Zoho Mail to Office 365 migration

How to plan Zoho to Office 365 migration?

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.

• Make a list of everything you want to migrate including folders, permissions, emails, messages.
• Create and assign user mailboxes to the target Office 365 tenant you want to migrate.
• Make a complete backup of your emails, contacts, notes, and app data from the Zoho account.
• Determine how you want to migrate your mailboxes (manual method versus using specialized migration tools).
• Inform your users of the changes and request that they create a complete backup of their email data.
• Start the migration and verify the migration endpoint.
• Make time for post-migration activities and ensure that your emails are correctly routed to the new environment.

Pre migration activities on Zoho mail server

For Zoho Mail:

1. Ensure you have administrator rights to migrate mailboxes from Zoho. Assign the impersonation rights to the global admin to migrate mailboxes on behalf of users in your organization.
2. Take a complete backup of all your users data, configuration and messages on Zoho.
3. If you plan to migrate multiple users without the administrator login, prepare a CSV file with the list of all user mailboxes.
4. If you plan to migrate emails from Zoho to Office 365 by using IMAP connection, find and note down the server name on Zoho
5. You can also find the IMAP connection details from your Zoho account under 'Settings' > 'Mail accounts' > 'IMAP'.

For Office 365 :

1. Assign the Organization Management role group in Exchange online to the admin user.
2. Before migrating from GoDaddy to Office 365, ensure that you create mailboxes for your users in your organization and assign suitable licenses to them.

    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 GoDaddy to which you want to receive emails after the migration, 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.

How to migrate Zoho Mail to Office 365?

There are three methods to migrate Zoho Mail to Office 365

1. Migrate to Office 365 as a single user from Zoho Mail account
2. Migrate multiple mailboxes from Zoho to Office 365
3. Migrate single or multiple user mailboxes by using EdbMails

EdbMails IMAP migration application supports both the aforementioned methods and enables you to migrate directly from the source to the target.

Steps to migrate a single folder from Zoho Mail to Office 365

• Step 1: Login to your Zoho mail account and click 'Settings' (gear icon) on the top right
• Step 2: Click 'Import/Export Emails' and select the folder you want to export
• Step 3: Select the time range you want to migrate your emails from the folder
• Step 4: Select if you want to include subfolders and archive emails
• Step 5: Click on 'Export' and you will be emailed a file link to download your emails.

  

  You must perform this operation for each folder that you want to migrate. After you export your emails from your Zoho online account, import them into Microsoft Outlook. Remember that this method is only suitable for a single user (individual mailbox) and folder, and it takes time if you have a large number of emails to migrate.

Steps to migrate multiple mailboxes from Zoho Mail to Office 365

If you want to migrate a large number of emails and folders, you should configure your Outlook account with Zoho Mail, export the PST file from Outlook and import the PST into Office 365 by using the network upload procedure as described.

1. Step 1: Login to the Microsoft compliance portal and copy the network upload SAS URL.

   The Shared Access Signature (SAS) key gives you the permission to upload the PST file to the Azure Storage location.

2. Step 2: Download and launch the Azure AzCopy Tool on your computer.

    See how to get started with Azure AzCopy, a command line tool to copy files to or from a storage account.

3. Step 3: Upload your PST file to Office 365 and create a mapping file

   The next step is to upload the PST files you exported from Microsoft Outlook to Office 365 by using the Azure AzCopy tool. After the PST files are successfully uploaded to the Azure storage location, create a mapping comma-separated CSV file to import the mailboxes from PST to Office 365.

4. Step 4: Validate the mapping file and start importing PST to Microsoft 365

   Create a PST import job and validate the PST file. You can filter the data (optional) and start the import to Office 365.

Both the PST upload method and migration of a single user mailbox are extremely slow and are not recommended if you plan to migrate large data in a short time. They also involve manual work and do not ensure migration success and data consistency.

Steps to migrate single/multiple mailboxes from Zoho to Office 365 using EdbMails

EdbMails Office 365 IMAP migration can assist you to migrate Zoho Mail to Office 365 and avoids the risks associated with manual procedures. Furthermore, you can connect to your mailboxes from a graphical interface and directly migrate to an Office 365 tenant in a few simple steps.

1. Step 1: Download EdbMails software setup for IMAP migration
   • 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'

     

   • Select 'IMAP migration'

     

2. Step 2: Connect to a single user or multiple users mailbox on Zoho

   • If you want to migrate a single user, enter the Host Name (imap.zoho.com), Port Number (993 for SSL), and account credentials to connect to the Zoho Mail server 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

3. Step 3: Select the mailboxes from Zoho 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.

     

     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.

     1. Additional Include and Exclude Filter Options
     2. Filter emails by Date: Migrate to Office 365 by applying the Date filter
     3. Filter emails by Size: Exclude emails from migration larger than a specified size
4. 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.

    Connect to Office 365 server using secure modern authentication

5. Step 5: Map the mailboxes between the source and the target

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

6. Step 6: Start the migration to Office 365 from Zoho

   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 use EdbMails to import PST data to Office 365, which is a much faster method than Microsoft's network upload method.

Post-migration tasks

1. 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.

2. 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.

Advantages of using EdbMails to migrate Zoho Mail

• Direct migration from Zoho to Office 365

  When you use manual methods for migration you must export emails to PST and import the exported file into Microsoft 365. This is a lengthy process and involves double hops. EdbMails removes all of the complications, allows you to connect your account and directly migrate from the source to the target without double hops.

• No technical knowledge or expertise required

  EdbMails graphical user interface simplifies all of the technical aspects of migration and enables you to transfer your emails in a few steps. This saves time and is an ideal solution if you want to perform the Office 365 migration without technical expertise.

• Incremental migration with no duplicates

  With its incremental migration feature, EdbMails is the best choice if you want to migrate your data to Office 365 in stages or plan for re-migration. It only migrates the new and updated items on subsequent migrations to the same target.

• Selective brick-level migration with filters

  EdbMails include and exclude filter options enable you to migrate only the items that you require based on various rules and logical conditions. You can migrate specific folders or mail items rather than the entire mailbox.

• Free software trial with no time limitations

  Download EdbMails free trial version and you can migrate sample data on your own. The demo version has no time limit for testing and allows you to learn all of the features before you start the actual migration.

 Related Links

• Videos - IMAP to Office 365 migration
• Videos - IMAP to Exchange migration
• Videos - Export mailboxes from IMAP server to PST