Creating many mailboxes at once with the cPanel Address Importer and a spreadsheet

The short answer: if you need ten, twenty or fifty mailboxes, you do not have to create them one by one. cPanel has the Address Importer, which reads a CSV or spreadsheet file with the addresses, passwords and quotas and creates every mailbox in one go. It can also create many forwarders at once.

When it is worth it

For two or three mailboxes, the normal way is quicker: creating an e-mail account in cPanel. The importer pays off when a company starts with a whole team, when you change provider and have to recreate every address, or when a school or association gives every member an address.

Check how many mailboxes your plan allows first. The number is on the Professional E-mail page and on the hosting plans page. Mailboxes beyond the limit are not created.

1. Prepare the file

In a spreadsheet, use one row per mailbox and one column per field. Save it as CSV. An example:

email,password,quota
ana,Strong-Unique-Pass-1,2048
carlos,Another-Strong-Pass-2,2048
invoices,One-More-Pass-3,1024

Column	What goes in it
Address	The part before the @ (or the full address). You pick the domain in the importer.
Password	A strong, different password for each mailbox.
Quota	Each mailbox's space. Check in the importer's preview that the values came out the way you meant.

2. Import in cPanel

1	Log in to cPanel and, in the Email section, open Address Importer.

2	Choose what you are importing: e-mail accounts or forwarders.

3	Upload the file and say which character separates the columns (comma, semicolon) and whether the first row holds the column names.

4	Pick the domain for the mailboxes and tell the importer which column is the address, the password and the quota.

5	Review the preview and confirm. At the end, cPanel shows which mailboxes were created and which failed, and why.

3. After the import

1	Delete the file from your computer, your e-mail and any shared folder: it holds every mailbox password.

2	Give each person their password through a safe channel and ask them to change it the first time they log in: changing a mailbox password.

3	Check the list under Email Accounts and test one or two mailboxes in webmail.

Bulk forwarders work the same way, with two columns: the source address and the destination. It is a quick way to create info@ and sales@ that deliver to whoever handles each subject.

Weak passwords in a file are an invitation. If someone guesses one, they use the mailbox to send spam in your name, and it is your domain's reputation that suffers. Make passwords with a password generator and never reuse one across mailboxes.

Many mailboxes to create, or to bring over from another provider? Talk to us.

Open a support ticket

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