Switching From Airmail to Another Mac Email Client

Airmail's mail doesn't live on Airmail's servers — it lives on Gmail's, iCloud's, Microsoft 365's, or whatever IMAP host you connected. That's the first thing to understand before you switch from Airmail to another email client: your threads, folders, and labels move the moment you sign into the same account somewhere else. What doesn't move is everything Airmail built on top of that mail — its custom actions, its rules, its unified-inbox exclusions, its saved signatures and templates.

This guide covers what actually transfers, what you need to rebuild by hand, and how to cancel an Airmail Pro subscription (or a Business seat) once you've confirmed the new client works. It's written for Mac and iOS users who relied on Airmail's per-account setup and swipe-based custom actions, and who want the same multi-account speed with AI drafting on top — without touching the underlying mailbox.

What actually moves and what doesn't#

Airmail's own documentation is specific about this: messages are not stored on Airmail's servers. It connects to your account over IMAP, POP3, or Exchange and reads what's already sitting on Gmail, iCloud, Microsoft 365, or your mail host. That means the actual content of your mailbox — every message, every folder, every label — was never Airmail's to keep, so it doesn't need to be migrated. Sign into the same account in a new client and the whole history reappears.

What Airmail did keep, at least locally, is the layer it built on top: custom actions (multi-step gestures you chain together), rules that file or forward mail automatically, which accounts are excluded from the unified inbox, and signatures and templates synced between your own devices over iCloud. None of that lives on the server, so none of it follows you into a different app automatically.

One partial exception is Snooze Sync — Airmail's own FAQ says it stores only a message ID and an email address on its servers, to bring a snoozed message back at the right time. That's the only account data Airmail keeps outside your provider, and it has no equivalent to migrate; any message you snoozed in Airmail just needs re-snoozing in the new client.

• Moves automatically: every message, thread, folder, and label — they live on your provider, not Airmail
• Doesn't move: custom actions, rules, unified-inbox exclusions, signatures and templates, notification settings
• Partially tracked by Airmail: only the message ID and address behind a snoozed message — nothing else

Pre-migration checklist#

Do this before you touch a single setting. It takes about fifteen minutes, and it's the difference between a clean switch and re-discovering a broken rule three weeks later.

• List every account connected to Airmail and its type — Gmail, iCloud, Microsoft 365/Exchange, or plain IMAP — since you'll re-add each one by hand
• Write down what each custom action actually does (for example, "archive, apply Client label, mark read") — Airmail doesn't export these, so this list is your only record
• Copy the text of every signature and template out of Airmail's settings and paste it somewhere safe
• Note which accounts you'd excluded from the unified inbox, and any VIP or priority contacts you'd set up
• Confirm whether you're on Airmail Pro (an Apple subscription) or Airmail for Business (a one-time or volume purchase) — it changes how you cancel later
• Decide what actually mattered to you about Airmail — multi-account speed, custom actions, something else — so you're picking a replacement for the right reason, not just an escape

Steps#

1. 1

   Add your accounts to the new client

   Use the same Gmail, iCloud, Exchange, or IMAP credentials you used in Airmail. Don't remove anything from Airmail yet — both apps can read the same server-side mailbox at once with no conflict.

2. 2

   Let it finish indexing before you judge it

   A large mailbox can take a while to sync and build search on first connection. Judging a new client's speed or threading before it's finished indexing is the most common reason people switch back too early.

3. 3

   Rebuild your rules

   Recreate each filing or forwarding rule from your pre-migration list. Most clients group by sender, subject, or label the same way Airmail did, even if the interface looks different.

4. 4

   Rebuild your custom actions

   This is where clients vary most — some offer an equivalent multi-step automation, some only allow single actions, and some replace the idea with AI-driven triage instead. Match each Airmail action to its closest equivalent, and note the ones with no direct match.

5. 5

   Re-paste signatures and templates

   Drop in the text you copied earlier. Check that any per-account signature is attached to the right account — this is a common miss once you have more than two.

6. 6

   Set the new client as your default mail app

   On a Mac, this lives in the default email reader setting; on iOS, in Settings > Apps > Mail. Do this only once you trust the rules and actions are rebuilt, since links and mailto: buttons across the system will now open the new client.

7. 7

   Cancel Airmail last, not first

   Once you've run the new client for a few days without a missed rule or a lost custom action, cancel the subscription — through your Apple ID, not inside Airmail. Uninstalling the app does not cancel the subscription on its own.

What breaks when you switch#

The table below is what actually needs rebuilding, drawn from what Airmail itself documents as local rather than server-side. Nothing in it means you lose mail — it means you lose configuration, and configuration is rebuildable.

Rollback plan#

Because your mail lives on the server rather than in either app, rollback carries almost no risk. Keep Airmail installed until you're certain — signing into the same accounts in a second app doesn't duplicate or move anything; both clients are just reading the same mailbox.

If the new client mishandles threading, drops a rule you thought you'd rebuilt, or just feels wrong after a week of real use, switch the default mail handler back to Airmail and keep using it while you fix the gap. Nothing you did during the trial period is destructive.

Doing it without downtime#

Because both clients can be logged into the same accounts simultaneously, there's no window where you're without email. Add every account to the new client first, run it side by side with Airmail for a few days, and only flip the default mail handler once you trust it.

This also means you can migrate one account at a time instead of all at once if you have several. Move the account you use least first, confirm the rules and actions carry over cleanly, then move the rest with the pattern already proven.

The only genuinely disruptive step is the very last one — canceling Airmail. Do it deliberately, through your Apple ID subscriptions page, after everything else is already working.

If you don't want to rebuild this again next time#

The reason Airmail's rules and custom actions don't transfer is that they live in the app's local settings, not on the mail server — the same is true of almost every email client, including the one you're switching to now. AI Emaily's Rules and Context Brain replace most of what Airmail's custom actions did — auto-file, auto-label, auto-draft — but instead of a fixed set of pattern rules, it also drafts replies using a Context brain you set yourself, not one that learns from your past mail.

It connects to the same Gmail, iCloud, Microsoft 365, or IMAP accounts Airmail did, so nothing about the mailbox itself changes, and every AI-drafted reply needs your approval before it sends. We build AI Emaily. There's a 7-day free trial on the Pro plan if you want to test it against your real inbox before deciding.