Introduction
Mimecast is a well-known name in anti-spam, email security, resilience, ransomware protection, web security, data governance, data archiving and protection, and other services. Many businesses rely on Mimecast for its layered protection and cloud integration with Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, etc. It includes features such as mailbox continuity, which allows users to continue accessing their emails even if the system goes down, and it protects enterprise email management from cyberthreats, phishing attacks, and so on. Now that we've covered why businesses use Mimecast, there's a growing interest in migrating archives from Mimecast to Office 365. This is because many users prefer to have all of their emails in one place rather than scattered throughout.
Benefits of migrating from Mimecast to Office 365?
Without a doubt, Mimecast provides enhanced security and serves as an additional security layer for data protection. However, as businesses merge or are acquired, the newer management may prefer to do away with the existing infrastructure or simply plan to have everything in one place. Let's take a look at why and how to migrate to Office 365.
- For the same price, Office 365 already includes in-place archiving, eDiscovery, search, and export which helps many businesses in avoiding additional costs.
- Office 365 also includes Microsoft Defender, Exchange online protection, robust security, and advanced spam filters that are integrated with email.
- Mimecast may not allow certain emails to pass through when configuring Office 365 emails with other services, resulting in delivery failures.
- Instead of relying on external third-party services, organizations are implementing in-house firewalls and blocking methods.
- When an organization requires immediate access to the archives, exporting data from Mimecast becomes difficult.
User Query
We see a lot of questions online from users who are having trouble migrating their archives from Mimecast. True, there aren't many direct ways to migrate to Office 365 by connecting to your Mimecast archives. But there is a simple workaround, which we will discuss and demonstrate step by step in this article.
"Previously, we used Mimecast, but our company has decided to discontinue its use. We have over 1TB of email archives and have no idea how to export them all into a suitable format. We are even more confused after reading articles that mention exporting to EML, PST, and then converting the format before migrating to Office 365. Has anyone successfully migrated their email archives, or is there a software tool that can directly migrate our archives to Microsoft 365?"
How to plan the migration from Mimecast?
There are a few things you should consider before beginning the migration.
- If you have more than 50,000 items to export, you must use the Mimecast Case review application.
- To perform the export, you must be logged in as a Full or Super Administrator.
- Before you can begin the export process, you must first create and run a search query on your items.
- If you have Mimecast configured with Exchange online, you must know the stubbing threshold to prevent those emails from being exported again.
- Make a complete backup of all PSTs exported from Mimecast.
How to migrate from Mimecast Archive to Office 365?
Migrating your archives from Mimecast to Office 365 is possible by first exporting them to an Outlook PST file and then using the PST file to migrate to O365 using Microsoft's network upload option or by directly transferring them to Office 365 archives using the EdbMails application.
Steps to migrate Mimecast to Office 365
- Step 1: Login to your Mimecast account and navigate to the Administration Console
- Step 2: Enter your admin credentials and select ‘Archives’ from the Administration tab
- Step 3: Select ‘Saved Searches’ and start a New Search by selecting the New folder
- Step 4: Use the Date filter and other Settings to customize and save your search
- Step 5: Right click on the Saved search and click ‘Export Search’
- Step 6: Select the export format as a downloadable zipped PST format.
- Step 7: Repeat the above steps and create a saved search for other users
- Step 8: Download the archives by clicking the disk icon from the Exports page
- Step 9: Manually import the PST archives to Microsoft 365 using Azure Azcopy
Although you may have exported the PST files from Mimecast, uploading them to Office 365 requires manual labor, as you must use the network upload option or copy the PST onto a hard drive and ship them to Microsoft for uploading (normally has a fee). Both of these methods are ineffective if you have large amounts of data to upload or if you want to directly migrate them to Office 365 archives. In the following section, we will look at how EdbMails can help to solve and alleviate the problem.
Mimecast to Office 365 migration using EdbMails
EdbMails PST migration tool can help you migrate all the exported archive PST directly to Office 365 archive mailboxes. It is a one-one migration wherein you simply select the PST file and migrate it to Office 365. Let’s go over the steps in detail.
Download EdbMails and click 'Start Your Free Trial' to start using the trial version of the software. Then, click on the ‘Office 365 Migration (Tenant to tenant migration and more)’ option on the main screen to proceed.
- Step 1: Login and connect to your target or any Office 365 account
Select the Auto Registration method to connect to your tenant via the secure modern OAuth 2.0 authentication. EdbMails directs you to the official Microsoft’s login page and does not store any user credentials.
- Step 2: Select ‘Migrate PST to Office 365’ at the bottom of the main screen
On the main interface, EdbMails allows you to add multiple PST’s that you exported earlier and bulk migrate them to Office 365.
- Step 3: Map the mailboxes and start migrating the PST files to the target Office 365
After you've selected the PST files, connect to your target Office 365 tenant and select the Archive mailbox option, as shown in the screenshot. (This directs your archive data from Mimecast to Office 365 archive). Finally, map the mailboxes and folders before starting the migration.
- Step 4: Configure the MX and SPF records to point to Microsoft’s servers.
If Mimecast was handling your email's incoming and outgoing traffic, you should allow Microsoft to handle it by adding SPF records. Add MX records to route emails to your Office 365 inbox and finally decommission Mimecast.
- Step 1: Login and connect to your target or any Office 365 account
Summarizing in a nutshell
Many organizations who would like to manage everything from a single location and cut costs, find that sticking with Mimecast is expensive in the long run. Migrating from Mimecast is a bit of a roundabout solution because there is no direct way to connect to your archives. The first method is to export your archives from Mimecast as a downloadable zip file and then import the PST via network upload or drive shipping from the Microsoft admin center. However, both of these manual upload procedures appear to be complex and time-consuming. EdbMails, as a Microsoft partner, can easily help you automate and bulk migrate multiple PST file archives to your target Office 365 account.
