The Axigen Migrator — the companion tool that ships with Axigen and extends Automatic Migration to personal information data — now supports Zimbra as a migration source. Until now, the Axigen Migrator could pull contacts, calendars, and tasks from Kerio Connect and CommuniGate Pro. Starting with Axigen Migrator 1.6.0, Zimbra Collaboration joins the list.
Migrating email from Zimbra to Axigen has always been possible over IMAP. What was missing was everything around the inbox — the address book, the calendar, the task list, and the account preferences that make a mailbox feel like home. Axigen Migrator 1.6.0 closes that gap, so a user moving from Zimbra lands in Axigen with their full profile intact.
Info: Zimbra PIM migration is available starting with Axigen X7 (10.7.0), through the Axigen Migrator 1.6.0. Email messages are migrated separately by Axigen Automatic Migration over IMAP — the Axigen Migrator handles the personal information data and account preferences. Preference migration additionally requires an Axigen X6 (or later) target.
From Email to the Full Mailbox
Axigen's Automatic Migration runs the legacy server and Axigen in parallel. When a user logs in to Axigen for the first time, Axigen acts as an email client and pulls that account's messages from the old server over IMAP — no password resets, no big-bang cutover. Users move over gradually, on their own first login.
That covers email. It does not cover the rest of the mailbox: contacts, calendars, tasks, and the per-account settings users rely on every day. That is the job of the Axigen Migrator, which runs alongside Automatic Migration to bring over the PIM data. With Axigen Migrator 1.6.0, Zimbra becomes the third supported source, after Kerio Connect and CommuniGate Pro.
How Zimbra Migration Works
Zimbra exposes PIM data differently from Kerio Connect and CommuniGate Pro. Where those servers serve calendars and contacts over IMAP, Zimbra exposes them over HTTP. The Axigen Migrator adapts to that without any change to how you run it:
- Detection — the Axigen Migrator identifies the source as Zimbra automatically, using the IMAP ID command. No manual "this is a Zimbra server" flag.
- Authentication and discovery — it authenticates over Zimbra's SOAP API and reads the account's folder tree (contacts, calendars, task lists, and any sub-folders the user created).
- Export — it pulls contacts as vCard and calendars and tasks as iCalendar over Zimbra's REST interface.
- Import — each item is written into the matching Axigen folder, and the Axigen Migrator keeps track of what it has already imported, so running the migration again does not create duplicates.
The IMAP connection stays open for detection, but the PIM data itself travels over Zimbra's SOAP and REST APIs. You invoke the Axigen Migrator exactly as you would for a Kerio Connect or CommuniGate Pro source.
What Gets Migrated
| Data | Migrated by Axigen Migrator | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Contacts | Yes | Includes contact photos. Zimbra's "Emailed Contacts" land in Axigen's Collected Addresses. |
| Calendars | Yes | Includes recurring events and user-created sub-calendars. |
| Tasks | Yes | Task lists are migrated as Axigen tasks. |
| Preferences (opt-in) | Yes | Vacation / out-of-office, timezone, signatures, and allow / block lists. Requires an Axigen X6 (or later) target. |
| Email messages | Separately | Handled by Axigen Automatic Migration over IMAP, not by the Axigen Migrator. |
The following are not migrated: Sieve filter rules, notes, distribution lists, and public or shared folders. These follow the same boundaries as the existing Kerio Connect and CommuniGate Pro migration paths.
A Few Things Worth Knowing
- Emailed Contacts become Collected Addresses. Zimbra's auto-collected "Emailed Contacts" folder is mapped to Axigen's Collected Addresses, so it does not clutter the main address book.
- Contact fields are normalized for Axigen. The Axigen Migrator adjusts vCard type parameters so that phone numbers, addresses, and email types render correctly in Axigen WebMail.
- Re-runs are safe. The Axigen Migrator tracks every item it imports, so you can re-run a migration — to pick up newly created items, for example — without producing duplicates.
- Recurring events are preserved. Recurrence rules and exceptions are carried over as-is; Axigen expands them natively.
Prerequisites
- A source running Zimbra 8.x – 10.x (validated against Zimbra 10.1.18).
- IMAP enabled for each user on the Zimbra side. You can enable it per account with zmprov ma user@example.com zimbraImapEnabled TRUE.
- The target account must already exist in Axigen — Automatic Migration creates it when the user first logs in, which is also when email is pulled over IMAP.
- For preference migration, an Axigen X6 (or later) target, since preferences are written through the Axigen Mailbox REST API.
- In test environments with self-signed certificates, allow the Axigen Migrator to skip certificate verification (insecureSkipVerify).
Configuration Reference
Zimbra credentials are not stored in the configuration file — the source address doubles as the SOAP and REST host, and credentials are passed at invocation. Enable the data types you want to migrate, and opt in to preferences if your target supports them:
contacts = true
events = true
tasks = true
[Migrate.preferences]
enabled = false # set to true on Axigen X6+ targets
ooo = true
timezone = true
signatures = true
whitelist = true
blacklist = true
Run the migration for a single account:
./axigen-migrator -c config.toml -o -u user@example.com -p <password>
Part of the Full Migration Picture
Put the two pieces together and the experience is straightforward for the people who matter most — the users. Automatic Migration brings their email across at first login, and the Axigen Migrator brings their contacts, calendars, tasks, and settings. They sign in to Axigen and their mailbox is already theirs, end to end.
If you are planning a move off Zimbra, start with the Zimbra Migration Guide for the full walkthrough, then use the operation guide and knowledge base article for the step-by-step configuration.