Migrate office 365 mailbox to another

How to Perform Office 365 to Office 365 Migration

Currently, many organizations are using Office 365 service as it cloud-based applications and it offers scalability, removes constant maintenance expenses, advance security facilities and provides application like Outlook, Exchange Server, OneDrive, Sky, etc. for business environments. Sometimes organizations need to undergo Office 365 to Office 365 migration process at the time of merger and acquisition or divestiture.

There are different types of data involve in this process like mailboxes data, OneDrive data, and domain users data. But there is no direct solution is available to migrate Office 365 mailbox to another tenant, therefore it is necessary to use a third-party migration tool.

The aim of this article is to provide a trusted solution to Make Mergers and Acquisitions Hassle-Free.



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User’s Queries on How to Migrate Office 365 Mailbox to another Office 365 Tenant

We have collected some users queries related to Office 365 to Office 365 migration – Get to know user scenarios closely.

How to Migrate Office 365 Mailbox to Another Tenant?

Phases of Office 365 to Office 365 Migration

There are various steps involved in this process, but the tenant preparation and migration are the primary steps. But you do not need to go anywhere else we are here to explain what exactly you need to do during this step for an error-free Office 365 to Office 365 migration. Let’s explore the migration process.

Pre-Migration Activity

Some necessary steps are required before transferring Office 365 mailbox to another tenant. It will help us to smoothly perform migration between Office 365 tenants. Given steps are involved in the preparation phase.

Step 1: Update Outlook Profiles for O365 Migration

Depending on the version of Outlook your organization operates the steps can vary so see to it carefully.

Outlook 2013 and above: Ask users to remove their Outlook profiles manually. For that, they need to do the following.

  • Open Outlook, tap on File > go to Account Settings > click Manage Profiles.
  • Choose the Show Profiles option.
  • Pick a profile, then click Remove.

For profile creation:

  • Navigate back to Show Profiles and select Add.
  • Then in the Profile Name box, enter a new name for the profile, and click OK.

Those who operate either Outlook 2007 or Outlook 2010 need to restart the client. After this auto-discover completes the client configuration and rebuilds the *.OST file.

Step 2: Set Up Tenants and Licenses for Office 365 to Office 365 migration

First up identify how many users are there on the source side. It is done to get a rough idea of how many new licenses need to be purchased during the migration.

So, to check the total number of currently active users, log in to the Microsoft 365 Admin Center. Then from the right side pane open Reports. Inside reports, you can find the total number of users that are to be moved.

Once you have this number with you log in to the Admin center of the target tenant. Purchase new licenses for all users that are going to make this tenant their new home. After that, you can create new user accounts for all of them in the target tenant.

Note: User creation is possible before license procurement. However, it is better to get the licenses first as it helps in a smooth transition.

Even when Microsoft states that you need a separate admin role for migration it doesn't specify exactly what type of role. To add to this confusion the migration admin role that currently exists lacks many of the permissions we require for a successful transfer.

So, it's best to use the global admin role. Another option is to promote a trusted user to the global admin level temporarily. Let them handle the migration while the actual admin focuses on other tasks. Moreover, once the migration is complete you can demote the user back to its original privilege level. For the admin assignment, you need to do the following

  • Go to the Users section inside the M365 Admin Center.
  • Find the User whose admin role you want to modify from the list of active users.
  • Open User Settings and look for a "Manage roles" option.
  • Choose the New Role from the available options.

Step 3: Target Tenant Setup of Users, Groups, Collaboration Objects

Replicate the entire skeletal structure of the source tenant on the target. This includes the creation of a Room, resource, distribution group, and user objects. For this admins may have to rely on AD DS. It is quite important if you wish that your Office 365 to Office 365 migration be completed without any issues.

Step 4: Establish A Communication Portal and Inform All

Make a communication plan. It should contain the possible timeline of the migration. Send it to all the stakeholders as part of the migration itself. It must address all the FAQs and provide directions on what to do in case of downtime.

Step 5: Perform Domain Verification

You need to cross-verify the domains so that the tenants can communicate with each other. Without it, O365 migration is not possible. So start by adding the source domain inside the target tenant. After which you need to make new TXT records in the Domain Name Systems (DNS) of the target tenant for the source domain as well.

Don't worry if the DNS verification gives a failure alert during Office 365 to Office 365 migration. This is because the source domain is still active in the source tenant. You may have to wait up to 3 days (72 hours) until DNS record time propagates. It will happen automatically on its own later.

Step 6: Migration Scheduling

In-migration scheduling process we have to create a master file in which we will maintain the source user's email ID which needs to migrate.

Create a mapping CSV file in which we have to maintain Office 365 source tenant users' emails ID and Office 365 destination users' email ID. This mapping CSV file will be used by an automated tool.

Step 7: Test Out the TTL(Time to Live) of the MX Record

Go to your DNS setup and reduce the TTL of the primary email domain you wish to transfer to its minimum possible value.

You must update the MX record as soon as the server reaches this time that's why to minimize disruption this must be kept small.

Step 8: Disable Directory Sync

From the source Office 365 Admin center disable directory sync. This process will take 24 hours or more so make sure it done before start migration.Once the preparation or pre-migration process is done we are ready to transfer or migrate Office 365 mailbox to another tenant.

Step 9: Pause All Inbound Mail

To do this change your primary MX record to an invalid address. Every mail that is yet to arrive will form a queue and schedule a redelivery after 24 hours. In case you do not want to deal with non-delivery reports we suggest that you use a MX record backup service. It holds on to mail for more than the default limit of 1 day and extends it to several weeks. This is more than enough time to complete the Office 365 to Office 365 migration. After which you can bring the emails back from the service to the mailbox of their intended recipient.

Step 10: Prepare Source Tenant

  • Those who had a domain with SharePoint Online, need to set the website's URL back to the initial domain first.
  • Go to the Lync admin portal and clear out all Lync licenses from users. This is done to remove the Lync Sip address attached to the domain.
  • Reset default email addresses on Office 365 mailboxes, Distribution Lists, Rooms, and Resources to the initial domain.
  • Delete all secondary email addresses from user objects that are still using the domain.
  • Assign the default domain in the source tenant to the routing domain.
  • Get the list of all objects that may be blocking removal via the Get-MsolUser command.

Step 11: Prepare the Target Tenant

  • Set auto-discover CNAME.
  • Set new domain in target tenant for AD FS.
  • Begin target tenant activation and assign user licenses.
  • Make the source domain primary for all new users.
  • Depending on the type of configuration add a custom or common password on the target.
  • After setting up new mailboxes, update your email settings to deliver mail to the new address.
  • Check mail flow for both to and from scenarios.

How to Perform Office 365 to Office 365 Migration?

Migrate Office 365 mailbox to another tenant is only accomplished by an automated migration tool, but you need to select a trusted tool to do this task securely or without data loss. Office 365 to Office 365 migration is not an easy task, it can create a complication if you are not choosing the right tool for this. So we would like to suggest you a trusted SysTools Office 365 to Office 365 Migration Tool.

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This tool is originally designed to make an end to end Office 365 cloud migration task easy. It will directly transfer mailbox data (emails, contacts, calendars, documents) from source Office 365 tenant to destination Office 365 tenant without any additional software requirements.

Advantages of Using Tool for Office 365 to Office 365 Migration

Specialized software to easily transfer Office 365 mailbox to another Office 365 tenant all the required tasks will be performed by this tool. Get to know all features of the software:

  1. Migrate emails, contacts, calendars, documents from Office 365 tenant to another.
  2. Import CSV option to create a mapping between source and destination Office 365 users.
  3. Transfer Office 365 subscription to another O365 tenant.
  4. Migrate user's mailboxes from one Office 365 tenant, domain to another.
  5. Perform migration of OneDrive Office 365 tenant.
  6. Simplify the all complication to Office 365 to Office 365 migration.
  7. Date-based filter option for emails, contacts, calendars, documents to transfer only selective data.
  8. Provides the option to migrate entire or selective mailboxes from Office 365 to Office 365.
  9. Delta migration facility to migrate newly arrived data of source Office 365 tenant.
  10. Account priority option to set account priority to migrate first.
  11. Admin ID of source tenant and destination tenant is required to perform the entire Office 365 tenant migration.

Steps to Perform Office 365 to Office 365 migration with Tool

Here we will explain the working steps of the tool, it will help you to know procedure to Transfer Office 365 Mailbox to another Office 365 in detail


  1. Run the software and select Office 365 as a source and as a destination.

    Office 365 to Office 365 migration
  2. Select the checkbox of data items (emails, contacts, calendars, documents) which you want to migrate.

    migrate Office 365 to Office 365
  3. In this same screen you can enable Migrate Document Permission, Use Group Mapping, and Date-based Filter options. After enabling options according to need click on the Next button.

    Office 365 to Office 365 migration
  4. Now, enter source Office 365 tenant Admin ID and Application ID. Then click on the Validate button.

    Office 365 migration
  5. After validated permission by the tool, click on Next.

    steps for Office 365 to Office 365 migration
  6. Now, enter destination Office 365 tenant Admin ID, Application ID, and click on the Validate button.

    Office 365 to Office 365 migration
  7. Software validated permission, click on Next to proceed Office 365 to Office 365 migration.

    migrate Office 365 to Office 365
  8. Now, we have to create a mapping between Office 365 source and destination users. To do this task tool provides three options – Import Users, Fetch Users, and Download Template. Select any one the option to create mapping then click Next.

    O365 to O365 migration
  9. Mapping is successfully created; now click on the Validate button to validate permissions.

    quick way to perform Office 365 to Office 365 migration
  10. Click on Start Migration to migrate Office 365 mailbox to another tenant.

    Office 365 to Office 365 migration

Conclusion

After mergers and acquisitions scenarios, it is required for the organizations to perform Office 365 to Office 365 migration because it will let the users continue to work with their existing accounts and maintain the continuity of work. In this blog, we have explained the way to transfer and migrate Office 365 mailbox to another tenant. It will definitely help to make Office 365 tenant mailbox migration trouble-free and easy for organizations.