Especially for small businesses, GoDaddy Office 365 seems like a perfect solution, offering interesting initial discounts and an intuitive user interface that allows users to perform basic IT tasks themselves. However, with growing demands, companies quickly face serious limitations that come with the GoDaddy Office 365 plan, making a migration from GoDaddy to Office 365 a necessary next step.
When consulting the GoDaddy help pages, it quickly becomes obvious that migrating a GoDaddy 365 tenant to Microsoft 365 is a time consuming and tedious task that forces users to heavily rely on the – not so great – GoDaddy support.
➡️ To help you migrate your GoDaddy Office 365 tenant to Microsoft, we’ve created this easy-to-follow tutorial that walks you threw all necessary steps, helping you to seamlessly migrate from GoDaddy to Office 365.
Summary (tl;dr):
To migrate from GoDaddy to Office 365, you need to perform the following steps:
- Purchase an Office 365 plan from Microsoft.
- Set up your O365 tenant and user accounts.
- Perform an IMAP email migration from GoDaddy to Office 365 (using an email migration tool).
- Call the GoDaddy support (yes, really, not kidding) and ask them to remove your custom domain.
- Add your domain to your Microsoft O365 tenant.
- Assign the new domain to the O365 users.
➡️ Usually, you’ll experience a short downtime of approx. 10 – 20 minutes during steps 4 and 6 in which you won’t be able to send / receive emails.
For detailed instructions, simply follow these steps:
Steps to Follow:
- Step 01: Create Office 365 Tenant & Setup User Accounts
- Step 02: Migrate from GoDaddy to Office 365
- Step 03: Transfer & Setup your Domain
For more questions, have a look at the FAQs.
Step 01:Create an Office 365 Tenant & Setup User Accounts
Before starting the data migration, a little preparation is required to be able to migrate from GoDaddy to Office 365. After purchasing your new Office 365 Plan from Microsoft, you need to set up your user account(s) in the O365 tenant.
To do so, simply follow these steps:
Purchase Office 365 Plan from Microsoft
Before starting the migration from GoDaddy to Office 365, you need to purchase an Office 365 plan directly from Microsoft. To find the plan that suits your requirements best, have a look at this comparison: View All Microsoft 365 plans.
Set Up Office 365 User Accounts
After purchasing a Microsoft 365 plan, it’s time to add users to your new Office 365 tenant.
For every user you wish to migrate from GoDaddy to Microsoft O365, follow these steps:
1. Log in to the Microsoft 365 admin center at https://admin.microsoft.com.
2. In the left sidebar, open the section Users and click on Active users.
3. Click on Add a user.
4. In the overlay that opens, fill out the required fields (display name, username) and optional fields (if desired).
5. In the Domains dropdown, assign the available domain ending with .onmicrosoft.com.
6. Disable the option Automatically create a password and create a custom password for the user.
⚠️ Note down the password – you’ll need it shortly for the data migration. Then, click on Next.
ℹ️ At this point in the migration from GoDaddy 365 to Microsoft Office 365, we do not add your custom domain yet. First, we’ll safely migrate your emails to Microsoft. After that, we’ll remove your custom domain from GoDaddy and add it to Microsoft, so you can use it for your email addresses, changing the domain ending from yourtenant.omicrosoft.com to yourdomain.com.
7. Now, select your location and assign your Microsoft 365 license to the user.
8. Expand the section Apps and select the apps you wish to assign to the user. Proceed by clicking on Next.
9. In the optional settings, review the privileges of the users in the Roles section. If desired, you can also add more information about the user in the Profile info section. Again, proceed with Next.
10. You’ll now see a review of the user you are about to create. Review the data and confirm by clicking on Finish adding.
➡️ After the user was created, click on Close and repeat steps 03 to 10 for every user you wish to migrate from GoDaddy to Office 365.
Step 02:Migrate from GoDaddy to Office 365
After you successfully created all user accounts in the Microsoft 365 admin panel, it’s time to actually migrate your email data from GoDaddy 365 to Office 365:
ℹ️ For the email migration from GoDaddy to Office 365, we’ll use MailJerry, a reliable cloud email migration tool that handles alls tasks for you. If you haven’t done so already, download MailJerry or alternatively start your migration in the browser.
1. Open MailJerry and click on New Migration.
In the section “Existing Address”:
2. Select Microsoft / Office 365 in the dropdown Account Type.
3. In the field Username, enter your GoDaddy email address and click on Connect with Microsoft Account.
❓ Why does it say “Connect with Microsoft Account”?
As a GoDaddy 365 user, you are actually relying on the Microsoft O365 infrastructure in the background. Therefore, you need to connect both accounts – your old GoDaddy account and the new Microsoft account – using the account type “Microsoft / Office 365”.
4. In the pop up that opens, enter your password and sign in to your GoDaddy account by clicking on Sign In.
In the section “New Address”:
5. Again, select Microsoft / Office 365 as account type.
6. Enter your Office 365 email address (ending with onmicrosoft.com) and click on Connect with Microsoft Account.
7. Sign in by entering your password in the overlay that just opened. Click on Sign In.
8. After you successfully connected both accounts, click on Check Settings.
➡️ MailJerry will now establish a connection with your GoDaddy 365 and your Microsoft 365 account. Depending on the size of your GoDaddy account, this process might take a little time.
After both of your mailboxes were checked, you’ll get forwarded to the Summary. Here, you can review the planned migration from GoDaddy to Office 365.
9. Activate the option Auto Sync: Synchronize Emails for 10 Days. This will ensure that all emails received in your GoDaddy account after the initial migration will be forwarded to Microsoft 365, giving you enough time to move your domain from GoDaddy to Microsoft.
10. Now, click on Start Your Migration.
Wait until your migration to Microsoft 365 finished.
If you need to migrate multiple accounts, click on New Migration and repeat steps 2 to 10.
Step 03:Transfer & Setup your Domain
If you follow this tutorial up to this point, you successfully created a new Microsoft O365 tenant and migrated your email data from GoDaddy to Office 365. Now, it’s time to remove your custom domain from GoDaddy and add it to your Microsoft tenant, making it possible to use it for your email addresses.
ℹ️ Before you proceed, make sure that you have access to your domains DNS settings: When hosting your domain with GoDaddy, have a look at this page to find out how to edit your DNS settings. In case your domain is registered with another provider, make sure that the login credentials for your domains admin panel are valid and that you can access the DNS settings to update the DNS and MX records.
Remove your Domain from GoDaddy
Before being able to add your custom domain in your new Microsoft O365 tenant, you need to ask GoDaddy to remove your domain. This is probably the most critical step when migrating from GoDaddy to Office 365. But don’t worry, simply follow the instruction below!
⚠️ IMPORTANT: When you ask GoDaddy to remove your domain, they will DELETE your tenant as well. So make sure that all additional data stored on your GoDaddy account (e.g. files) is transferred to Microsoft before proceeding! ⚠️
1. Contact the GoDaddy support and ask them to remove your custom domain(s). It’s advisable to call GoDaddy, as this will make the transition phase as short as possible. Here you can find the right GoDaddy support hotline for your country: https://www.godaddy.com/contact-us
➡️ In general, it takes about 10-20 minutes on the phone until your domain is remove and you will be able to add it to your Microsoft tenant almost immediately.
❓ Can’t I simply send an email to GoDaddy?
Of course you can. But be aware of one thing: As soon as your domain was removed from GoDaddy, you won’t receive new emails until you finished the domain setup in your Microsoft account. Therefore, it’s advisable to call GoDaddy, so you will know exactly at what time your domain was remove by the support agent.
Add your Domain to the Microsoft Office 365 Tenant
As soon as your domain was removed from GoDaddy, repeat the following steps for every domain you wish to move from GoDaddy to Microsoft:
1. Log in to the Microsoft 365 admin center.
2. Go to Settings > Domains and click on Add New Domain.
3. Enter your domain name and click on Use this domain.
4. You will now be asked to verify the ownership of your domain. Select the default option Add a TXT record to the domain’s DNS records and click on Continue.
5. Log in to your domains admin panel, go to the DNS settings and add a TXT record with the values shown to you. To speed things up, set the TTL to the lowest possible value (e.g. 300).
6. As soon as you finished adding the TXT record to your domain, click on Verify in the Microsoft admin panel.
7. After you verified your domain, Microsoft will ask you how you wish to connect your domain. Stay with the default option: Add your own DNS records. Click on Continue.
8. Scroll down and expand the sections MX Records, CNAME Records and TXT Records. Add all records to your domains DNS settings.
Again, set the TTL to the lowest possible value to be able connect your domain as quickly as possible. Click on Continue.
Your domain setup is complete as soon as Microsoft finished checking your settings. In case any errors occurred, Microsoft will tell you how to resolve them. As soon as everything is up and running, you’ll see the message “Domain setup is complete”.
If you wish to add more domains to your Microsoft 365 tenant, repeat step 02 to 08. Otherwise, you can now assign your custom domain to your email addresses.
Assign your Domain to your Office 365 Users
Now, there is only one tiny step left until you finished to migrate from GoDaddy to Office 365:
1. In the Microsoft 365 admin center, go to Users > Active users.
2. Click on the three dots shown after the display name of your user.
3. In the dropdown, select Manage username and email.
4. In the section Primary email address and username, click on the edit icon.
5. Open the Domains dropdown and select your custom domain. Next, click on Done.
Repeat steps 02 – 05 for every user. That’s it!
🥳 Congratulations – you successfully finished your email migration and can now start to use your Microsoft 365 account. And don’t forget to cancel your GoDaddy Office 365 plan, so you won’t pay twice 😉.
"I am so looking forward to telling everyone I know about your wonderful software. I know many people who don't change to another email platform because they are very extremely scared a about the migration. With MailJerry, that fear is unfounded.
FAQFrequent Questions & Troubleshooting
For any questions and problems that might occur while transferring your emails from Outlook to Gmail, have a look at the following FAQs:
What is GoDaddy 365?
GoDaddy is a web hosting company that offers domain registrations and web hosting services. In 2014, the company partnered with Microsoft and started to offer their own GoDaddy Microsoft 365 suite. GoDaddy 365 especially appeals to small businesses, as it offers similar software packages as Microsoft, at an initially lower price. In addition, GoDaddy offers a reduced, simple admin interface to customers, helping them to perform simple administration tasks without having to rely on an IT admin.
What are the disadvantages of GoDaddy Office 365?
The two main advantages of GoDaddy 365 (pricing & easy of use) lead to significant disadvantages over time: After the initial discount phase has expired, the GoDaddy 365 license costs about the same as a comparable Microsoft 365 license, while being extremely limited in terms of customisation and flexibility.
With GoDaddy 365, for example, you cannot use certain apps or tools, like Microsoft 365 Dynamics, making it impossible to upgrade your license. And while there is a GoDaddy 365 admin interface that is easier to use then Microsofts admin panel, you do not have admin rights for you 365 plan. This is not only a serious issue for growing companies of 10+ people, but for all users who have to rely on the goodwill of the GoDaddy support team.
What are reasons to migrate from GoDaddy to Office 365?
There are many good reasons why you might want to migrate from GoDaddy to Office 365. The most common reasons are:
- Your business grows to more than 10 people, reaching the limits of the GoDaddy 365 license.
- After the initial discount phase, Microsoft may offer more attractive licensing options.
- As opposed to Microsoft, GoDaddy offers only very limited technical support, leaving it up to you to resolve your GoDaddy 365 problems.
- With Microsoft 365, you can easily scale your company with nearly no limitations in terms of maximum users, storage capacity, and available applications.
- With Microsoft Office 365, you have full admin privileges for your Microsoft tenant. This allows you or your IT admin to perform whatever operation is necessary, giving you a maximum of flexibility AND making independent from any support agent.
Will I experience downtime during the migration?
Unfortunately, when migrating from GoDaddy 365 to Microsoft Office 365, there will be a small time period of approx. 10 to 20 minutes in which you won’t be able to send or receive emails. The downtime is caused by the architecture of the GoDaddy 365 ecosystem and there is nothing you can do about it.
The downtime starts as soon as GoDaddy removes your domain from your GoDaddy 365 account. As soon as you finished adding your domain to Microsoft 365 and changed your domains DNS settings, your emails will work again as expected.
➡️ By following the tutorial above, you’ll ensure that the downtime of your email service remains as short as possible.
What is a tenant / Microsoft tenant?
A tenant is a representation of your company that includes all data associated with your company, such as users, domains and global configurations.
Do I really have to contact the GoDaddy support in order to remove my domain from GoDaddy?
Yes. It sounds quite unbelievable, but you actually have to contact a GoDaddy support agent and ask them to remove your domain from your GoDaddy 365 account. You cannot remove your custom domain yourself.
Can I shut down MailJerry / my computer during the transfer?
Yes. That’s one of the many advantages of using MailJerry.
I still have some questions / need further assistance!
For further questions, have a look at our FAQ section and our Mail Migration Blog that offers a wide range of tutorials!
