Migration from IMAP source to Office 365

Add the custom domain to the target Office 365 account and verify it.

Learn more about creating additional/custom domains in Office 365

Recreate or import all existing Exchange users to the target Office 365 and configure their accounts under a new domain. During the mailboxes matching step you are also able to set the program to create user accounts and assign licenses automatically. Learn more about creating new Office 365 users

Learn more about importing multiple users to Office 365 via a CSV files
 

Assuming that your custom domain has already been activated (see Step 1 above), double-check that your admin's e-mail address is correct and corresponds to the new domain. To do that, perform the following actions:

• Log in to the Administrator's account.


• In the Admin tab select Office 365.


• Choose Users and Groups and the table with all organization users will display.


• Select the Administrator's account and in Details under User name section locate the dropdown menu showing all available domains within the organization.


• If the domain visible in the email address is inactive change it over to the active one and save changes.

Make sure that Office 365 licenses are assigned to all user accounts that will be used as the target mailboxes. Alternatively, during the mailboxes’ matching step you can set the program to create the mailboxes and assign the licenses automatically.

Learn more about assigning licenses in Office 365
 

• MAPI CDO (MAPI Client and Collaboration Data Objects, will be installed on all systems except for systems with coexisting MS Outlook x86 older than version 2016, MAPI will be used only if Exchange Server On-Premises is configured as a source)
• .NET 4.0 (required on any system, might be already installed)
  Learn more

Verify the following:

• You have a list of all credentials for mailboxes you want to migrate via IMAP - here is why
• Know your IMAP server address or IP, port and SSL connection support - for example, for Google (whether Gmail or Google Apps) those are: imap.gmail.com, port 993, enabled SSL
• IMAP access is enabled on the source server - see here how to do this for Gmail and Google Apps accounts

In the case of migration from IMAP the program can be installed anywhere e.g. on a workstation outside source and target domains.

Once the program's installation is completed, you will see the Dashboard view. Click Create a new migration job link on How to start tile. You will first encounter a question regarding the type of the source server. Once you choose IMAP server, a wizard will pop-up which allows you to configure connection to your IMAP source. You need to go through those steps:

• Server connection - in this step, you need to choose your IMAP source and some connection settings.
• Throttling - there you can customize the software behavior if you stumble upon throttling issues on the IMAP source server.
• Configuration - this step configures your connection based on the settings provided in the previous steps.

After successfully configuring the Source connection, Create migration job wizard will open. Set the name of the job and hit Next to define which mailboxes you want to migrate:

• Prepare a CSV file that contains source mailbox credentials as listed below. Do not worry that much about CSV format. CSV import feature lets you adjust the software to the file format used, e.g. you do not need to use a specific fields delimiter - use the one you like, you will be asked by the CSV import feature what kind of delimiter was used in the file.
  • Login - required
  • Password - required
  • First Name - optional
  • Last Name - optional
  • Display Name - optional
• Click Import CSV and select your CSV file.
• Configure the software to properly import data from your CSV file.

After successfully configuring the source connection and choosing source mailboxes, hit Next to define the Target Office 365 connection on the very next step:

• From the Target server combo box select Add new target connection... and wait until next wizard opens.
• Admin's credentials - specify the UPN of the Office 365 Administrator and its password. Next, enter the Admin's credentials and move on to Configuration.

• Info

  UPN (User Principal Name) is an Internal account name of a user in an e-mail address format.

• Configuration - this process configures the target server connection based on the entered settings.
  • If any errors appear please consult the Learn more sections describing the most common configuration mistakes.
  • Now is the time to test the Administrator's impersonation rights on the chosen Target mailbox. Under the Test button provide the Active Directory user's e-mail address and hit Test. If your rights have been successfully granted, you will be notified about that.
  • Close this window, you will return to the IMAP job configuration wizard.

Matching the Source with the Target mailbox can be done in two ways: automatically via the built-in Automatch feature or manually. Either way, hit the Match mailboxes button.

To match manually a single mailbox, click on Click to match target link in the Target user mailbox column and choose most appropriate option for this user. After selecting an option you may be asked to provide further details (e.g. password for newly created users). The available approaches are:

• Create a new user - to create both Active Directory user and corresponding mailbox, using the defaults values that you can also change.
• Choose an existing user from the list - to select an existing user in the target environment that does not have mailbox created yet
• Manually specify the mailbox address - this option should be used in the case you are unable to list the target environment

However, when it comes to matching hundreds of mailboxes, the process may be extremely time-consuming. To automatically set the best available actions for desired users, simply select them on the list (you can use Ctrl+A shortcut to choose all entries) and eventually hit Automatch. Select desired options and start the process.

What is more, you can define what type of Office 365 license is going to be assigned for particular users.

When you have matched all your mailboxes you can continue to configure additional options.

You may configure the following additional options:

• Scheduler - allows you to set the job to be automatically started in desired period of times, so you do not have to control it manually.
• Time filter - is used to exclude items that are older or newer than a particular date
• Folder filter - may completely exclude specific folders from the migration process
• Address rewrite - enables automatic conversion of EX addresses to the SMTP equivalents. This option needs to be enabled if you are performing cross-domain migration; otherwise you will not be able to reply to messages containing EX addresses.
• Concurrency - provides an option to define how many mailboxes should be migrated at same time. This number should correspond to the number of logical processors.

Simply click Start on the ribbon to begin the process.

If you notice any missing items in the Target mailbox restart the migration using the Rescan feature.

Once the migration is finished and you have noticed that some new items appeared in the migrated Source mailbox, just restart the migration using the Rescan feature. Please keep in mind that the Rescan feature uploads only new items, not changed ones.

If you have your own domain pointed at source server you probably want it now to point at the new server. Change MX records with your domain registrar to enable mail flow to new servers instead of the old ones. Please note that this process may take several hours.