While you’re reading this, at least three of our customers are migrating their emails to Office 365 with the help of MailJerry, our email migration tool. So if you’re looking for a bullet proof tutorial on how to migrate your data to Microsoft 365, you’ve come to the right place!
Email Migration to Office 365: Tutorials for Major Providers
Besides this tutorial, we’ve created step-by-step tutorials for major providers that show you how to migrate to Office 365.
Not found what you’re looking for? Simply continue reading to migrate to Office 365!
Advantages of this tutorial:
✅ No service interruption – use all email address as usual during the migration
✅ Works for all providers and Office / Microsoft 365 account types, including Exchange
✅ No tech-knowledge required
✅ Only little configuration in the Microsoft 365 admin center necessary
✅ Quick, easy and full migration of all your email data
✅ Includes instructions on how to add your custom domain
Step 01:
Prepare to Migrate to Office 365
Before jumping right into the migration to Office 365, make sure that you’ve prepared your mailboxes for the tansfer:
01 | What You’ll Need for the Office 365 Migration
To migrate your email data to Office 365, you need to have the following information at hand:
- Username, password and mail server address of the existing email account(s)
- Username and password of the Office 365 account(s)
- Custom domain only: Access to the domain admin panel to change DNS settings
- MailJerry, our email migration tool
Do you need to migrate many email accounts simultaneously? If so, we’d recommend to create a list of all accounts involved in the migration. Learn here how to do so!
02 | Setup Your Custom Domain (optional)
This step is only necessary if you use a custom domain for your email addresses!
Nowadays, many users and businesses use 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 for your Office 365 email accounts, you need to add your domain to your Microsoft account.
How to Add Your Domain to Your Microsoft / Office 365 Account:
1. Open the Microsoft 365 admin center and expand the left sidebar through clicking on “Show All”.
2. In the “Settings” section, 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 by clicking 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”. If everything is set up correctly, you’ll see a verification page.
⚠️ Now STOP: Do not proceed with the domain setup. We’ll finish this step after your email data was migrated to Office 365.
Step 02:
Migrate to Office 365
After completing the preparation, you have all data at hands to actually migrate to Office 365. In this step, you’ll migrate all emails and folders to Office 365. The next step explains how to easily migrate your contacts and calendar(s). So let’s get started:
Video-Tutorial:
01 | Connect Existing Account
For the email migration to Office 365, you first need to connect your old email account.
1. Download & install MailJerry for your device. Alternatively, you can start your Office 365 migration directly in the browser.
2. In MailJerry, click on “Migrations”.
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.
5. MailJerry automatically suggest the name of your mail server. Check if the suggestion aligns with the mail server name stated by your hosting provider and change it if necessary.
02 | Connect with Office 365 Account
To be able to migrate to Office 365, you need to connect with the Microsoft mail servers by creating a secure connection:
1. In the section “New Address”, select Microsoft / Office 365 as account type.
2. Enter your Office 365 email address in the field “Username”
3. Next, click on the button “Connect with Microsoft Account”.
4. A popup window will open. Within this window, enter the password of your Office 365 account.
5. Click on “Sign in”. After successfully signing in, MailJerry will show you that you’re now connected with your Office 365 account.
6. 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 can take some time. After the mailbox check is completed, you’ll automatically be forwarded to the summary.
03 | Migrate to Office 365
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. Wait until the migration is done or start a new migration in case you need to migrate multiple accounts to Office 365.
➡️ W hen your migration is done, perform the following steps to complete the migration 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 “Brows”e)
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”.
➡️ Repeat step 2 to 5 for every ICS file you wish to migrate to Office 365.
Step 04:
After the Migration to Office 365
Congratulations, you successfully migrated your data to Office 365! Now, there are only a few post-migration tasks left:
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.
5. Click on the tab “DNS records”. Here, you’ll see a list of available records.
6. Now open the admin panel for your domain and go to the DNS settings.
7. Add the MX, TXT and CNAME record as stated in the Microsoft admin panel.
ℹ️ If possible, set the TTL to the lowest possible value (e.g. 300). The lower the value, the quicker the new settings will be available.
8. Wait some time and check the Microsoft 365 admin center again. The status for all three records should bei marked as OK
⚠️ When changing existing DNS, TXT and CNAME records for your domain, you will no longer be able to send / receive emails using the old email accounts. Therefore, make sure that all users of the corresponding email addresses have already received the access data for the new accounts and added the new address to their email client.
02 | Enable the Mailbox Sync
Directly after the migration to Office 365, it may happen that you still receive emails in your old account. There are several factors (e.g. your domain configuration) that affect the time it takes until new messages are only received and your new Office 365 account. 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, MailJerry will check your old account for new emails every three hours and automatically migrate the messages 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.
Need to Sync Acounts for More Than 10 Days?
In case you need to sync your mailboxes for more than 10 days, go to the section “Backup Mode” and enable the mailbox backup. It allows you to permanently sync your accounts by choosing a daily, weekly or monthly interval.
⭐️ Bonus Tip ⭐️
If you migrated multiple email accounts to Office 365, don’t forget to share the new access data with everyone using these email addresses. To speed things up, you can use this email template.
Bonus:
Five Tips for a Successful Office 365 Migration
In the past years, we’ve helped thousands of customers to migrate their emails to Office 365. By doing so, we’ve found these five tips helpful for everyone who’s planning to migrate to Microsoft 365:
Tip 01: Ask the Following Questions
Before starting to migrate your data to Office 365, ask yourself the following questions to get a better overview of the task ahead:
- How many mailboxes need to be migrated to Office 365?
- Are you currently using or planning to use a custom domain for your email addresses (e.g., example@mydomain.com)?
- Who and how many persons are using the email addresses you intend to migrate?
- What email clients are being used with the corresponding email addresses?
👍 Answering these questions helps you to make sure that you have all information at hand during the migration.
Tip 02: Consider the Impact to the User
When migrating to Office 365, you might be concerned about how and how long users are affected by the data migration. Here’s what to expect:
➡️ With this tutorial, users will experience no disruption in their email services during the migration. They can continue to send and receive emails as usual, as there will be not service interruption or breach of data integrity. That’s, after all, one of the biggest advantages of the email migration method described in this tutorial.
➡️ After the migration, users can use both email accounts simultaneously, which allows them to easily adjust to the new Microsoft 365 environment. Simply enable the mailbox sync in MailJerry for the respective users to ensure that the new account stays syncronized.
Tip 03: Create a List of All Accounts Involved
This is tremendously helpful when migrating multiple email accounts at once.
- List all email accounts you wish to migrate to Office 365.
To make things easier, you can download and fill out this template. - List all users that are impacted by the migration.
This includes anyone using the current email addresses and who will need training or new login credentials for their Microsoft 365 accounts after the migration. - Create a list of all email clients on which the current email addresses are installed, including smartphones and tablet. This will be a big help to speed things up after the migration.
Tip 04: Make Sure to Have the Old Credentials at Hand
Nothing is more annoying than having to search for old credentials while you’ve already started to migrate some email accounts to Office 365.
Make sure that you have the following (up-to-date) data of your old provider at hand:
- the username (usually the email address)
- the password of the email account
- the mail server address
What to do if you forgot the access data:
It’s notoriously easy to forget / lose the access data for an email account that was created some time ago. To retrieve it, log in to your provider’s customer panel and look for the credentials there. If no password information is available, it’s also possible that you need to create a new password for some or all accounts. For large hosting providers, a quick Google search with the keyword “your hosting provider credentials” can help to learn where to get / restore your email account credentials.
ℹ️ In case you need to change the account password for one or multiple accounts, please be aware that the password change ma affect users utilising these email addresses.
➡️ If you still do not find your credentials, please contact the support of your hosting provider.
Tip 05: Create the New Accounts in Advance
Before starting the migration, make sure that you’ve already created all required mailboxes in the Microsoft 365 admin center. This sounds obvious, but believe us, you don’t to have to mess around in the admin center while the data migration is already on it’s way.
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 Office 365 migration which we’ll start in the next step. Now click on “Next”.
6. To assign a product license to the user, select a location and your Microsoft license.
7. Again, click on “Next”.
8. Microsoft will now create the new account and show you your password.
⚠️ Copy the password! You’ll need it to start your Office 365 migration.
Summary:How to Easily perform an Office 365 Migration
To easily migrate your email data to Office 365 / Microsoft 365, you need to perform three simple steps:
1. Prepare for the Office 365 migration by creating a list of all accounts, users and email clients affected, gather all access data and optionally configure your custom domain.
2. Perform the email migration with the help of MailJerry and import contacts and calendars.
3. Perform all required post-migration tasks like updating your domain records, informing your colleagues and setting up your new mailbox(es) in your email client(s). And don’t forget to enable the mailbox sync to keep your email accounts synchronized after the migration.
➡️ By following this step-by-step guide, you’re able to perform an Office 365 migration without any tech knowledge and without being confronted with complex configuration tasks. As this tutorial has shown, the suggested approach is the safest way to easily migrate to Microsoft 365 without any data loss or service interruption.
FAQ
Common Questions
In case there are any questions left regarding your Office 365 migration, 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.
What’s the difference between Office 365 and Microsoft 365?
Formerly, Office 365 was a set of cloud based business applications like Exchange, Office Apps, SharePoint, OneDrive. It was part of Microsoft 365. Microsoft 365 contained all Office 365 applications, Windows 10 (OS) and the Enterprise Mobility Suite
Nowadays, there is no difference. As of April 2020, the name “Office 365” was changed to “Microsoft 365” officially.
Is it a problem if my Microsoft 365 account already contains emails?
No, it’s not a problem at all. You can proceed with your Office 365 migration as described in this tutorial. MailJerry will seamlessly migrate the emails from your old account to your Office 365 account without altering or removing any existing data.
What if I don’t know the username or password for my Office 365 account?
Microsoft offers various tools to help you recover your data:
- If you’ve forgotten your username, you can use the Microsoft Username Recovery Tool.
- If you’ve forgotten your Office 365 password, visit this help page for guidance on resetting your password.
- For more detailed instructions on recovering your username and/or password, refer to this guide.
How long does the migration to Office 365 take?
Usually, migrations to Microsoft 365 are very fast. However, some email providers may limit the speed in which your emails are send to Office 365 either as a standard practice or after a certain data volume has been migrated.
This means that the time required to migrate to Office 365 depends on the size of your old mailbox and the speed of both mail servers. For large mailboxes of several GB, the process might take a few hours. It’s also not unkommen for really huge mailboxes (larger than 100GB) to take several days to migrate all emails to Office 365.
ℹ️ So if your Office 365 migration takes multiple hours to complete, there’s no need to worry. MailJerry will manage all necessary processes automatically, ensuring a smooth transition.
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 migrated from your old server to the Microsoft 365 servers. Therefore, there is no need to keep the software up and running while your migration is in progress.
Does I need to download the 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 soon as you start your migration, all tasks are performed in the MailJerry email migration cloud, no matter if you’re currently online, or not.
Does the Microsoft 365 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, this is not necessary anymore. All you need to start your Office 365 migration are your email address / username and your account 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. In some rare cases, it is possible that IMAP was disabled retrospectively for your account. In this case, please enable IMAP before starting to migrate to Office 365.
Can I use an app password instead of connecting via oAuth2?
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.Not all emails where migrated to Office 365, what can I do?
When migrating to Office 365, it is possible that emails larger than 25 MB are rejected due to Microsoft’s maximum message size limit. To change the max message size, follow this tutorial. Now open the details page of your Office 365 migration in MailJerry (= click on the migration in the overview) and click on the “Sync Now” button. The remaining emails will now be migrated to Microsoft 365 as well.
