One of my clients is using a host who provides SmarterMail Enterprise Edition 3.3.2543. He uses the heck out of SM, maintaining all of his contacts, calendar, tasks and email there.

Very soon, he will be moving his domain to a new host, and the new host uses SM 4. He needs to keep all of his information.

I have always used Outlook to manage my mail, so I have no idea what the concerns are... after all, he will be using the same URL to log into the "new" SM as he's currently using for the "old" one. Where does that data reside? Somewhere on the host? At SmarterMail headquarters? Does he need to go through some tedious export and import process?

I apologize for asking the question here, but I have been unable to get through to the SmarterTools web site for the last two days, and was getting frustrated... and I figured that somebody here would probably know the answer off the top of their head! Thanks in advance!

All "webmail" emails reside with the hosting company that is providing the email service.  If he switches hosting companies, he will lose all of the email unless there are some utilities available for him to export from the old host and then re-import into the new host.

Will the new host with SM4 be using Enterprise Edition?  If so, then here is my theory (I'm no expert on SM by any means):

1.  Download/sync all data (including emails) with old host on his local PC in Outlook (SM Enterprise allows this I've heard)

2.  Switch hosting companies...continue using Outlook for email during the switch.

3.  Sync all data (old emails cannot be uploaded/sync'd to new host, so those will be on his PC forever) with new host from his local PC (Outlook)

4.  New host should now have same contacts, calendar, etc as old host (except old emails of course).

I have no idea if my theory is even possible.

Good luck!

Thanks, William! I was hoping that there might be an easier way, but thinking that there probably wasn't. I hoped there would be a couple of files or a small database that he could download from the original host and move to the new host!

Thanks for theorizing! 

You're quite welcome.  This is the main reason why I only use webmail "as needed".  Like you, I use Outlook and download all of my emails so I know I have them wherever I may go.