EdbMails software for Bluehost migration

Many businesses host their website and access their emails through the same provider (for example, Bluehost, GoDaddy, Hostgator and so on). This facility to have the web hosting and email under the same domain for a bundled price appears to be quite convenient. However, for a variety of reasons, businesses would prefer to keep their web hosting and website with their current provider but migrate their mailboxes and email to a different service such as Office 365. Migrating from one cloud hosting to another is often challenging and involves extensive planning. Searching the internet for migration solutions appears to be a never-ending errand that will eventually lead to a dead end with no concrete solutions. EdbMails IMAP migration tool is a Microsoft partnered software that can migrate from Bluehost to Office 365 and transfer emails, contacts, folders from the source to the target. In this article, we explain the pre and post migration activities and the migration steps with EdbMails.

User Query

As previously stated, many users prefer to keep their domain for web hosting but switch their email provider from Bluehost to Office 365. Some users have had issues with Bluehost email being blocked with their client and would prefer a better and more seamless email communication experience. Searching the internet for migration solutions appears to be a never-ending errand that will eventually lead to a dead end with no concrete solutions. As a result, many users are confused and approach us for assistance, which is why we decided to outline the steps to simplify the migration.

" I'd like to switch my business email from Bluehost to Office 365 and retain the former for the website, but I'm unsure how to do it." Can I use Microsoft 365 to register my Bluehost domain name and still be able to receive emails in Office 365 after migrating and adding my domain name. Thank you for any advice."

1. How to plan migration from Bluehost?

   Before you actually start out with the migration, you need to have a proper plan and ensure that you are prepared for the operation. Here is a quick checklist of items for your convenience.

   1. Decide if you want to keep your Bluehost domain or change to another provider.
   2. Decide if you want to migrate all of your data all at once or in stages.
   3. Create a CSV file with a complete list of mailboxes to be migrated along with the user credentials.
   4. Verify if the CSV file format and user credentials are correct.
   5. Before the migration, make a complete backup of all the mailboxes and export any unnecessary attachments or files to your local drive.
   6. Remove unused and unnecessary mailboxes on the source.
   7. Inform the end users and stakeholders about the migration plan and the upcoming changes.
   8. Select an appropriate Office 365 licensing plan and assign licenses to user mailboxes.
   9. Perform a test migration to ensure everything works as expected.

2. Pre migration activities for Bluehost 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 Bluehost in a CSV file.
   • 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.

3. Bluehost to Office 365 migration using Edbmails

   You can perform the migration with the following two methods.

   1. Migrate Bluehost to Office 365 from the Exchange admin center (EAC)
   2. Migrate mailboxes directly to O365 with EdbMails IMAP migration

   To migrate Bluehost to Office 365, you can use Microsoft's EAC to create a migration endpoint for IMAP connection, a migration batch, and then start transferring your data from the batch. A simpler method is to use EdbMails IMAP migration to seamlessly migrate all of your data to Office 365.

   • Steps to migrate Bluehost to Office 365 from Exchange admin center

     • Step 1: Sign in to the Microsoft 365 admin center, copy the TXT (or MX record) value, and paste it into the Domain Settings page of your Bluehost account. This will not affect any existing email or other services and will allow you to configure your domain with Microsoft.
     • Step 2: Add MX records to Bluehost using the values from Microsoft 365.

       This step is required so that you can connect email and other services, such as Microsoft Teams, to your existing domain name (via CNAME records). Remember that this procedure will simply route any new email you receive from Bluehost to Office 365. If you want to migrate your existing emails to Office 365, follow the steps below.

     • Step 3: Find the server and port name of your existing Bluehost server

       If your account is hosted on an IMAP server, you must find the IMAP server connection details. Get the details from the webmail account on Bluehost or from Outlook client (If you've configured your Bluehost email account on Outlook).

     • Step 4: Create a list of user mailboxes to be migrated in the correct CSV format

       Make a list of all user mailboxes that you want to migrate and enter their details in a spreadsheet. Make sure you enter it in the correct format and save it as CSV.

     • Step 5: Setup a migration endpoint from the Exchange admin center

       The migration endpoint configures the IMAP server name obtained in Step 3. Upload the CSV file you created in the preceding step and wait for it to be verified before you create a migration batch and start the migration.

     • Step 6: Send test emails to verify the mail flow to Office 365

       Allow at least three days for the migration batch to run and verify if your users are receiving emails in their Microsoft mailboxes (with the same domain name). You can delete the migration batch and disconnect from your Bluehost email service once they have verified that they are receiving emails correctly.

       The above method has the limitation that the CSV file created for migration must be in the proper format, which can be error prone. Furthermore, it requires manual steps and time for pre planning, neither of which guarantees success in the end. It is also unintuitive and difficult for non-technical users to understand the steps, which is why we recommend using EdbMails to migrate.

   • Steps to migrate Bluehost to Office 365 with EdbMails

     EdbMails application for IMAP to Office 365 can assist migrations from Bluehost to Office 365 in a few simple steps. It ensures complete data security with no data loss or downtime. Furthermore, it is a graphical interface tool and does not require any technical knowledge to perform the 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’ 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

     • Step 1: Enter the IMAP connection details of the Bluehost’s server

       Connect to your Bluehost's server by entering the IMAP connection details, user credentials (email address and password) on the server login screen as shown. EdbMails is a highly secure application that never saves your credentials and supports modern OAuth 2.0 authentication for Office 365 login.

       • Host Name/IP Address: mail.yourdomain.com
       • Port : 993 and check SSL/TLS for secure IMAP connection

       If you don't remember the IMAP connection details (Hostname or IP Address), you can find them in Bluehost's Control Panel under Email Accounts.

       

       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

       

     • Step 2: Select the mailboxes from Bluehost and connect to Office 365

       Following a successful connection, EdbMails loads all of your mailboxes, folders, and items, which you can access on the left side.

       • Select the mailboxes and folders to migrate.
       • Click ‘Migrate to Office 365’ to set up the connection with the target server.

         See tips to optimize IMAP migration to Exchange online

       

       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 to prevent duplicate items.

       • 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 3: 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 4: Map the respective folders from the source to the target

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

     • Step 5: Start the Bluehost migration to Office 365 and verify the operation

       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 pause and resume the migration.

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

4. 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 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.