hMailServer to Office 365 migration
hMailServer is a free, open-source alternative to Microsoft Exchange, primarily designed for Windows environments. Its ease of installation, along with support for IMAP, POP3, and SMTP protocols, makes it an accessible and cost-effective solution for small businesses looking to manage their own email services. Additionally, hMailServer includes an integrated anti-spam filter to enhance security and performance, while its centralized management tool, the hMailServer Administrator, enables administrators to easily manage domains, accounts, settings, and even virus scanning. However, as businesses grow or look to transition to more secure and feature-rich platforms like Microsoft 365, the need for migration becomes inevitable. Migrating sensitive email data to the cloud can be challenging, especially when considering risks such as data loss, downtime, and disruption to business operations—challenges that are heightened when moving from a self-hosted solution like hMailServer to a cloud-based service like Office 365.
EdbMails IMAP migration software offers a robust solution for addressing these challenges and seamlessly migrating emails from hMailServer to Office 365. With advanced features such as advanced filtering options that allow users to migrate only relevant emails and folders, migration efficiency is optimized. The pause and resume migration feature adds flexibility, enabling users to pause and resume migrations at any time without disrupting daily operations. EdbMails also automates the mailbox mapping process, minimizing errors when migrating multiple mailboxes or domains. For enhanced security, it uses OAuth 2.0 for secure authentication and TLS encryption to safeguard data during transfer. With these features, EdbMails ensures a smooth, secure, and efficient hMailServer to Office 365 migration, eliminating manual complexities and minimizing downtime.
User Query
“We are currently running hMailServer on Windows and would like to migrate our business emails to Office 365 now that our team has grown. We are looking for a suitable method or approach to safely migrate our data without leaving any loose ends. Could anyone please assist us step-by-step? Thanks for the guidance”
hMailServer email to Office 365 migration plan
Planning is one of the most important steps before you begin the hMailServer email to Office 365 migration. Here is a checklist of points to consider before you migrate.
- Determine the size of the data and the number of mailboxes you want to migrate.
- Make a list of all the data from the hMailServer email 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.
Pre migration activities for hMailServer to Office 365 migration
- Find the IMAP server name of your hMailServer email server. You can find this information from your server’s dashboard settings or by connecting your email system to Outlook.
- Have the users email address, passwords, IMAP hostname and port number.
- Create mailboxes on your target Office 365 server. You can choose the option to automatically create target mailboxes in EdbMails. If you prefer to create them manually, refer to the links below.
- 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. - 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.
Steps to migrate from hMailServer to Office 365
Step 1: Download and Install EdbMails software
- Download and set up the EdbMails application on your Windows computer to begin the migration process.
- Launch the application and choose either ‘Login’ or ‘Start Your Free Trial’ to get started.
Review the comprehensive list of system requirements for IMAP migration with EdbMails.
- Select the migration method as ‘IMAP migration’ in the main window
Step 2: Connect to source hMailServer server
- If you want to migrate a single user, enter the Host Name , Port Number (993 for SSL), and account credentials to connect to hMailServer 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
- If you want to migrate a single user, enter the Host Name , Port Number (993 for SSL), and account credentials to connect to hMailServer as shown.
Step 3: Select source hMailServer server mailboxes
- Choose the mailboxes and folders from the left panel.
- Click ‘IMAP to Office 365’ to proceed to the connection with the target server.
See tips to optimize IMAP migration to Exchange online
Step 4: Connect to target Office 365 server
- Choose the preferred method for secure OAuth-based modern authentication. The default option, ‘Auto Registration,’ requires Global admin access. Alternatively, in the Manual Registration method, you can use either a Global admin account or any user account with full access rights.
- Next, choose the appropriate migration option and proceed to log in on the Microsoft sign-in page.
- EdbMails automatically loads mailboxes from your hMailServer. Additionally, it supports the use of CSV files to efficiently load mailboxes into Office 365.
- Choose the preferred method for secure OAuth-based modern authentication. The default option, ‘Auto Registration,’ requires Global admin access. Alternatively, in the Manual Registration method, you can use either a Global admin account or any user account with full access rights.
Step 5: hMailServer to Office 365 mailboxes mapping
- Choose the mapping option that best aligns with your requirements.
- EdbMails provides an automated mailbox creation feature for Office 365, streamlining the setup of target mailboxes and ensuring seamless mailbox and folder mapping from the source IMAP server. This capability is especially beneficial for effectively handling a substantial number of mailboxes during the migration process.
- Click the ‘Folder and Item Filter’ button to set a filter for your migration. For instance, you can choose to migrate data only within a specific date range by applying a date filter. Additionally, you can exclude both standard and custom folders from the migration.
- Choose the mapping option that best aligns with your requirements.
Step 6: Start hMailServer to Office 365 migration
- Once the mailboxes are mapped, assign a job name and initiate the migration. To monitor the progress, click the ‘View Log’ button, which generates a detailed migration report. This report offers insights into the number of emails, folders, and mailbox items that have been successfully transferred, providing a clear overview of the migration status.
- Once the mailboxes are mapped, assign a job name and initiate the migration. To monitor the progress, click the ‘View Log’ button, which generates a detailed migration report. This report offers insights into the number of emails, folders, and mailbox items that have been successfully transferred, providing a clear overview of the migration status.
hMailServer to Office 365 post migration tasks
Step 1: Update the MX records to point to Office 365
If you have not done this step previously, change the DNS records known as MX records to enable email and receive messages on the target Office 365 server. In addition, 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 the Outlook profile for each user in your domain if Outlook has problems connecting to Office 365 mailboxes.
hMailServer to Office 365 migration troubleshooting
Explore the knowledge base articles for troubleshooting common issues. For more information on EdbMails IMAP migration, review the FAQs or contact our dedicated support team for assistance.
Advantages of using EdbMails for hMailServer to Office 365 migration
- Simple and reliable solution
With the EdbMails you can perform absolutely risk-free hMailServer to Office 365 migration. Because this tool is built using the most recent encryption technology, the procedure is quite straightforward. There is no path that might result in the data on the hMailServer being compromised. Additionally, the interface of the app never keeps user data.
- Migrate Multiple hMailServer data to Office 365.
EdbMails supports batch hMailServer to Office 365 migration.You must first prepare a CSV file with all of your hMailServer user credentials to perform bulk mailbox migration. Data from hMailServer can easily be transferred to an administrator account in Office 365.
- Selectively Migrate Emails:
You can migrate certain mailboxes from hMailServer to Office 365 using EdbMails Filter Settings. Users can use it to sort emails by subject, email address, date range, etc. You can also exclude standard and custom folders from migration.
- Maintains exact source folder structure on the target:
The tool keeps the on-disk folder structure during hMailServer to Office 365 migration. The migration is 1:1 between the source and the target server without any data loss.
