Best Technique to Migrate IMAP Emails to Office 365 Account

After reading this user query, I researched it and found the best solution to complete this task quickly. But before we delve into the process, let’s first understand the differences between IMAP and Office 365.

IMAP Vs Office 365

Feature	IMAP	Office 365
Email access	You can access email messages, contacts, and calendars,	You can access email messages, contacts, calendars, and other features such as tasks, notes, and files
Offline access	It supports most email clients.	It supports most email clients and mobile devices
Email storage	It varies depending on the email provider	50 GB or more per user
Security	It supports basic authentication and encryption	It supports multi-factor authentication and advanced security features
Collaboration tools	Limited to email, contacts, and calendars	Includes email, contacts, calendars, tasks, notes, files, and other collaboration tools such as Teams and SharePoint
Cost	Typically free or low-cost	Paid subscription required

Now, we will understand the reasons behind the conversion of IMAP to Office 365 accounts.

Why migrate IMAP Emails to Office 365?

Here are some benefits of the IMAP Migrate email to Office 365:

• Office 365 provides various tools and features to help businesses increase productivity, such as real-time collaboration, file sharing, and mobile access.
• Office 365 can help businesses reduce costs on IT infrastructure and maintenance.
• Office 365 includes various security features to protect business data, such as encryption, multi-factor authentication, and threat protection.
• Office 365 is a scalable and flexible solution tailored to meet the needs of businesses of all sizes.

Now, we are moving forward to the methods to migrate mailboxes from IMAP Server to Microsoft 365.

Manual methods to migrate IMAP Data to Office 365

This section will review two manual techniques for moving mailboxes from IMAP Server to Microsoft 365. Let’s learn the process step-by-step in detail.

Method 1: How to Import IMAP to Office 365 using Outlook

Using this method, we use the Outlook application to migrate IMAP emails into Office 365 accounts. There is no direct method to do this task. This method is divided into three steps. Follow the steps by steps to migrate IMAP emails into Office 365 accounts.

Step 1: Set Up an IMAP Account in Outlook

1. Open MS Outlook and click the File tab.
2. Select the Add Account option, choose Manual setup or additional server types, and then hit Next.
3. Now, select POP or IMAP.
4. After that, enter your IMAP account details, including your name, email address, password, and IMAP server settings.
5. Click Next>>Finish to add the IMAP account to Outlook.

Step 2: Sync IMAP Data

1. Right-click the newly added IMAP account in Outlook’s left pane and choose Send/Receive.
2. Select the folders you want, and then click Update to start.

Note: Once both versions are added, you can drag and drop emails between them to migrate them from IMAP to Office 365. However, you can only migrate limited data using the above steps simultaneously. Let’s discuss another way to move emails from an IMAP account to Office 365.

Method 2: Migrate IMAP data into Office 365 Using the Exchange Admin Center

In this method, we use the Exchange Admin Center to migrate IMAP data into an Office 365 account. Use the step-by-step guide to do this:

Step 1: Prepare the Migration

1. First, verify that your domain is added to the Microsoft 365 accepted domains list.
2. Next, create users in Microsoft 365 for each IMAP mailbox you want to migrate.
3. Then, obtain your IMAP server’s fully qualified hostname (FQDN).
4. Ensure that your firewall allows IMAP connections.
5. Now, grant the admin account full access to all IMAP mailboxes.

Step 2: Create a Migration Endpoint

1. After that, open the Exchange admin centre.
2. Navigate to Recipients > Migration > Migration Endpoints.
3. Hit New to create a new migration endpoint.
4. Select IMAP as the migration endpoint type.
5. Now, enter the FQDN of your IMAP server and other required settings.
6. Click New to create the migration endpoint.

Step 3: Create a Migration Batch

1. Now, navigate to Recipients > Migration > Migrate to Exchange Online.
2. Choose IMAP migration and click Next.
3. Choose the users you want to migrate on the Select the Users page.
4. Click Next and Finish to create the migration batch.

Once the migration is complete, the emails from your IMAP server will be migrated to your Office 365 mailboxes. However, be aware of the limitations before utilising the manual methods to move mailboxes from IMAP Server to Microsoft 365.

Some Important Points of the Above Methods

• Manual IMAP migration transfers only limited emails and folders, excluding contacts, calendar entries, and tasks simultaneously.
• Manual migration is complex, especially for large mailboxes.
• This method does not provide helpful features to migrate IMAP data to O365.
• It requires technical experience to migrate IMAP data to Office 365.
• If you make a small mistake during migration, you can be corrupted and lose your data.

If you are facing problems and want a quick and secure solution to migrate data to Office 365 in a minute, then you can choose the automated solution to do this task effortlessly. Let’s go through the straightforward steps to migrate mailboxes from IMAP Server to Microsoft 365.

Method 3 How to Migrate IMAP Emails to Office 365 Account Automatically?

This method is for users who want to transfer their IMAP emails to Office 365 in bulk. It’s a fast and safe solution with a user-friendly interface, and this software makes it easy for beginners to use. Moreover, it offers various features to help you migrate your IMAP data to Office 365 according to your needs. Suppose you want to transfer emails within a specific date range. You can use the date filter. It can also export IMAP emails to PDF or other file formats and import IMAP emails to Gmail and numerous other email clients. Now, let’s move emails from the IMAP account to Office 365.

Migrate Mailboxes from IMAP Server to Microsoft 365:

1. First, download and run the IMAP backup tool on your device.
2. Choose a single or batch mode for backup accounts.
3. Enter your email ID, password, host, and port number here, then click the Login button.
4. Then, choose the files from the tree structure list and click the Next button.
5. Select the Email clients option, and then choose Office 365 from the drop-down menu.
6. Then, select the “Use modern authentication (recommended)” option to direct the login process.
7. After logging in with direct modern authentication, return to the software for successful authentication.
8. Tick the Assign Impersonation Right to fetch all the user mailboxes automatically, then click Next.
9. Select the Office 365 Mailbox, Archive Mai, or Public folder, then click Next.
10. Choose the desired features that you need and click Next.

Conclusion

If you’re migrating multiple IMAP emails into O365 manually, it’s not a good idea to do this because the manual method is long, tricky, and time-consuming. It’s challenging to migrate many IMAP emails in bulk this way. Moreover, non-technical users can only use this method with technical knowledge, which has many more limitations mentioned above. Moreover, many businesses and organizations prefer using the IMAP Backup Tool to migrate mailboxes from the IMAP Server to Microsoft 365. It’s a reliable solution for migrating single and multiple accounts in minutes. It is up to you to decide which approach will best satisfy your needs.

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