How to Migrate IMAP Email to Office 365 in Easy Steps

There are a number of incidents where users lost their important emails and are desperate to recover them, so don’t worry. You can restore them from your associated IMAP server. So, in this blog, we will provide several solutions to migrate IMAP email to Office 365. Additionally, we will include a professional IMAP Backup Tool that can restore your emails effortlessly.

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Introduction to IMAP Server

IMAP, which stands for Internet message access protocol, allows users to view email from various devices. For example, if you access your email on your computer using an email client (such as Outlook or Apple Mail), you can log in to the same account and view the same messages from another device such as your smartphone or tablet even using a different email application. When an email is stored on a server and accessed through an IMAP client such as Outlook, the messages can be read from any device. Therefore, you can use IMAP Server to migrate emails to Office 365. You can also use the IMAP Migration Tool to migrate or backup IMAP Mailbox into Office 365 and other email clients. So let’s move forward to learn the effective method to do the same.

Method 1: Manual Method to Migrate IMAP Email to Office 365

You can import IMAP to Office 365 with the help of this manual procedure. It consists of 06 steps, so follow the mentioned steps below carefully.

Step 1 – Prepare the IMAP migration by:

1. Add your IMAP organization to the Microsoft 365 accepted domains list.
2. Add users to the Microsoft 365 domain
3. Get the domain name of your IMAP server's fully qualified hostname
4. Check to see if the firewall allows IMAP connections
5. Give the admin account full access to all IMAP mailboxes.
6. Open a Windows PowerShell session and run the commands below:

Test the migration server's connection to your IMAP server with this command: Test-MigrationServerAvailability -IMAP -RemoteServer -Port <143 or 993> -Security <None, SSL, or TLS>

Step 2 – Create a CSV file

The next step is to create a CSV file that contains the list of users whose mailboxes you want to migrate.

Email, Address, UserName, Password

For example:- abc@dev,pc.mili, "1023990"?

Step 3 –Configure an IMAP endpoint for Office 365 migration

To create an IMAP migration endpoint, you first need to connect to Exchange Online PowerShell.

• In the new Terminal window, run this command:

New-MigrationEndpoint -IMAP -Name IMAPEndpoitn1 -RemoteServer imap.containermailserver .com:993/ssl

• Now, verify that the configuration is working by executing the command:

Get-MigrationEndpoint | Format-List EndpointType, RemoteServer, Port, Security

Step 4 – Create and then run a migration batch

The command used to create and run a batch is as follows:

New-MigrationBatch -Name IMAPBatch1 -SourceEndpoint IMAPEndpoint -CSVData ([System.IO.File]:: ReadAllBytes(“C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop\IMAPmigration_1.csv”)) –AutoStart

Step 5 – Forward future emails to Microsoft 365

An MX record is the way an email system indicates where to deliver messages. Changing this record so that it points to Office 365 guarantees that future emails will be delivered there instead of your local account.

As a result, all of your current emails are being migrated to the Office 365 account as well as future ones.

Depending on the DNS provider, the MX record can be modified in several ways. After carrying them out, be sure to wait 72 hours before moving on to the following stage.

Step 6: Remove the Migration Batch

• After moving all emails, delete the migration batch by following the below instructions.

Remove-MigrationBatch -Identity IMAPBatch1

• Now, verify that it's deleted, by performing the below command:

Get-MigrationBatch IMAPBatch1

If it displays an error, the batch is no longer present. If it gives a removal status, the deletion is being done.

These are the steps that you need to follow to migrate IMAP email to Microsoft Office 365. However, the above procedure consists of some restrictions that you should be aware of, so we have mentioned them below.

Limitations of Manual Procedure

• By this method, you can only migrate emails, which means you cannot import contacts, calendars, etc.
• Using this process, you can only migrate 500,000 items from the mailbox of a single user.
• You cannot migrate emails larger than 35 MB.
• The above method requires technical expertise and time to perform, therefore, in most cases, it is not suitable for professional use.

As you can see the disadvantages that it carries, so we are providing you with an automated approach that can assist you with a smooth and secure migration of IMAP emails into Office 365.

Method 2: Migrate IMAP Email to Office 365 Using Professional Approach

IMAP Backup software is a top-notch utility to take the backup of mailbox emails from the IMAP Server and saves them into Office 365. It provides an easy-to-use interface that helps you to carry out the migration process without any hurdles. Moreover, the software supports all Windows versions like 11, 10, 8.1, 8, 7, Vista, XP, etc.

Step-by-step Guide to Migrate Email from IMAP to Office 365

1. Download and Run the IMAP Backup Tool on your system.
2. Click on the Import CSV button to browse the user's ID file.
3. Select the required user’s ID from the table and click the Next button.
4. Now, you can see all the folders that your selected file contains, choose the folder you want to migrate, and click the Next button.
5. Select Office 365 from the drop-down menu and click Next.
6. Enter your login credentials for your Office 365 account and complete the authentication process.
7. Choose the source account and then select the destination account to migrate emails and click Next.
8. Use the other features provided by the software and click Convert.

Conclusion?

Through this blog, we have discussed the best method to migrate IMAP email to Office 365 . We have explained a manual process and a professional method that can migrate to Office 365 from IMAP without any trouble. However, the manual method consists of many disadvantages, so to avoid any data loss we suggest you opt for the professional procedure which is safe and 100% reliable.