Icewarp to Office 365 Migration Step by Step Guide

As businesses evolve and embrace cloud-based solutions, many organizations using IceWarp are making the move to Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365) for its advanced collaboration tools, security, and accessibility. Migrating from IceWarp to Office 365 ensures better integration with Microsoft’s ecosystem, improved performance, and a future-ready communication platform. However, this transition needs to be carefully managed to avoid data loss, ensure continuity, and minimize user disruption.

EdbMails IMAP Migration Software is designed to make this process straightforward and reliable. It supports direct mailbox migration of emails from IceWarp to Office 365 with features like incremental sync, concurrent mailboxes migration, customized target folder mapping, support for large mailboxes etc.. The intuitive interface and step-by-step guidance make it suitable for both small businesses and enterprise-level migrations.

This guide will walk you through the complete process of migrating from IceWarp to Office 365 using EdbMails. Whether you're moving a few mailboxes or performing a large-scale migration, the following steps will help ensure a secure, accurate, and hassle-free email transfer experience.

1. What makes Microsoft 365 a stronger choice over IceWarp server?

   • Microsoft 365 integrates seamlessly with Office apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams, OneDrive, and SharePoint. For a smooth transition of data and collaboration tools when migrating from IceWarp, EdbMails offers a secure and efficient solution to transfer emails, and folders to Microsoft 365 without data loss.
   • Microsoft 365 facilitates real-time collaboration via Microsoft Teams and cloud-based document editing. When migrating to Microsoft 365 from IceWarp, EdbMails ensures that all collaboration data, including emails are preserved and seamlessly transferred, enabling continuous productivity.
   • Features advanced security measures like encryption, multi-factor authentication (MFA), and compliance with international standards such as GDPR, HIPAA, and ISO​.
   • Easily scales for businesses of all sizes, offering flexible resource management and performance that supports growth without compromising system integrity.
   • Microsoft 365 includes tools like OneDrive for Business and Exchange Online Archiving for data backup and recovery.
   • Leverages a vast global data center network to provide consistent, reliable service with 99.9% uptime SLAs.
   • Regular feature updates, AI-powered tools, and continuous integration of new productivity applications keep businesses competitive and adaptable​.

2. Challenges in Performing IceWarp to Office 365 Migration

   • Risk of data loss during IMAP migration from IceWarp to Office 365.
   • Complex manual user mapping process.
   • Mismatches in folder structures between platforms.
   • Challenges with large attachments and size restrictions.
   • Difficulty in accurately migrating custom filter rules.
   • Bandwidth strain and performance issues during migration.
   • User downtime during MX record switch or reconfiguration.
   • Time-consuming post-migration testing and validation.
   • Security risks with sensitive data during migration.

3. Best way to migrate emails from IceWarp to Office 365

   EdbMails IMAP migration tool, a Microsoft-partnered solution, simplifies the shift from IceWarp to Office 365 by eliminating the complications of manual migration. With an easy-to-use interface, it allows you to connect to the source server, select mailboxes, and transfer emails and attachments to Office 365 in just a few steps. EdbMails offers powerful features such as automatic mailbox mapping and automatic mailbox creation on the target Office 365 server, saving time and reducing setup errors. Its advanced filtering options let you migrate only the data you need, while incremental migration ensures that only new or updated items are transferred during subsequent runs, avoiding duplicates. Secure authentication using OAuth 2.0 and TLS encryption guarantees data protection throughout the process. With this combination of automation, flexibility, and security, EdbMails ensures a fast, accurate, and stress-free migration experience.

4. IceWarp to Office 365 migration planning

   Planning is an important step before starting your IceWarp to Office 365 migration. Setting up the environment properly in advance helps reduce risks and prevent data loss. Below is a checklist of key points to consider before beginning the migration.

   • Determine the size of the data and number of mailboxes you want to migrate.
   • Make a list of all the data and permissions from IceWarp that you want to transfer.
   • Create appropriate user mailboxes on Office 365 and assign licenses to them.
   • Ensure you have enough network capacity and bandwidth to migrate.
   • Communicate the migration plan and flow to your end users.

5. IceWarp to Office 365 migration prerequisites

   1. Find the IMAP server host name for your IceWarp server. This information is usually available in the server settings or can be identified by setting up your email account in Outlook and viewing the server details.
   2. Before you migrate IceWarp to Office 365, ensure that you create user mailboxes on your target server. You can choose EdbMails to automatically create Office 365 mailboxes and assign licenses on the target server. If you prefer to handle this manually, follow the steps in the links below to create mailboxes and assign the appropriate licenses.
      • Add users and assign licenses to Office 365 users
      • Assign Microsoft 365 licenses to user accounts
   3. 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.

       Create Office 365 Public folder and assign mailbox user

   4. Ensure that the admin account on the target Office 365 server has the impersonation rights to migrate mailboxes and Public folders.
   5. If you have a custom email domain from your hosting provider to which you want to migrate and receive emails, 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. Configure Office 365 to send and receive large messages.

       Follow the steps to increase the message size on Office 365 to 150MB and see tips to optimize IMAP migration to Exchange online.

6. Steps to migrate IceWarp to Office 365 using EdbMails

   • Step 1: Download and install EdbMails IMAP migration software setup

     • Download EdbMails and install the EdbMails software on your computer.

       

     • Launch the application and login with your registered email address and password or click 'Start Your Free Trial'.

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

       

     • Select the option‘IMAP (Gmail, Outlook & more) Migration’

       

     • Select ‘IMAP to Office 365 Migration’

       

     • Use the default job name or click 'New Job' to modify the job name

       

   • Step 2: Connect to source IceWarp server

     • To connect a single user account, select ‘Single User / Account Migration.’ and click ‘Next’ to proceed.

       

     • Select the suitable IMAP host name from the list or enter it manually. Then, provide your email address and password.
     • Click the ‘Login’ button.

       

     • For migrating multiple mailboxes, select ‘Multiple (Bulk) Users/Accounts Migration’ and click ‘Next’.

       

     • Click ‘Download Sample CSV File’

       

     • Update the CSV file by adding the necessary details like email address, password, host name, and port number. Once done, save the file.

       

     • Close the CSV file, click the 'Browse CSV File' button, and select the updated file.
     • Verify the mailboxes, and click 'Next'.

       

     • Select the mailboxes or folders to migrate, then click ‘Next’.

       

   • Step 3: Connect to target Office 365

     • Click the ‘Add New Connection’ button to create a new connection to your target Office 365 server. To use an existing connection, simply select it from the list and click ‘Connect to Existing’ to continue.

       

     • Select the required connection options and click the ‘Next’ button.

       

     • Select one of the authentication methods.
     • Click the ‘Login’ button to continue.

       

     • Authenticate on Microsoft sign-in page.

       

     • Choose a method to load your mailboxes. EdbMails automatically loads the mailboxes for your Office 365 users. However, due to Microsoft API limitations, only 100 mailboxes will be shown. If you have more than 100 mailboxes, you can use the CSV file method to load all of them.
     • Click the ‘Next’ button to continue

       

   • Step 4: IceWarp to Office 365 mailboxes mapping

     • Select the required mapping option

       

     • With EdbMails, you can choose to have the software automatically create mailboxes on the target server, or if the mailboxes are already created, simply select the appropriate option.
     • EdbMails automatically maps mailboxes between the source and target servers, but you also have the option to manually map mailboxes.

       

   • Step 5: Start IceWarp to office 365 migration

     • After mapping the mailboxes, click the ‘Start Migration’ button to initiate the migration process

       

     • You can now track the migration progress using the progress bar. When the migration is complete, EdbMails will display a confirmation message
     • Click the ‘View Log’ button to open the migration report, which provides a detailed summary of the entire process, including the total number of items migrated from each folder.

       

7. Icewarp to Office 365 post migration tasks

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

     Update the MX records to route incoming emails to your target Office 365 server. Also, set up the Autodiscover record to allow Outlook to connect to the migrated mailboxes easily.

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

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

8. IceWarp to Office 365 migration troubleshooting

    For troubleshooting, visit Knowledge Base.

    For more queries, check , Frequently Asked Questions or contact support.

---

Additional resources:

• Zimbra to Office 365 migration
• AOL Emails to Office 365 migration
• Zoho Mail to Office 365 migration
• GoDaddy to Microsoft 365 migration
• ProtonMail to Office 365 migration
• cPanel to Office 365 migration