Comcast to Office 365 migration

Reasons for Comcast to Office 365 migration

1. Comcast email is primarily linked to the Xfinity internet, so unsubscribing from Xfinity also means you'll lose access to your email which is one of the reasons for migration.
2. Microsoft 365 is a specialized suite that focuses on Office applications, emails, collaboration, and cloud sharing.
3. You can integrate your email with Outlook and have access to SharePoint, OneDrive, and Teams all under one roof with Office 365.
4. Office 365 is a self-contained email solution and does not require a separate domain or hosting provider.
5. It is simple to add a Public folder, configure Shared mailboxes, and aliases, from Microsoft's admin center.
6. Your email will be stored on secure Microsoft servers rather than on Comcast.

User Query

" We have Comcast email accounts and would like to permanently migrate them to Office 365. Is there a reliable way to migrate without losing any of our emails, which are currently hosted at Comcast? The requirement is that Comcast Hosted Office 365 be moved directly to Microsoft 365."

How to plan migration from Comcast?

Before starting migration from Comcast ensure that you have made a detailed plan so that all your data is safe. Planning also saves your time and gives an overview of the entire operation. Here is a checklist of points to consider.

1. Ensure that you have administrator access to both Comcast and Office 365 accounts.
2. Keep your Comcast email's IMAP connection information handy if you have an IMAP server on the source.
3. Before beginning the migration, make a complete backup of all your mailboxes.
4. Make a list of what you want to migrate and what you want to leave behind.
5. Remove unwanted and unnecessary mailboxes from the source.
6. Request that your users save or export large attachments to their local storage.
7. Consider whether you want to keep the Comcast domain or get a custom domain for your email.
8. Communicate all of these changes to your end users, stakeholders and keep them updated.
9. Perform a pilot migration to ensure everything works as expected.
10. After you complete the migration, allow enough time for testing and verification.
11. Add the MX records on Office 365 and configure Outlook for all users.

Pre migration activities for Comcast to Office 365 migration

1. Make sure 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. Also assign the Organization Management role group and impersonation rights to the admin user on Office 365.

2. Create a list of users in a CSV file, which you want to migrate from BigRock.
3. Find the name of your source email server from an email client
4. Purchase a suitable Office 365 licensing plan. You can also sign up for a 30 day free trial and decide to go with a suitable one later. Compare Office 365 business plans and Compare Office 365 enterprise plans
5. Create Office 365 mailboxes and assign licenses to them

     Add users and assign licenses to Office 365 users

     Assign Microsoft 365 licenses to user accounts

6. If you plan to migrate your mailboxes to Office 365 Public folders, ensure that you create and configure the Public folder mailboxes on the target server.

    Create Office 365 Public folder and assign mailbox user

7. Similarly, if you want to migrate mailboxes to Office 365 In-Place archive, enable them from the admin center.

    Steps to enable archive mailbox in Microsoft 365.

8. 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.

9. Configure Office 365 to send and receive large 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 from Comcast to Office 365?

You can perform the migration with the following three methods.

1. Migrate Comcast to Office 365 from Outlook
2. Perform Office 365 tenant to tenant migration
3. Migrate to Microsoft 365 with EdbMails IMAP migration tool

The first method involves configuring your source and destination Office 365 tenants in Outlook and copying the folders from the source to the target. A simpler method is to use the EdbMails application to perform direct tenant to tenant Office 365 migration.

Steps to migrate Comcast to Office 365 from Microsoft Outlook

• Step 1: Get the IMAP connection details of your Comcast server
• Step 2: Go to Account Settings in Outlook and add your Comcast hosted account.
• Step 3: In the same way, add your destination Office 365 account to Outlook.
• Step 4: Copy the mailbox and folders from the source to destination in Outlook
• Step 5: Allow the IMAP protocol to sync emails with the target Office 365
• Step 6: Check to see if the copied folders and mailboxes were synced with the Outlook Web App (OWA).

Steps to migrate Comcast to Office 365 with EdbMails

EdbMails Office 365 migration tool can walk you through the process step by step and help you migrate your emails in just a few clicks. There are no manual procedures, and the graphical interface makes it simple to select the mailboxes that you need and migrate them directly to the target Office 365 tenant. There are also include and exclude filter options to help you choose which emails and folders to migrate.

• Download EdbMails and install the application on any computer that is connected to the source and target environment. You can also perform the migration operation by installing EdbMails on a non-Exchange computer.

    See a detailed list of EdbMails system requirements for IMAP migration.

• Launch the application and click ‘Login’ or ‘Start Your Free Trial’
  

  Login to the application (if you have purchased a license and already have the username and password). The free trial version allows you to migrate 30 items from every folder of the source account to the target.

• Select the ‘Office 365 tenant to tenant migration’ in the main window

Note: If the Standard folders (such as Inbox, Calendar, Contacts) on your source server mailboxes are initialized with a different language, see the following steps to migrate these folders to the respective system folders on the target (destination) server.

For Instance: If your source Inbox folder is named 'Boîte de réception', which is in French language and you migrate this folder directly to the destination server, then by default it will not be mapped to the 'Inbox' folder on the target server. In order to map the folder with the french name to the respective folder, change the regional settings on the target server to match that of your source mailbox folder language (in this case, it is French).

  Click here to know the steps to change the language and regional settings on Office 365

Tenant to tenant Office 365 migration method

• Step 1: Login to your Comcast Office 365 tenant as Global Admin
  In the Connect to Office 365 (Source) window, select the authentication method as Auto or Manual registration for modern authentication and the connection method as Mailboxes, Public folder or Archive Mailbox. Enter your global administrator credentials to authenticate.

    Connect to Office 365 server using secure modern authentication

  

• Step 2: Select the mailbox items and folders and then connect to Office 365

  • EdbMails displays a list of mailboxes from the source server (Comcast Hosted Office 365).
  • Select the mailboxes and folders that you want to migrate.
  • Click ‘Migrate to Office 365’ to set up the connection with the target server.

• Tip: If this is the first time you’re migrating with EdbMails, the migration is a full migration. On subsequent migrations from the same source to the target, the migration is incremental to prevent duplicate items.

  EdbMails provides the following additional options to help you customize the migration task.

  • Additional Include and Exclude Filter Options and migration settings for mailboxes.
  • Filter emails by Date: Migrate to Office 365 by applying the Date filter
  • Filter emails by Size: Exclude emails from migration larger than a specified size.

  

• Step 3: Map the mailboxes and migrate Comcast to Office 365

  • Connect to the target server by selecting Auto or Manual registration for modern authentication and the connection method as Mailboxes, Public folder or Archive Mailbox.

      Connect to Office 365 server using secure modern authentication

  • The mapping activity in EdbMails can automatically match and map the mailboxes and folders between the source tenant and Office 365.
  • Start and monitor the migration operation after you complete the mailbox mapping. Finally, verify the count of migrated emails, folders and mailbox items with EdbMails text-based log report.

2. IMAP to Office 365 migration method

You can also use EdbMails IMAP to Office 365 tool to migrate your user mailboxes to Microsoft 365 with the IMAP protocol. This method is useful if you want to migrate a few mailboxes from the source to the target.

• Step 1: Enter your Comcast server’s IMAP connection details
  

  When you select IMAP migration on the EdbMails main screen, you will be taken to a login page where you have to enter the source server details and account credentials to connect to your Comcast server.

  • Select Single or Multiple server based on your preferences
  • HostName/IP Address : imap.comcast.net (Depends on your server)
  • Port Number: Enter 993 and select SSL/TLS (if the server is SSL secured)
  • Email Address and Password (EdbMails does not store any of these credentials)

  

  If you want to migrate multiple mailboxes, select ‘Multiple (bulk) Users/Accounts Migration’. Download the sample CSV file from EdbMails and fill in the required details such as mailbox name, password, host name and port. Load the CSV file into the application and verify the list mailboxes to continue.

    See steps to connect to single and multiple users in EdbMails IMAP migration

  

• Step 2: Select the mailboxes from Comcast to migrate to Office 365

  Following a successful connection, EdbMails loads all of your mailboxes, folders, and items, which you can access on the left side.

  • Select the mailboxes and folders to migrate.
  • Click ‘Migrate to Office 365’ to set up the connection with the target server.

      See tips to optimize IMAP migration to Exchange online

  

Step 3: Connect to target Office 365 as Global Admin User

Connect to the target server by selecting Auto or Manual registration for modern authentication and the connection method as Mailboxes, Public folder or Archive Mailbox. You can also connect to the mailboxes by loading a CSV file of users from the Office 365 tenant.

  Connect to Office 365 server using secure modern authentication

Step 4: Map the respective folders from the source to the target

The mapping activity in EdbMails can automatically match and map the mailboxes and folders between Comcast and Office 365. This activity saves time when you’re migrating a large number of mailboxes.

Step 5: Start the migration from Comcast to Office 365 and verify the operation

Start and monitor the migration operation after you complete the mailbox mapping. Finally, verify the count of migrated emails, folders and mailbox items with EdbMails text-based log report. You can also pause and resume the migration.

 If you require further assistance, contact EdbMails 24x7 support. Try the free trial version today to start the migration!

Post-migration tasks

Step 1: Update the MX records to point to Office 365

If you have not done this step previously, add the DNS records known as MX records to enable and receive email messages on the target Office 365 server by keeping the same domain name (yourname@domain.com) from the source server. In addition to this setup, configure the Autodiscover record to allow Outlook to connect to the migrated mailboxes.

Step 2: Create a new Outlook profile for users in the new domain

Configure and recreate the Outlook profile for each user in your domain if Outlook has problems connecting to Office 365 mailboxes.

Migration troubleshooting

  See the migration troubleshooting guide for possible solutions related to common errors. For more information on EdbMails Office 365 and IMAP migration, see frequently asked questions (FAQs)

Concluding Words

Comcast offers internet services under the brand name Xfinity and has its own email which requires users to be on the Xfinity plan. It also hosts emails for Office 365 customers and therefore many would like to migrate their emails directly from Comcast's Hosted Office 365 to Microsoft's Office 365, which can be difficult without a proper plan. Manual methods are ineffective, for example, if you have hundreds of mailboxes and want to migrate them as quickly as possible. EdbMails is a custom-built application for such migrations, and it can easily migrate your source mailboxes to another Office 365 tenant. Being a Microsoft partner it has plenty of success stories under its belt including GoDaddy, Rackspace, Dovecot, and many others. If you need assistance or want to learn more, contact the free 24x7 customer service.