Quick Summary:
2 Steps to Migrate Your Email to Office 365
A mail migration to Office 365 consists of two parts: Preparation and mail migration
For the preparation, you need to:
- Get the access data of your existing account and – depending on your current provider – generate an app password for your account.
- If you use a custom domain, you need to (optionally) set up your domain in the Microsoft 365 admin center.
- And of course, you need to create your new office 365 mailbox (in case it does not already exist).
After the preparation, its’ time to perform the mail migration:
- In the MailJerry email migration tool, add the credentials of your existing account.
- Connect with your Microsoft Office 365 account.
- Activate the Auto Sync and start the mail migration to Office 365.
After your migration finished, simply complete the setup for your custom domain and enjoy your new Office 365 mail account!
Step 01:
Prepare to Migrate your Emails to Office 365
Before you begin to migrate your emails to Office 365, there are a few things you need to do:
- Get the access data of your existing mailbox
- Setup your domain (optionally)
- Create your new Office 365 mailbox
Get the Access Data of Your Existing Mailbox
ℹ️ To be able to migrate your existing emails to Office 365, you need the credentials and mailserver address of your old email account. Depending which email provider you are currently using, the data you need to migrate to Office 365 varies slightly:
Gmail
To migrate from Gmail to Office 365, you need to know your email address and generate an app password.
➡️ To learn how to generate an app password for Gmail, click here or simply follow this tutorial.
Yahoo!
For Yahoo! accounts, you also need to generate an app password before being able to migrate the emails to Office 365.
➡️ Learn how to create an app password here.
Office 365 / GoDaddy 365
If you wish to migrate from an existing Office 365 or GoDaddy 365 account to another Office 365 account, you simply need your email address and account password.
All Other Providers (including GoDaddy based on IMAP)
For all other IMAP based providers, have the following data at hand:
- your username (in most cases, this is your email address)
- your mailbox password
- your mailserver address
➡️ Don’t know the name of your mailserver? No need to worry! You can try to guess the mailserver name in step two of this tutorial or simply send a short email to your email provider to find out the right address.
Setup Your Domain (optionally)
If you’re currently using a custom domain and wish to use this domain for your new Office 365 account as well, you need to setup your domain in the Microsoft 365 admin center before creating your Office 365 mailbox.
What is a custom domain name?
With a custom domain name, you can determine how your email address looks like after the @ sign. So with a custom domain, you can replace the name of your email provider with your own, unique name.
Example:
Without custom domain: yourname@onmicrosoft.com
With custom domain: yourname@yourdomain.com
How to Set Up Your Custom Domain for Microsoft 365:
1. Log in to the Microsoft Admin center at https://admin.microsoft.com
2. In the left panel, expand the view by clicking on Show All and select Settings and Domains
3. Add your new domain by clicking on the Add domain button.
4. Type your domain name in the field Domain name and click on Use this domain.
5. On the next page, stay with the options Add a TXT record to the domain’s DNS records and click on Continue.
6. Microsoft will now show you the settings for your TXT record. Login to your domains admin panel, go to the DNS settings and add the TXT as shown by microsoft. Set the TTL to the lowest possible value to ensure that your domain is updated as quickly as possible.
7. After you added the TXT record, go back to the Microsoft 365 admin center and click on Verify.
⚠️ Now STOP! After you verified your domain, do not continue (!) as suggested by Microsoft. Otherwise, your existing account does not work anymore. We’ll complete the domain setup after you finished to migrate your email to Office 365.
Create Your New Office 365 Mailbox
As a last step of the setup, you need to create your Office 365 mailbox. In case your new mailbox already exists, proceed with step 02. Otherwise, keep on reading.
1. In the sidebar of the Microsoft 365 admin center, click on Users > Active users
2. Here, click on the button Add a user
3. To add a user, insert the basic data like first name, last name, display name and username.
If you use a custom domain, select this domain in the drop down Domains.
➡️ To make password management easier, disable the option “Require this user to change their password when they first sign in”.
4. Click on Next, select your Location and your Microsoft License. Continue with Next
5. Microsoft will now display your password. Copy the password. You’ll need it in a few seconds!
Step 02:
Migrate your Emails to Office 365
After you set up everything as described in step 01, it’s time to get things going and start your mail migration to Office 365!
Start a New Migration
To ensure that you can migrate your emails to Office 365 without any headache, we recommend to use our email migration tool MailJerry:
1. Download MailJerry or start your mail migration to Office 365 in the browser
2. After you opened MailJerry, enter your email address or license key (if available). Now click on the button New Migration.
Connect With Your Existing Account
After you stared a new migration, it’s time to provide the credentials for your old account:
1. In the field Existing Address, select your current provider (Gmail, Yahoo!, Microsoft 365 or IMAP).
2. Fill out the required fields for your existing provider. Depending on your provider, you need to fill out the following data:
Gmail: Your email address & app password
Yahoo: Your email address & app password
Office 365 / GoDaddy 365: Your email address. After that, click on “Connect with Microsoft Account” and provide your account password.
All other IMAP providers (including GoDaddy based on IMAP): Your username, password and mailserver address.
ℹ️ If you don’t know the address of your mailserver, simply enter your email address in the field “username”. MailJerry will guess the correct mailserver address.
Connect With Your New Microsoft 365 Account
Now connect with your Microsoft 365 account:
1. In the section New Address, select Microsoft / Office 365.
2. Enter your Username (= your new email address) and click on Connect with Microsoft Account
3. In the popup that opens, enter your password and click on Sign in
Check Your Accounts & Start the Mail Migration to Office 365
After you connected with both of your accounts, it’s time to check your settings and start your migration!
1. Click on Check Settings and wait until MailJerry connected with your old and new account.
ℹ️ Depending on the size of your old mailbox, it might take some time until all information was gathered from your old mailserver.
As soon as the mailbox check completed, you’ll get forwarded to the summary:
2. In the settings, activate the option Synchronize Emails for 10 Days. This ensures that emails received in your old account after the migration will automatically be forwarded to your Office 365 account.
3. Now click on Start Your Migration.
✅ MailJerry now starts to migrate emails to Office 365 and you only have to wait until your migration finished. As soon as MailJerry reaches 100%, your mail migration to Office 365 is completed!
ℹ️ In case any errors / problems occur before or while you’re migrating emails to Office 365, have a look at the troubleshooting section.
Don’t forget!
After the Mail Migration to Office 365
When utilising a custom domain for your Office 365 account, you need to complete the domain setup after you finished to migrate emails to Office 365.
⚠️ Important: Don’t finish the domain setup while your mail migration is still running. Otherwise, you might not be able to connect to your old email account anymore.
Complete the Domain Setup:
1. In the Microsoft 365 admin center, open Settings and Domains
2. Now click on your domain name.
3. Click on the button Start setup and follow the step as described on the screen.
➡️ As soon as the status of your domain changes to Healthy, you domain setup is completed!
FAQ &
Troubleshooting
In case you still have questions about how to migrate emails to Office 365, have a look at the following FAQs:
Can I use my old mailbox during the migration?
Yes. That’s why we recommend to activate the Auto Sync before starting the migration. The auto sync ensures that emails received after the migration will automatically be forwarded to Office 365. Therefore, it’s not problem at all to continue using your old email account while your emails are migrated to the new Office 365 mailserver.
Should I activate the auto sync and / or the backup mode?
We definitely recommend to activate the auto sync as the sync allows you to use your old account during the migration. The auto sync automatically forwards all emails received in your old account after the migration, so there is no need to worry about lost data. After ten days, the auto sync stops
If you wish to sync your mailboxes longer than 10 days, activate the backup mode. The backup mode syncs your account for an indefinite amount of time. You can choose weather the backup sync is performed daily, weekly or monthly.
➡️ Of course, you can activate both options simultaneously!
My migration takes very long, is this normal?
Usually, our email migration tool performs your mail migration to Office 365 as fast as possible. If your existing mail sever is fast, MailJerry flies fast. So, if your migration takes very long, this might depend on two factors:
a) You migrate a huge mailbox: To move lots of data from your old to your new mail server can take some time, so there is no need to worry.
b) The old mailserver is very slow / throttles the connection speed after some time. This especially happens when you migrate from Gmail to Office 365.
In both cases, there is no need to worry. Simply wait until your migration finished. As stated above, you can use your old account during the migration to read, write and sent emails.
➡️ And of course, you can close MailJerry and even shut down your computer during the mail migration to Office 365, because your mail migration to Office 365 is performed online in the cloud.
Does MailJerry download my emails to my computer?
No. MailJerry migrates your data directly from your old email provider to Office 365. Therefore, your emails are not downloaded to your computer and your internet connection is not affected. As a further advantage, you don’t need to worry about unstable internet connections or timeouts.
As soon as you started your migration, all tasks are performed in the MailJerry email migration cloud, no matter if you’re currently online, or not.
Can I run multiple migrations at once?
Sure! If you wish to perform multiple mail migrations to Office 365, simply click on New Migration and repeat step 02. You can start as many migration after another as you wish. In case you reach a certain limit, your migrations will be queued. They will start automatically as soon as one of the running migrations finished.
I still have some questions / need further assistance!
In case you need further assistance, have a look at our FAQ section and our Mail Migration Blog that offers a wide range of tutorials and trouble shooting tips.
