Migrate AOL to Microsoft 365

User Query

Users asked us how they could get their emails to O365 because they were constantly experiencing server issues or mail inaccessibility with AOL. Microsoft 365 has some of the best collaboration features, such as SharePoint and Teams, which make communication in large organizations very easy. Furthermore, Microsoft includes a built-in suite of Office apps such as PowerPoint, Word, and Spreadsheet, all of which are missing from AOL mail. Another advantage of Office 365 that has made it popular among users is the regular release of security and feature updates. You can use cutting-edge security mechanisms as well as state-of-the-art features and tools.

“Hi EdbMails team, we were looking to move our emails from AOL to Office 365. As of September 2018, Microsoft has removed the ability to add new email accounts in my Outlook Web App. Is there any method that I can follow to get all my emails to Office 365 without having to spend too much time on the process? In addition, we would also like to backup our AOL mails to Outlook PST. Thanks”

AOL to Office 365 migration plan

One of the key considerations when switching to Office 365 is planning. To reduce risks and prevent data loss, you must set up a backup strategy, prepare the source and target environments, and test your backup strategy. Here is a list of things to think about before the migration.

1. Make a thorough backup of your current mailboxes, mail, and source data.
2. Choose the quantity and size of mailboxes you want to move from AOL to Office 365.
3. Make a list of all the AOL data and permissions you wish to transfer.
4. On Office 365, create the relevant user mailboxes and assign licenses.
5. Make sure you have enough bandwidth and network capacity to relocate.
6. Before you begin the actual move, carry out a test migration.

Pre migration activities for AOL to Office 365 migration

The following are the pre-migration activities for migrating AOL to Office 365

1. Ensure that you have admin access on the source and target server
   

   The admin account that has all the necessary permissions to migrate mailboxes on behalf of all the users in your organization. Make sure to assign the Organization Management role group and impersonation rights to the admin user on Office 365.

2. Create Office 365 mailboxes and assign the licenses

    Click here to Add users and assign licenses to Office 365 users

    Assign Microsoft 365 licenses to user accounts

3. To migrate AOL mailboxes to Office 365 Public folders, ensure that you create a public folder and assign users to mailboxes on the target server.

    Create Office 365 Public folder and assign mailbox user

4. If you are in plan to migrate mailboxes to Office 365 archive mailboxes, ensure to enable In-Place archive in Office 365 admin center.

    Steps to enable archive mailbox in Microsoft 365.

5. If you have a custom email domain from the source which you want to retain and receive emails to, you must add and verify the domain on Office 365.

    Steps to add a custom domain to Office 365 and steps to add DNS records to connect your domain.

6. Customize the message size limits for large size messages

    Follow the steps to increase the message size on Office 365 to 150MB. See message size limits on Office 365 for more information.

How to migrate AOL to Office 365?

Both manual and automated approaches are detailed in this article. With the automated way there is no chance of data loss, and the processes are straightforward. Let's go over these in more detail:

1. Migrate AOL to Office 365 using Outlook
2. EdbMails IMAP migration solution to directly AOL to Office 365

Steps to migrate AOL to Office 365 using Microsoft Outlook

• Step 1: Launch Outlook (2016 and 2019), click File and select ‘Add account’
• Step 2: Enter the AOL email address you want to add and configure.
• Step 3: Click the Advanced Options and select ‘Let me set up my account manually’
• Step 4: Click ‘Connect’ and select the account type as ‘IMAP’
• Step 5: Enter the incoming and outgoing AOL mail server details for IMAP and add your account on Outlook.
• Step 6: Export and use the PST file to sync and migrate email to Office 365.

• 

Steps to migrate AOL to Office 365 using EdbMails

An easy method to directly transfer AOL to Office 365 is by using EdbMails IMAP migration tool. There is no need for intermediate steps and you can connect to your source account and target Office 365 and get all your emails effortlessly.

• Step 1: Download and install EdbMails migration application

  Download and install EdbMails on your computer and launch it after finishing the setup.

  ‘Login’ to the application or ‘Start Your Free Trial’

  Launch EdbMails and login to the application (Same credentials you have used to register / purchase the license). If you would like to try the application for free, then click on ‘Start Your Free Trial’.

  

  Select the option IMAP migration

  

• Step2: Connect to the AOL server using IMAP connection details

  If you want to connect to a single user mailbox, enter the Host Name (imap.aol.com), Port Number (993 for SSL), and account credentials

  

  Check 'Multiple (bulk) Users/Accounts Migration' for multiple users. Select ‘Connect to IMAP’ and download the sample CSV file and add in the required details such as mailbox name, password, host name and port. Load the CSV file into EdbMails and verify the list mailboxes to continue.

  

• Step 3: Select the AOL mailboxes and migrate to Office 365

  EdbMails displays all your mailboxes / folders / subfolders in the application’s left panel where you can select all of them or select only the required mail items for migration. If this is your first migration with EdbMails, it will be a full migration. On subsequent migrations to the same target from the same computer, the migration is incremental to avoid duplicates.

  After selecting the mailboxes, mail items and folders, click on the ‘Migrate to Office 365’ button to continue.

  

• Step 3: Connect to target Office 365

  EdbMails supports both classic and modern authentication for Office 365 connection. You can choose ‘Auto’ or ‘Manual’ registration for modern authentication and select one of the methods from Mailboxes, Public folder or Archive mailbox. The application will load mailboxes automatically or you can load Office 365 mailboxes using a CSV file.

• Step 4: Start the migration to Office 365 from AOL

  After connecting to the target server, proceed to mailbox mapping and start the migration operation. Finally, verify the migration and the count of folders, mailboxes and items with the log report.

Additional options and settings

EdbMails provides include and exclude folder and filter options in the Migration interface. Click the gear icon (Settings) provided in the migration window to customize what you would like to migrate.

• You can migrate items based on Sender Address, Date, Subject, Attachment etc.
• You can Include and Exclude standard folders for migration such as Inbox, Sent, Drafts

Furthermore, the right panel has additional options to migrate permissions, removing deleted source items from target folders and so on.

 Click on the link if you would like to know more about EdbMails IMAP migration tool

 Here are the step-by-step instructions to export IMAP emails to Outlook PST.

Post-migration tasks

• Step 1: Update DNS records (MX record) to point to Office 365

  If you have not done this step previously, change the DNS records known as MX records to enable and receive email messages on the target Office 365 server. In addition to this setup, configure the Autodiscover record to allow Outlook to connect to the migrated mailboxes.

• Step 2: Decommission or delete the user mailboxes on AOL server

  After you verify that you are correctly receiving emails on Office 365, you can safely decommission and disable user mailboxes on the source AOL server

• Step 3: Create a new Outlook profile for users in the new domain

  Remove any previous instances of AOL accounts on Outlook to avoid conflicts with the new server. Configure and recreate the Outlook profile for each user in your domain if it has problems connecting to Office 365 mailboxes.

Migration troubleshooting

 See the migration troubleshooting guide for resolution to common migration errors. For any queries related to EdbMails Office 365 migration, visit frequently asked questions (FAQs)

Benefits of EdbMails for AOL to Office 365 migration

1. Simple user interface to perform AOL to Office 365 migration.
2. Migrate AOL mailbox items to Office 365 mailboxes, Public folders, Shared mailboxes and In-Place Archive.
3. Include and exclude filters to selectively migrate emails based on Date, Subject, Attachment, Sender.
4. Exclude folder options to avoid migration from mail folders such as Junk, Inbox, Drafts, Conversation History.
5. Highly secure solution by maintaining perfect data consistency between the source and target.
6. Free trial and free 24x7 customer support to help you with the migration.
7. The application is compatible with Windows 11, 10, 8.1, 8, 7 and all Windows server versions.