Microsoft is known for its reliable, scalable and affordable Microsoft 365 platform that combines emails, contact management, online calendars, file storage via OneDrive and a huge range of software solutions like Word, Excel or PowerPoint.
For everyone who want’s to make the switch to Office 365, we’ve created this step by step guide that explains how you can easily migrate to Office 365!
ℹ️ In case you wish to migrate from Google Workspace / G Suite to Office 365, have a look at this tutorial: Migrate G Suite to Office 365: Complete Step-by-Step Guide
Migrate to Office 365 in 3 Steps:
Step 01:
Prepare to Migrate to Office 365
In order to migrate your data to Office 365, you need the credentials of your old email account, create a new Office 365 account (or get the credentials for your existing account) and optionally setup your custom domain.
01 | Get the Credentials for Your Old Email Account
When registering an email account, you usually create a password for the new account or receive your access data via email. This data, which you probably received a long time ago, is necessary to migrate your data to Office 365.
For your old email account, you need:
- your username (usually your email address)
- your email password
- the address of your mail server
Forgot your access data?
Don’t worry, it’s notoriously easy to forget / lose your access data. To retrieve it, check if you can create a new password for your account or log in to your provider’s customer panel and look for the credentials there. For large hosting providers, a quick Google search for “your hosting provider credentials” can help to learn where to get your email account credentials.
➡️ If you still do not find your credentials, please contact the support team of your hosting provider.
02 | Setup Your Custom Domain (optional)
Nowadays, many users and businesses utilise a custom domain name to create a more professional and unique email address. When using a custom domain, you can use your domain name as the ending of your email address. For example, instead of your.name@onmicrosoft.com, with a custom domain, your email address could be your.name@yourdomain.com.
💡 If you wish to use a custom domain, you have to set up your custom domain in the Microsoft 365 admin panel before creating your new email address:
1. In the Microsoft 365 admin center, expand the left sidebar through clicking on Show All.
2. Now click on Domains.
3. Add a new domain by clicking on Add domain.
4. On the next page, insert your domain name in the field Domain name.
5. Confirm through the button Use this domain.
To confirm ownership of your domain, you will now have to add a TXT record to your domains DNS entries:
1. Copy the TXT name and TXT value shown in the Microsoft 365 admin center and add the values to your domains DNS settings. If possible, set the TTL to the lowest possible value.
💡Usually, you can manage the DNS settings of your domain in the admin panel of your domain / web hosting provider. In case you don’t have access to your domain, send the TXT settings to your domain registrar and ask them to add the record.
2. After the TXT record was added to your domain, wait about 15 minutes.
3. Now verify the domain ownership: In the Microsoft 365 admin center, click on Verify.
⚠️ Now STOP: Do not proceed with the domain setup. We’ll finish this step after your email data was migrated to Office 365.
03 | Create / Get the Credentials for Your Office 365 Mailbox
In case your Office 365 email address already exists, you only need your email password before being able to proceed.
Forgot your Office 365 password?
Check out this Microsoft help page to find out how to reset your password.
If your new Office 365 email account does not already exist, follow these steps to create a new one:
How to Create a New Office 365 Mailbox
1. Open the Microsoft 365 admin center.
2. In the sidebar, open the section Users and click on Active users.
3. On the active users page, click on Add a user.
4. Now insert the required data (name, display name, username). Select your domain in the Domains drop-down in case you added a custom domain before.
5. Disable the option Require this user to change their password when they first sign in. This facilitates the migration to Office 365 in the next step.
6. Click on Next, select a location and your Microsoft license.
7. Again, click on Next.
8. Microsoft will now show you your password. Copy this password for further reference!
Step 02:
Migrate to Office 365
After completing the preparation, you have all data at hand to actually migrate to Office 365. In this step, you’ll migrate your emails and email folders to Office 365, the next step explains how to easily migrate your contacts and calendar(s). So let’s get started:
01 | Connect Existing Account
For the email migration to Office 365, you need to connect your old email account with your Office 365 account by using an email migration tool. To connect your existing account, follow these steps:
1. Download & install MailJerry or start to migrate to Office 365 in the WebApp.
2. Register with your email address and click on “New Migration”.
3. In the section “Existing Address”, select the account type of your current email address.
(Stick with IMAP in case you are unsure!)
4. Enter your username (usually your email address) in the field “Username” and your password in the password field.
02 | Connect with Office 365 Account
Now it’s time to connect with your Microsoft / Office 365 account. To be able to migrate to Office 365, you need to connect with the Microsoft mail servers through a secure connection. A secure connection is established through a mechanism called “oAuth2”. But don’t worry, it’s very easy to connect with Office 365:
1. Return to the MailJerry software and open the “Account Typ” dropdown in the section “New Address”.
2. Select Microsoft / Office 365.
3. Enter your Office 365 email address in the field “Username”
4. Next, click on the button “Connect with Microsoft Account”.
5. A popup window will open. Within this window, enter the password of your Office 365 account.
6. Click on “Sign in”. After successfully signing in, MailJerry will show you that you’re now connected with your Office 365 account.
7. To check if everything is set up correctly, click on Check Settings
ℹ️ After clicking on “Check Settings”, MailJerry will check both of your email accounts and gather all necessary data. Depending on the size of your old mailbox, this process might take some time. After the mailbox check was completed, you’ll automatically be forwarded to the summary.
03 | Migrate to Office 365
After the settings for both email accounts were successfully checked, there is only one step left to migrate your emails.
On the summary page, you’ll see an overview of the planned migration. You can review how many emails and folders were found in your old email account and receive feedback from MailJerry in case something is wrong with one of your email accounts (for example, if not enough disk space is available).
1. When all is setup correctly, simply click on the button “Start Your Migration”.
➡️ Your email migration is now running and your data will be migrated to your Office 365 mailbox. Simply wait until the migration is done or start a new migration in case you wish to migrate multiple accounts to Office 365.
Step 03:
Migrate Contacts & Calendar(s)
While your email migration is running, it’s time to import your contacts and calendar(s) to Office 365.
01 | Migrate Contacts to Office 365
To import your contacts to Office 365, you need a CSV file containing all your contacts. Most email providers allow you to export your contacts a CSV.
Have a look at the settings of your old email account or the contact section. Usually, you’ll find an option to export your contacts there. Otherwise, send a support request to your email provider asking them to export your contacts as CSV.
➡️ As soon as you exported / received the CSV file with your contacts, follow these steps:
How to Migrate Your Contacts To Office 365:
1. Open the Outlook web interface at https://outlook.office.com
2. Click on Contacts (the “people” icon in the left sidebar)
3. Click on Manage contacts in the top right corner.
4. Now click on Import contacts.
5. Select your CSV file in the file upload field (simply click on Browse)
6. Start the import by clicking on Import.
02 | Migrate Calendar(s) to Office 365
In your existing calendar software, go to the settings and export your calendar(s) as ICS file. Usually, when exporting multiple calendars, you’ll receive one ICS file per calendar. You can now easily migrate these files to Office 365:
How to Migrate Your Calendar(s) to Office 365:
1. Go back to the Outlook Web Interface and open the Calendar (calendar icon in the left sidebar).
2. Here, below the small calendar preview, click on the button Add calendar
3. An overlay opens. In the overlay, select your ICS file through clicking on Browse.
4. Select the calendar you wish to add your calendar data to or create a new calendar in the dropdown below the file upload.
5. Click on Import.
Step 04:
After the Migration to Office 365
Congratulations, you successfully migrated your data to Office 365! Now, there are only two things left to do: Complete the domain setup (only necessary when using a custom domain) and activate the mailbox sync to ensure to not loose a single email.
01 | Complete the Domain Setup (optional)
Remember when we stopped the setup of your custom domain a few minutes ago? Now, it’s time to complete the domain setup:
1. In the Microsoft 365 admin center, open the Settings section in the left sidebar.
2. Click on Domains.
3. Click on your domain name.
4. Now click on Start Setup to complete the domain setup.
➡️ Depending on your Office 365 account type, there are different steps necessary in order to complete the domain setup. But don’t worry, Microsoft will walk you through all the required steps. Follow the instructions until the status of your domain changes to “Healthy”.
02 | Enable the Mailbox Sync
Directly after the migration to Office 365, it may happen that you still receive emails in your old account. It depends on several factors (e.g. your domain configuration) how long it takes until your old account does not receive new emails anymore. To ensure that all new emails are automatically forwarded to your Office 365 account, enable the mailbox sync:
1. In the MailJerry app, click on “Overview” (at the bottom of the window).
2. Click on your migration to go to the details page.
3. Scroll down to Options.
4. To activate the mailbox sync, set the option “Automatically synchronize Emails” to ON.
➡️ Now, all new emails received in your old account will automatically be migrated to your Office 365 account.
The mailbox sync runs for 10 days and stops as soon as your old email account is not able to receive emails anymore. In case you need to sync your mailboxes for more than 10 days, go to the section “Backup Mode” and enable the mailbox backup.
The backup mode will check your old account for new emails every day (or week / month, depending on your selection) and migrate these emails to your Office 365 account, even after the auto sync finished after 10 days.
FAQ
Common Questions
In case there are any questions left regarding your email migration to Office 365, have a look at the following common questions:
Does this tutorial apply to all Microsoft Accounts?
Yes. This tutorials works for all Microsoft / Office 365 accounts, including Office 365 Business accounts, Office 365 Home & Student accounts and even free Office 365 accounts like outlook.com, hotmail.com etc.
Does the migration require an app password / security defaults?
No. In the past, it was necessary to connect with your Office 365 account by disabling security defaults and setting up an app password. Thanks to MailJerry’s modern way of authenticating with Microsoft, there is no need for anything else than your email address and your password.
Is it necessary to enable IMAP for my Microsoft account?
No. Microsoft automatically enables IMAP for all Microsoft / Office 365 email accounts that connect to the Microsoft mail servers using oAuth2.
Can I use an app password instead?
No. Establishing a connection to your Microsoft / Office 365 account via oAuth2 is considered best practice and the recommended way to manage connections to Microsoft mail servers. Therefore, using an app password is not supported anymore.
How long does the migration to Office 365 take?
The time required to migrate all your data to Office 365 depends on the size of your old email account and the speed of both mail servers. For large mailboxes, the process might take several hours, even a few days for some really huge mailboxes (larger than 100GB) are not uncommon.
Of course, you can close the MailJerry app in the meantime and even shut down your computer. Thanks to cloud email migration, your email data is directly moved between both servers. Therefore, there is no need to keep the software up and running while your migration is in progress.
Help, I have further questions!
If you have any further questions, have a look at the following ressources:
