Zoho Mail to Office 365 migration
Zoho Mail is a popular email solution for small businesses, offering essential services like custom email addresses, advanced filtering, and eDiscovery. These features make it a cost-effective choice for organizations, especially those in the early stages of growth. However, as businesses scale, Zoho Mail’s capabilities may no longer meet the increasing demands for more advanced functionalities, integration, and storage. In contrast, Office 365 provides a comprehensive suite of tools, including OneDrive, cloud storage, and seamless integration with Microsoft applications, making it a robust platform for businesses seeking enhanced productivity, collaboration, and security. Recognizing these advantages, many organizations are migrating from Zoho Mail to Office 365 to leverage its broader capabilities and support their expanding operations.
The migration process, however, can come with several complexities, such as data mapping, compatibility issues, and the need to sync emails without downtime. EdbMails IMAP migration, a Microsoft-partnered solution, simplifies this process by ensuring a seamless transition with zero downtime and no data loss. It requires no technical expertise and guarantees data consistency, preserving metadata integrity (including sender/recipient details and timestamps), formatting, and attachments. With features like concurrent migration, EdbMails allows multiple mailboxes to be migrated simultaneously, significantly speeding up the process. Supporting both personal and enterprise-level data, EdbMails ensures a smooth, efficient, and reliable transition to Office 365, enabling businesses to meet their growing demands without any service disruption.
User Query
“Hello, EdbMails team. We were looking for a way to completely migrate our Zoho Mail to Office 365 after experiencing integration issues with the former. When our company was small, Zoho worked well. However, as our company has grown and our business needs have changed, we would like to migrate to Office 365. Could you please assist us so that we can easily migrate all of our emails?”
Zoho Mail to Office 365 migration planning
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.
- Allocate time for post-migration activities to ensure your emails are properly routed to the new environment.
Zoho Mail to Office 365 migration prerequisites
For Zoho Mail server:- If you plan to migrate multiple users without the administrator login, prepare a CSV file with the list of all user mailboxes
- If you plan to migrate emails from Zoho to Office 365 by using IMAP connection, find and note down the server name on Zoho
- You can also find the IMAP connection details from your Zoho account under 'Settings' > 'Mail accounts' > 'IMAP'.
- Before migrating from Zoho to Office 365, ensure that you create mailboxes for your users in your organization and assign suitable licenses to them.
- Before migrating from GoDaddy to Office 365, ensure that you create mailboxes for your users in your organization and assign suitable licenses to them.
- If you have a custom email domain from Zoho 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.
- Configure Office 365 to send and receive large messages. Follow the steps to increase the message size on Office 365 to 150MB.
Steps to migrate from Zoho Mail to Office 365
Step 1: Download EdbMails software setup for IMAP migration
- Download EdbMails and install the application on any computer running on Windows OS.
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' method.
- Download EdbMails and install the application on any computer running on Windows OS.
Step 2: Connect to source Zoho Mail server
- 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.
- 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 (imap.zoho.com), Port Number (993 for SSL), and account credentials to connect to the Zoho Mail server.
Step 3: Select source Zoho Mail server mailboxes
- Choose the desired mailboxes and folders from the left panel.
- Then, click on 'IMAP to Office 365' to establish a connection with the target server.
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 Zoho Mail server. 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: Zoho Mail to Office 365 mailboxes mapping
- Select the mapping option that best aligns with your requirements.
- EdbMails offers an automatic mailbox creation feature for Office 365, facilitating the effortless setup of target mailboxes while automatically mapping mailboxes and folders 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.
- Select the mapping option that best aligns with your requirements.
Step 6: Start Zoho Mail to Office 365 migration
- After mapping the mailboxes, designate a job name and initiate the migration process. To review the migration report, click the ‘View Log’ button, which provides a comprehensive report detailing the number of emails, folders, and mailbox items successfully migrated.
- After mapping the mailboxes, designate a job name and initiate the migration process. To review the migration report, click the ‘View Log’ button, which provides a comprehensive report detailing the number of emails, folders, and mailbox items successfully migrated.
Zoho Mail 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.
- Step 1: Update the MX records to point to Office 365
Advantages of EdbMails to migrate Zoho mail to Office 365
- Simultaneous email migration for multiple accounts
EdbMails simplifies Zoho Mail to Office 365 migration by allowing the simultaneous transfer of multiple email accounts. This feature significantly accelerates the process, ensuring efficient data migration for businesses with multiple users without causing disruptions to ongoing operations.
- Incremental migration with No duplicates
EdbMails offers an incremental migration feature, making it an ideal solution for migrating data to Office 365 in stages. It ensures that only new or updated items are migrated in subsequent transfers, eliminating the risk of duplicates.
- Selective folder migration for prioritized data transfer
EdbMails offers the flexibility to choose specific folders for migration, enabling businesses to prioritize important emails. This selective approach ensures that only critical data is transferred, optimizing the migration process by excluding unnecessary or outdated information.
- Customizable migration filters for precise data transfer
EdbMails provides advanced filtering options, allowing users to migrate data based on date range, email address, or subject. This precise control ensures that only relevant emails are transferred, making the migration process more efficient while minimizing the transfer of redundant data.
- Support for primary and in-place archive mailboxes
EdbMails supports the migration of Zoho Mail emails to both primary and in-place archive mailboxes in Office 365. This dual migration feature helps maintain compliance, keeping important emails archived while ensuring active emails are accessible in the primary mailbox.
- Direct folder mapping for seamless organization
EdbMails enables direct folder mapping from Zoho Mail to Office 365 (e.g., Inbox to Inbox). This preserves the folder structure and organization during migration, ensuring users experience a smooth transition without needing additional post-migration reorganization.
