GoDaddy to Office 365 migration

User Query

Although GoDaddy provides great web hosting, many users would prefer to switch to Microsoft to take advantage of their security features, add-ins, and collaboration features. We get users who ask questions like, "How do I move my domain to Office 365?" or "What are the steps to move GoDaddy email to Microsoft Office 365?" This article can assist such people who are looking for a smooth transition.

"We wanted to switch from GoDaddy to Office 365 while keeping the same domain name. We have a large number of users, and we need the migration to be as seamless as possible without affecting the users or their data. Is there a solution that will allow us to migrate everything in the shortest time possible?"

1. GoDaddy to Office 365 migration plan

   Planning is one of the most important steps before you begin migrating your data to Office 365. Prepare the environment and have a backup plan in place to avoid potential risks and data loss. Here is a checklist of points to consider before you migrate.

   1. Determine the size of the data and number of mailboxes you want to migrate.
   2. Make a list of all the data and permissions from GoDaddy that you want to transfer.
   3. Decide if you plan to migrate user mailboxes only or Public folders and Shared mailboxes as well.
   4. Create appropriate user mailboxes on Office 365 and assign licenses to them.
   5. Ensure you have enough network capacity and bandwidth to migrate.
   6. Communicate the migration plan and flow to your end users.

2. GoDaddy to Office 365 migration prerequisites

   1. Before migrating from GoDaddy to Office 365, ensure that you create mailboxes for your users in your organization and assign suitable licenses to them.
      1. Add users and assign licenses to Office 365 users
      2. Assign Microsoft 365 licenses to user accounts
   2. If you plan to migrate the source Public folders to Public folders on Office 365, ensure that you create and configure the Public folder mailboxes on the target server.
      1. Create Office 365 Public folder and assign mailbox user
   3. Ensure you have administrator rights to migrate mailboxes from GoDaddy. Assign the impersonation rights to the global admin to migrate mailboxes on behalf of users in your organization.
   4. Take a complete backup of all your users' data, configuration and messages on GoDaddy.
   5. If you plan to migrate multiple users without the administrator login, prepare a CSV file with the list of all user mailboxes.
   6. If you plan to migrate emails from GoDaddy to Office 365 by using IMAP connection, find and note down the server name on GoDaddy.
   7. Assign the Organization Management role group in Exchange online to the admin user.
   8. Ensure that the admin account on the target Office 365 server has the impersonation rights to migrate mailboxes and Public folders.
   9. If you have a custom email domain from GoDaddy to which you want to receive emails after the migration, you must add and verify the domain on Office 365.
      1. Steps to add a custom domain to Office 365
      2. Steps to add DNS records to connect your domain
   10. Configure Office 365 to send and receive large messages.
       1. Follow the steps to increase the message size on Office 365 to 150MB.
       2. See message size limits on Office 365 for more information

3. How to migrate GoDaddy to Microsoft 365?

   The following methods can help you migrate from GoDaddy to Microsoft 365

   1. Migrate GoDaddy Office 365 to Microsoft
   2. Migrate GoDaddy email to Microsoft 365 using IMAP
   3. Move from GoDaddy Office 365 to Microsoft with PST files

   EdbMails supports all of the aforementioned methods and enables you to migrate directly from the source to the target without downtime or data loss.

   Method 1 : Steps to migrate GoDaddy Office 365 to Microsoft

   If you have an Office 365 tenant with GoDaddy and want to migrate to another Office 365 tenant on a Microsoft server, follow the in-detailed steps outlined below.

   • Step 1: Install EdbMails Office 365 migration and create a migration task
     • Download EdbMails and install the application on any computer that is connected to the source and target environment.

        See a detailed list of EdbMails system requirements for Office 365 migration.

       

     • Launch the application and click 'Login' or 'Start Your Free Trial'.

       

     • Select the migration technique as Office 365 migration

       

     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).

   • Step 2: Connect to the source server as Global Administrator

     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

     After you authenticate and log in successfully, select one of the methods to load the mailboxes. You can also load and migrate the mailboxes using a CSV file

   • Step 3: Select the mailbox items and then connect to Office 365
     • EdbMails displays a list of mailboxes from the source server (GoDaddy).
     • Select the mailboxes and folders that you want to migrate to Office 365.
     • Click 'Migrate to Office 365' to setup 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.

      You can also migrate from GoDaddy to Office 365 groups by using EdbMails.

   • Step 4: Customize the GoDaddy to Office 365 migration (Optional)

     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 5: Connect to target Office 365 as Global Admin User

     EdbMails supports both modern and classic authentication. 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

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

     

   • Step 6: Start the migration to Office 365 from GoDaddy

     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.

      Tip: If you have a Hosted Exchange server on GoDaddy and are looking to migrate from Exchange to Office 365, EdbMails also has a dedicated Exchange migration tool to simplify your task.

   Method 2 : Steps to migrate GoDaddy email to Microsoft 365 using IMAP

   If you have your GoDaddy email account on an IMAP server (such as cPanel, Zoho, or Zimbra), you can use EdbMails IMAP migration tool to directly migrate move GoDaddy email to Office 365 without having to worry about the manual migration procedures.

   • Step 1: Install and start EdbMails IMAP migration software
     • Download EdbMails and install the application as outlined in the preceding method.Launch the application and click ‘Login’ or ‘Start Your Free Trial’.
     • Select the migration method as IMAP migration.

       

   • Step 2: Connect to a single user or multiple users mailbox on GoDaddy
     • If you want to migrate a single user, enter the Host Name , Port Number (993 for SSL), and account credentials to connect to GoDaddy as shown.

       

     • If you want to migrate multiple mailboxes, select ‘Multiple (bulk) Users/Accounts Migration’. 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.

       

      Steps to connect to single and multiple users in EdbMails IMAP migration

   • Step 3: Select the mailboxes and connect to the Office 365 tenant
     • Select the mailboxes and folders from the left panel to migrate to Office 365.
     • Click ‘Migrate to Office 365’ to set up the connection with the target server.

       

   • Step 4: Connect to the target Office 365 as Global Admin User

     EdbMails supports both modern and classic authentication. Connect to the target server by selecting Auto or Manual registration for modern authentication and follow the steps as described in the previous method.

      Connect to Office 365 server using secure modern authentication

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

   • Step 5: Start GoDaddy email migration to Office 365 and verify the endpoint

     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.

      See tips to optimize IMAP migration to Exchange online

   • Step 6: Migrate contacts and calendars from GoDaddy to O365

     The IMAP migration migrates only emails from the source to the target. To migrate your calendars and contacts, export them to a flat file such as CSV or iCal format, and then import them into your Office 365 account.

      Learn how to import calendars and contacts into Microsoft Office 365.

   Method 3 : Steps to move from GoDaddy Office 365 to Microsoft with the PST method

   If you have your mailboxes from GoDaddy exported as PST files, EdbMails can also assist you in migrating to Office 365. Download and run EdbMails if it hasn't already been installed on your system. The following steps outline how to import PST file to Office 365 with the application.

   • Step 1: Select the migration method as Office 365 migration

     On the EdbMails migration selection popup, select the migration method as Office 365 migration.

   • Step 2: Add PST files in bulk to migrate to Office 365

     To add the PST files, close the Connect to Office 365 (Source) connection window and click migrate ‘PST to Office 365’ at the bottom.

     

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

      Connect to Office 365 server using secure modern authentication

   • Step 4: Map the mailboxes and move GoDaddy Office 365 to Microsoft

     The mapping activity in EdbMails can automatically match and map the mailboxes and folders from the PST file to Office 365. This activity saves time when you’re migrating a large number of mailboxes. After you complete the migration, verify the count of the migrated items, folders and mailboxes with the help of EdbMails log report. Learn how to migrate multiple PSTs to Office 365.

4. Post migration activities

   • Step 1: Add the domain and update the MX records to point to Office 365

     Add the domain on Office 365 and if you haven’t updated the DNS records previously, you must change the MX records to enable email to work with the target server and receive messages on Office 365. In addition, configure the Autodiscover record to allow Outlook to connect to the migrated mailboxes.

   • Step 2: Defederate the domain from the GoDaddy tenant

     After you verify the migrated data, remove the domain from GoDaddy. You can perform this step by becoming a tenant admin in GoDaddy and removing the federation. Finally, remove the delegated admin and cancel the subscription.

     Note: Before defederating your domain, make sure that you have migrated all of your data and email accounts to a new email provider or platform, as defederating a domain prevents users from accessing Office 365 services associated with that domain.

   • Step 3: Change the default domain name on Office 365

     If the default domain on Office 365 points to the address from Microsoft (companyname.onmicrosoft.com), you can change the settings to set the custom domain from GoDaddy (companyname.com) as default.

   • Step 4: Reset the passwords of users from Azure Active Directory

     This is an optional step if you have used the CSV file to load and migrate the mailboxes. Reset the user passwords from the Azure AD as described in the guide.

   • Step 5: Create a new Outlook profile for users in the new domain

     Ensure you have the latest version of Microsoft Office and Outlook installed to avoid compatibility issues with Office 365. Configure the Outlook profile for each user in your domain if Outlook has problems connecting to Office 365 mailboxes.

Advantages of EdbMails for GoDaddy migration

EdbMails can easily perform GoDaddy Office 365 migration to Microsoft, saving you time and reducing your migration workload. Here’s why business and IT administrators all over the world choose EdbMails as their preferred Office 365 migration solution.

• Best software for Office 365 to Office 365 tenant migration
• Export mailbox to PST from Office 365 and backup your emails
• Secure modern authentication for Office 365 login.
• You can perform staged, cutover or hybrid migration to Office 365.
• With EdbMails, you can migrate Public folder to Office 365 shared mailbox
• EdbMails automates most of the operations such as mailbox mapping, setting impersonation rights and retrieving your mailboxes.
• Migrate between Office 365 tenants with the same domain
• Migrate with no third party components, no downtime or data loss.
• Simplifies complex IMAP, Exchange and Office 365 migration operations.