Managing Email During a Website Transfer to InMotion Hosting

When you point your domain’s nameservers to InMotion Hosting, your email service transitions along with your website. For a window of up to 48 hours, messages can split between your old host and your new one. This guide explains what to expect, how to avoid missing messages during that window, and how to update your email client once the transfer is complete.

What Happens to Your Email When You Change Nameservers

Changing your nameservers tells the global DNS system to start directing your domain’s traffic, including email, to InMotion Hosting’s servers. That change does not happen instantly. DNS propagation can take anywhere from a few hours to 48 hours depending on your domain registrar and the TTL (time to live) values set on your DNS records.

During that window, some mail servers around the world will still deliver incoming email to your previous host while others will deliver to InMotion. That split is normal and expected. The risk is that messages land on a server you are not actively checking.

What to Do Before You Update Your Nameservers

Two steps taken before you make the nameserver change will significantly reduce the chance of losing mail.

1. Create your email accounts in cPanel first. Your new InMotion account needs the email addresses to exist before mail can be delivered. Log into cPanel, go to Email Accounts, and recreate every address that was active at your previous host. Use the same usernames so incoming messages route correctly the moment propagation completes for each mail server.

2. Lower your DNS TTL values. If your registrar allows it, reduce your TTL to 300 seconds (5 minutes) 24 hours before the switch. A lower TTL means DNS resolvers around the world refresh their records faster, shortening the split-delivery window. Raise the TTL back to its original value after propagation is confirmed complete.

How to Avoid Missing Emails During Propagation

During the propagation window, check email in both places. The safest approach is to use webmail at each host rather than a desktop client, since a desktop client set to POP3 will download and remove messages from whichever server it connects to first.

Two reliable options:

• Monitor both webmail accounts. Log into webmail at your old host and at your new InMotion account (yourdomain.com/webmail) throughout the propagation period.
• Set up a temporary forwarder to a third-party address. Create a forwarder in cPanel at your old host that sends a copy of all incoming mail to a Gmail or similar address. Remove the forwarder once propagation is complete.

Most customers see full propagation within 4 to 24 hours. The 48-hour window is the outside edge.

How to Update Your Email Client Settings After Propagation

Once DNS has fully propagated to InMotion Hosting, update your email client, whether that is Outlook, Thunderbird, Apple Mail, or a mobile app, to point to InMotion’s mail servers. Use the settings below, replacing example.com with your actual domain name.

Recommended port settings with SSL:

IMAP is the recommended protocol. It keeps your messages on the server and syncs across devices. POP3 downloads messages to a single device and removes them from the server by default.

If your email client is showing authentication errors after updating these settings, verify the password matches what is set in cPanel under Email Accounts. You can reset it there at any time.

How to Confirm DNS Propagation Is Complete

Before removing any temporary forwarders or fully switching your email client, confirm that propagation is complete. Tools like MXToolbox and WhatsMyDNS let you check your domain’s MX records from multiple locations worldwide. When all locations return InMotion’s mail servers, propagation is done.