Google Email Uploader for Mac available now

The Gmail of a few years ago was quite primitive in comparison to the current incarnation. Still, threading and a nearly-bottomless cup of storage space made it appealing despite early privacy fears. I use Gmail extensively nowadays, complete with a bunch of tweaks, add-ons and lab components. Problem was, all my old email still lived on my "antique" addresses, and worse, I couldn't access those emails within the handy search tool in Gmail. Google Apps came along and while you could now better control email (using your own domain, for example), the same problem existed: your old email didn't migrate to your Google Apps account.

Enter the Google Email Uploader for Mac. It's a simple tool allowing you to upload your old mail to your Google Apps account. That's it! Apple Mail, Eudora and Thunderbird all seem to be supported, but note there are some real limits if you have a ton of email. Here's what Google says to keep in mind:

1. Start small. Due to server upload rate limits, the uploader is fast for up to 500 messages, and slow thereafter (1 message per second.) Pick a small subset of your mailboxes when first trying out the uploader.
2. Be patient. Even after uploading completes, the server requires a while to process uploads.
3. Do assign a custom label (this is checked by default.) This lets you effectively "undo" the uploads later by deleting all messages with the label. Deleting the label itself will not delete the mail.
4. If you have many mailboxes in your archives, creating labels for each mailbox probably is not a good idea, as this could create far too many labels.

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