day, without warning, is how people miss customer messages.
4. Move the mail, then the records
We copy each mailbox to the new provider first, check the folders and a sample of messages, and only then switch the records. For a few hours both places can hold mail, and nothing is lost.
5. Check, then close
After the switch we send test messages in both directions, check spam folder placement, and confirm the old hosting can be cancelled. Only the client confirms that.
The short version
List everything, keep the old service until the new one is proven, change records at an agreed time, and test both directions. None of it is clever. All of it matters.