How to migrate your emails to Microsoft 365 Exchange Online
If you want to move your emails from an IMAP account to Microsoft 365 Exchange Online then all the steps you need to carry out are outlined below.
The steps outlined below assume you emails are currently with a company such as 123-Reg or IONOS, and your email has been setup using IMAP.
There are a total of 8 steps to migrate your email to Microsoft 365. The steps are detailed with screenshots so you know exactly what to do and what to click.
Things to Consider First
Before you can migrate your emails there are a number of things to consider first. Grab and pen and paper and make a note of the answers to the following questions:
- How do you currently access your emails? Webmail, Outlook, Apple Mail program.
- Do you have an address book?
- Who is your current email provider?
- How many email addresses do you want to migrate to Microsoft 365 Exchange Online?
- If you use Outlook do you use the calendar?
- If you use Outlook are you used to typing someone's name and for their email address to popup? If so, this is called AutoComplete Cache and we will come back to this later.
8 Steps to a Successful Email Migration
SETUP NEW MICROSOFT 365 ACCOUNT
SETUP YOUR DOMAIN IN MICROSOFT 365
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ADD USER ACCOUNTS TO MICROSOFT 365
CHANGES TO MICROSOFT ENTRA ADMIN CENTER
MIGRATE EXISTING EMAILS INTO MICROSOFT 365
UPDATE DNS RECORDS SO ALL NEW EMAILS GO THROUGH MICROSOFT EXCHANGE ONLINE
FINAL STAGE MIGRATION OF EMAILS INTO MICROSOFT 365
SETUP MICROSOFT OUTOOK
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GET YOUR EMAILS MIGRATED TO MICROSOFT 365 TODAY
STEP 1
SETUP NEW MICROSOFT ACCOUNT
How to choose the correct Microsoft 365 Product
Microsoft 365 Exchange Online is available in several Microsoft 365 products. Choosing the right one can be a bit tricky so we'll make it easy for you.
Answer the following two questions:
- Do you need Microsoft applications such as Word, Excel and Outlook?
- Do you need Teams, OneDrive and SharePoint?
If you have answered No to both of these questions then you need Microsot 365 Business Exchange Online (Plan 1). Cost is £3.30 per user per month.
If you don't need Microsoft applications but do need Microsoft Teams and/or OneDrive then you need Microsoft 365 Business Basic. Cost is £4.90 per user per month.
If you don't have desktop applications such as Word, Excel and Outlook then you need Microsoft 365 Business Standard which costs £10.30 per user per month.
If you just need Exchange Online then go to https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-365/exchange/exchange-online and click Buy now.
Otherwise go to https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-365/business/compare-all-microsoft-365-business-products-d and click Buy now for the appropriate product.
For this example we will assume you just need Exchange Online. The first couple of screenshots might be slightly different but after that all screenshots will be the same.
1. Enter your email address and click Next.
2. Assuming you don't already have a Microsoft Business account you will need to set one up so click Set up account.
3. Enter your personal details and click Next.
4. Select Text me and enter your mobile number.
5. Click Send verification code.
6. Enter your verification code and click Verify.
7. Enter a username. Your first name is usually best.
8. For domain name you can enter your company name or your domain name. You will see it will be appended with .onmicrosoft.com. This is a temporary holding domain. Later on we will be linking the domain name you own to this Microsoft account. But for the time being everyone has to have a .onmicrosoft.com account. Therefore it doesn't really matter what you put in as it will soon be irrelevant.
9. Enter a strong password and then click Next.
10. Choose how many licenses you need. You need one license for each email account you want to setup.
11. Click Add payment method.
12. Enter your credit card details and all the other required fields.
13. Click Save.
14. Once payment has been completed you will taken to the Admin homepage for your Microsoft 365 account.
STEP 2
SETUP YOUR DOMAIN IN MICROSOFT 365
You now have a brand new Microsoft 365 account. The next step is to link your domain to your new Microsoft 365 account. We are not moving your domain from your current provider to Microsoft 365. We are just proving to Microsoft that you own your domain name. This steps will ultimately enable you to send and receive emails through Microsoft 365.
1. Click on Set up email with a custom domain.
2. Enter your domain name.
3. Click Continue.
4. We now need to prove to Microsoft that you own your domain name. This is achieved by logging into your domain / webhosting account and adding a TXT record to your DNS records.
Depending on who hosts your domain name, you will either have to do this yourself or Microsoft can do it for you. In screenshot opposite you can see that Microsoft have recognised that the domain is registered with IONOS and they can do it for you, once you approve the sign in process.
5. For domains which Microsoft can't automatically connect to, you will need to login to the website of the company who hosts your domain. For example, if your domain is with 123-Reg then go to https://www.123-reg.co.uk/ and login to the Control Panel. You will then want to go to the DNS section for your domain.
Once logged in adding a TXT record is the easiest option. You need to add a TXT record with the value that Microsoft gave you.
Microsoft will give you the values required for the TXT record.
All domain registrars have different user interfaces but you can see opposite how the information Microsoft provided above fits into the IONOS records.
If there is no option to add a host name then don't worry. The important information is the value of MS=XXXXXXXXX.
The TTL value given by Microsoft is in seconds. 3600 seconds is 1 hour.
6. Once the TXT record has been added you can go back to the Microsoft 365 page and click Verify.
If it doesn't work or you get an error message then leave it for about 10 minutes and then try again. When you add a new DNS record it can take a bit of time for all DNS servers around the world to update.
Once verified we won't carry on with the next recommended steps. We will come back to this later, once we have migrated emails from your current system into the new Microsoft 365 Exchange.
7. Once your domain is verified you will be signed out of Microsoft 365 and then prompted to sign back in again. The reason for this is that in step 1 you were given a .onmicrosoft.com account. This is currently the account we are signed into. Now that our domain is verified we want to sign in with our domain account. Microsoft explain the process and steps for you.
STEP 3
ADD USER ACCOUNTS TO MICROSOFT 365
Now the domain is verified and you are logged back in we want to create the usernames / email accounts for all the email accounts we will be migrating across to Microsoft 365. If you only have one email address and it is the one you have setup in Microsoft 365 then you just need to do a quick check as most of it is already setup.
1, Click the 3 horizontal lines in top left corner and then select Users and then Active users.
2. Your name should be listed with the correct username and a license for the Microsoft 365 license you purchased.
3. Click on your name and make sure all fields and spellings are correct.
4. If you are migrating more than one email account you need to click Add a user.
5. Ener their name, create a password and unselect the box for Require this user to change their password when they first sign in.
6. Click Save and repeat process for any other users/email addresses you need.
STEP 4
CHANGES TO MICROSOFT ENTRA ADMIN CENTER
We now have mailboxes for our email addresses but the mailboxes are empty and they are not live either. Before we can start the migration we need to make more changes to the Microsoft 365 Admin centre.
Click the button below for Step 4.
GET IN TOUCH
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