With changing school districts, I need to export my 1.5+ GB of e-mail out of Lotus Notes and into something useful to me. Since I have been working on consolidating my many e-mail accounts into just a few Gmail-enabled accounts, Gmail seemed like the natural choice for the export. After all, both Gmail and Lotus Notes support IMAP with SSL. It can’t be that hard, can it?
It was. After about an hour of trying to configure IMAP connections to Gmail using two versions of Lotus Notes, I was finally able to get a connection to work with Lotus Notes 8. Here is what you have to do to get it to work.
Choose Preferences… from the File menu. In the Preferences dialog window, chose Accounts from the list on the left. You will see all of the accounts that are accessible with your Lotus Notes configuration. Click on the New Account button to setup your Gmail account:
Here is the important information (which you can also see by clicking on the image above):
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Account Name | The account name you will see in Lotus Notes |
| Type | IMAP Online (SSL Enabled) |
| Server | imap.gmail.com |
| Password | Your Gmail password |
| Port number | 993 |
| Sent folder name | [Gmail]/Sent |
| Drafts folder name | [Gmail]/Drafts |
| Accept SSL site certificates | Yes |
| Accept expired SSL certificates | Yes |
| Send SSL certificates when asked (outbound connections only) | Yes |
To open your Gmail account, you can click on the Open button under the menu bar and search for the account name you entered when creating the account. You can also open your Workspace (Open > Application > Workspace) and find an icon for your account there.
Now you can cut and paste messages between your Lotus Notes e-mail or archive and your Gmail account. I have noticed that calendar entries may pose a problem (I am using the All Documents view to get messages), so just skip over them. You may also run into messages for which Lotus Notes cannot find the UID. I am deciding to forget those messages, unless someone has a solution for this.
I hope that helps those of you transitioning from Lotus Notes to Gmail. If you have any other tips related to this, please post them in the comments.
So now you have 1.5GB+ of email that is available for data mining as well as no guarantee of being there tomorrow. With anything in life you get what you pay for. Notes can create a local database to hold all that important email safely, without risking losing it.
Gmail is one of the best free mail services out there. It doesn’t mean they won’t change the rules or delete your mail for the hell of it.
RE: foof
No guarantee that your local copy will stay intact either, really i’d say more likely you’ll loose it, even if you have multiple copies
Another way you could have done it is to IMAP or POP enabled your Domino Server and automatically fetch the data using your Google Account.
- Thomas
Do you know how to setup IMAP PoP3? We are looking at using this to download emails, but I am not sure how this works.
Thank you.
@David: if you are asking about setting anything up in Lotus Notes, unfortunalely I am unable to help. I have not been a Lotus Notes user since shortly after writing this post. Perhaps one of the other readers can help you.
hi
Plz provide me step by step info to configure gmail with lotus notes 7.0.2
hi……….. how to configure lotus notes 8
Thanks for these instructions. It worked in Lotush*t 7 too, although the screens looked a bit different.
Have you discovered any way to automate the cut and paste process in Lotus (like the way one can schedule archiving of messages)?
I also got the UID error message. When you say you just ignore it, what do you mean? Because it seems like the messages cannot be pasted when the message occurs. Is that your experience too?
@JR: By “forget those messages,” I meant that I was not transferring them to Gmail and just letting them get deleted with my Lotus Notes account. I could not find a way to get those messages moved to Gmail, and many of them were included in other replies in the message threads.
Same thing here, some messages create trouble. IMAP support in Notes is really bad, another way to do it would be to enable pop3 in your local Notes client by running npop3.exe and use your local PC public IP in gmail’s fetcher.
Hello sir,
Thanks for the info. Now I can receive emails but I cannot send out emails. Any more info is needed for setting up outgoing emails?
@Adam: You will probably need to setup an SMTP account to use for sending e-mail via Gmail. Google provides documentation for setting up SMTP in various mail clients, but Lotus Notes is not on the supported list. I believe Lotus Notes supports SMTP accounts. So, just use the settings given at the link above to create the SMTP account in Lotus Notes.
Is it possible to show me step by step instructions on how to configure GMAIL for Lotus Notes 8? – meaning setting up my Lotus to access my gmail.
Thanks!
Works great for Lotus Notes 8.5 too!
It worked on Lotus 7, but I noticed that the dates are wrong. It will show the actual date and time on which the paste was made…
Basically, if I copy an email from my Notes archive, received on January 20, and then paste it on the gmail account configured in IMAP… it will show that email in my inbox with the current date and time :-/
That’s quite shitty because it screws all the dates in my emails, even though the right date appear in the gmail account in Notes. Any explanation ?
There is a posted date and delivery date field within the documents. That should reflect the correct date. The date shown in the standard views are the modified or creation date in the notes client. You can modify the views to reverse the dates selected within the views.
This is actually a known issue in Gmail :
http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=82365&topic=12922
Did you have this problem using Notes 8 ? If updgrading to the newest version can solve the problem, I’ll do it immediately ! Thanks for the answer…
Hi there, I found your blog via Google and your post looks very interesting for me.
Thanks sir, its very useful
Thanks a ton, man – I’ve be trying to setup my Lotus Notes to read the Gmail account (unsuccessfully) numerous times… Very straight-forward and it worked like a charm from the first try.
I get Configuration settings either missing or invalid…
pls help… I use Lotus 8.0.2
I got the same error like venths:
Configuration settings either missing or invalid
Please help me, I use Lotus Notes 8.0.2 EN version.
Thanks!
Gracias por compartirlo!
Nice Post Mark very useful. I have actually done it the other way round and am currently pulling my Gmail into notes 8.5.1 I was using POP but went to IMAP as I’ll soon have my gmail on my phone too. and IMAP is better cross platform.
Anyway, even notes 8.5.1 uses an IMAP template based on it’s notes 5 design. did you manage to get anything looking like notes 8?
Cheers
I wish I could help you guys more, but since changing jobs back in July 2008, I have not used Lotus Notes at all. Unfortunately, I have been saddled with using GroupWise, which is even worse than Lotus Notes!
If anyone out there has any input for those who have posted additional questions here, it would be much appreciated. Since I do not share e-mail addresses of those who comment, please post your responses to questions as a new comment.
Thanks for reading!
COMPLETE STEP BY STEP GUIDE ON HOW TO CONFIGURE GMAIL IMAP ON LOTUS NOTES 8x
Go to local Contacts book and create two accounts for accepting incoming email and sending outgoing email on Gmail. Names are not so important, but the configuration on the two accounts is!
1. Creating account for Incoming Gmail:
Click Open Contacts Advanced Accounts New Account
The Basics tab
a. Account name: Can be anything (I chose ”In Gmail”)
b. Account server: imap.gmail.com
c. Login Name: Your gmail email address (complete with the @gmail.com)
d. Password: Your gmail password
e. Protocol: IMAP Online
f. SSL: Enabled
g. Only from Location(s): leave only the * (first) field checked
Protocol Configuration tab:
a. Sent folder name: [Gmail]/Sent Mail
b. Drafts folder name: [Gmail]/Drafts
Advanced Tab: This is the most important tab.
a. Port Number: 993
b. Accept SSL site certificates: Yes
c. Accept expired SSL certificates: Yes.
d. Send SSL certificates when asked (outbound connections only): No.
e. Verify account server name with remote server’s certificate: Disabled
f. SSL protocol version: V3.0 with V2.0 handshake
Click on Save and Close to save the document and exit.
Now you will need to create another account document to handle the outgoing email.
2. Creating account document for Outgoing Gmail:
Click Open Contacts Advanced Accounts New Account
The Basics Tab
a. Account Name: Can be anything. I chose ”Out Gmail”
b. Account server name: smtp.gmail.com
c. Login Name: Your gmail email address (complete with the @gmail.com)
d. Password: Your gmail password
e. Protocol: SMTP
f. SSL: Enabled
g. Only from Location(s): leave only the * (first) field checked
Advanced Tab: This is the most important tab.
a. Port Number: 465 or 587 (Both are SSL ports and both work)
b. Accept SSL site certificates: Yes
c. Accept expired SSL certificates: Yes.
d. Send SSL certificates when asked (outbound connections only): No.
e. Verify account server name with remote server’s certificate: Disabled
f. SSL protocol version: V3.0 with V2.0 handshake
3. Once these two accounts are created, create a location document. The
steps to create are:
Click Open Contacts Advanced Locations New Location
Basics Tab:
a. Location Type: Local Area Network
b. Location Name: Can be anything (I chose ”Gmail”)
c. Internet Mail Address: Your complete gmail email address
Leave the rest as it is.
Servers Tab:
Home/Mail server: imap.gmail.com
Leave the rest as it is.
Ports tab:
No changes (ensure TCPIP is checked)
Mail Tab (Most important):
a. Mail file location: Local
b. Mail file: InGmail.nsf – in this case (if you specified a different account name than the one I provided here for the incoming mail account, enter the file name of your proxy database file).
Regarding the Mail file name, Lotus Notes help states that ”If this is a separate location for your Internet IMAP Online mail, enter the file name of your IMAP proxy application.”
To find the name of your proxy database (application), go to Accounts and try to delete the incoming mail account you just created. A popup window will appear notifying you that this action will also delete the corresponding proxy database, e.g. xxxx.nsf. Note the name of the proxy database file, and click on cancel).
c. Internet domain for Notes addresses when connecting directly to the Internet: gmail.com
d. Send Outgoing mail: directly to Internet
e. Transfer outgoing mail if [1] messages pending
Leave the rest of the fields as it is.
6. There is no need to change the rest of tabs. Click on Save and Close to create the document.
Change to the the new location (Open Applications Workspace double click the name of the incoming mail account newly created) and you will see your Gmail emails getting downloaded.
7. You can create a folder named [Gmail]/All Mail folder in the left folders pannel, to sync the new Lotus account with your All Mail label in Gmail.
8. Also, sometimes some messages appear as white text on a white ground or black text on a black ground. To fix this, go into File Preferences Basic Notes Client Configuration and put a check mark next to “Disable embedded browser for MIME mail”. You don’t have to close the client, just save the change and re-open the message.
[...] calendar is doable as well I think Lotus Notes to Gmail is the biggest issue. I found two links: Gmail IMAP and Lotus Notes 8 – ask-mark.com and How I moved to Gmail | Lotus Notes | Brent Muir. To do your calendar you would go to google [...]
Thanks ma. After testing both imap online and offline version, my preference is imap offline with gmail for 2 reasons:
1. offline allows u to use any mail template in my case 8.5.2
(imap online use a very old r5 template)
2. I like having a local replica of my gmail content
Cheers