How to migrate ProtonMail to Office 365 (Microsoft 365)?

EdbMails software for Proton Mail migration

Many users who are concerned about data security choose Proton Mail. It is regarded as one of the best choices for managing sensitive emails because it claims to use end-to-end encryption and its servers are located in Switzerland. In addition to the emailing features, it also provides a VPN and encrypted cloud storage under the name Proton Drive. However, for large business units and corporations, Proton Mail may appear to be a feature-restricted solution. Users who are having their personal and professional emails on Proton Mail are looking to migrate to Office 365. EdbMails IMAP migration to Office 365 is a Microsoft partnered software solution designed for O365 cloud migration. It automates the entire operation and enables you to select mailboxes and directly migrate from the source to the target from its graphical interface. In this article we describe the different migration methods along with the steps.

Reasons for migrating Proton Mail to Office 365

Although Proton Mail prioritizes security, it falls short when it comes to business requirements. For instance, Microsoft's Office 365 includes Teams and SharePoint and enables cross collaboration, both of which are missing from Proton Mail. Public Folders and Shared Mailboxes in Office 365 are also tailor made for the same purpose. Another reason many enterprises prefer migrating to Office 365 is to have a hybrid environment with their on-premises Exchange servers. Now that we've discussed the reasons for the migration, let's look at how to migrate ProtonMail to Office 365.

QUICK LINKS

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ProtonMail to Office 365 migration

User Query

Due to the many features offered by Microsoft's suite and support for mail backup in the form of Outlook PST, many users and businesses are looking for ways to migrate ProtonMail to Office 365. We received one such user query in which they requested a quick migration.

" Hi EdbMails team, we were looking to shift to Microsoft 365 for our business and currently we are using ProtonMail. In addition, we would also like to retain the domain we had on ProtonMail and migrate smoothly without interruptions. Is there a way to migrate step-by-step and get all our emails to Office 365? Thank You "

I. Pre migration activities for Proton Mail to Office 365 migration

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.
Create a list of users to migrate from the Proton Mail account in a CSV file. Download the Proton Mail Bridge application and note down the IMAP server details and the app password.
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
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
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
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.
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.
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 Proton Mail to Office 365?

You can perform the migration with the following two methods.

Migrate Proton Mail to Office 365 with the PST import method
Migrate mailboxes directly to O365 with EdbMails IMAP migration
Migrate MBOX file from Proton Mail to Office 365

Steps to migrate Proton Mail to Office 365 with the PST method

You can migrate to Office 365 by configuring your Proton Mail IMAP account in Outlook. Ensure that you have a Proton Mail paid plan before you perform the migration.

Step 1: Download and install ProtonMail Bridge application
Step 2: Note down the IMAP connection details and password from the Bridge
Step 3: Configure the Proton Mail account in your email client
Start Outlook or Thunderbird and set up the account with the username and password from the Bridge app.
Step 4: Export all of your emails from Outlook as a PST file
Step 5: Import the PST file into Microsoft Office 365 using Azure AzCopy

This method is unreliable because you have to first export all your emails as a PST file and then do the network upload with AzCopy. Furthermore, if you want to migrate only specific emails or folders, there are no email filters or folder options.

Steps to migrate ProtonMail to O365 with EdbMails IMAP migration

EdbMails IMAP migration software makes it simple to migrate ProtonMail to Office 365. You can use this application to transfer all of your emails and folders from the source to the target Microsoft 365 tenant or customize the migration with advanced folder and filter options.

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 migration method as IMAP migration in the main window

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.

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

Step 1: Prepare the target Office 365 server for migration
Ensure that you are the global administrator in the target Office 365 tenant account. Remember to create and assign a suitable license to the user mailbox on Office 365 whose mailboxes you are migrating from Proton Mail.
Step 2: Connect to ProtonMail IMAP server from EdbMailsEnter the Proton Mail HostName / IP Address (127.0.0.1) and Port Number (1143) along with your email address and password in the IMAP login screen.
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
Note: If you are unable to log in with your current account password, download Proton Mail Bridge to obtain the app password as shown.
Step 3: Select the mailboxes from Proton Mail and connect to Office 365
- Select the mailboxes and folders from the left panel.
- Click ‘Migrate to Office 365’ to set up the connection with the target server.
  See tips to optimize IMAP migration to Exchange online
- Additional Include and Exclude Filter Options
- 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 4: 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. 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 5: Map the mailboxes and start Proton Mail to Office 365 migration
The mapping activity in EdbMails can automatically match and map the mailboxes and folders between Proton Mail and Office 365. This activity saves time when you’re migrating a large number of mailboxes. Start the migration and 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.

Steps to migrate ProtonMail to Office 365 with an MBOX file

You can migrate all your emails from Proton Mail to Office 365 from an MBOX file (which you can export if you have a paid ProtonMail subscription plan). The following steps describethe migration with EdbMails MBOX to Office 365 migration tool.

Step 1: Navigate to the Import/Export tab in ProtonMail account
Sign in to your ProtonMail Plus account and navigate to the Import/Export tab.
Step 2: Export all your emails as an MBOX file from Proton Mail
Select the option as MBOX and click ‘Export’ to export all emails from your Proton Mail account as MBOX files.
Step 3: Migrate the MBOX file to Office 365 by using EdbMails
- Add a single or multiple MBOX files in EdbMails (which you exported from ProtonMail)
- Connect to the target Office 365 server from the application’s wizard
- Map the mailboxes and folders and migrate MBOX to Office 365

See steps to migrate an MBOX file to Office 365 with EdbMails.

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

III. Post migration activities

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 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: 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

IV. Migration troubleshooting

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

Final Words

The manual method to migrate ProtonMail to Office 365 involves exporting your emails to a PST file from Outlook and then importing the PST to Office 365 with Azure AzCopy. This approach is unintuitive and requires expertise. EdbMails is an all-in-one and a simple solution that can automate migrations from Proton Mail to Office 365. You can migrate to the target with an IMAP connection or export the MBOX file from Proton Mail and migrate it directly to Office 365. The application has the advantage of enabling you to perform the transfer from a graphical interface with no technical knowledge, downtime, data loss.