Manual migration to Office 365 

Of the several ways to migrate a mailbox to Office 365, the more hands on approach is to do it yourself. Below are the steps, separated into 2 parts, showing you how to complete a manual migration to Office 365. 

Part 1 - Pre-migration preparation

Step 1 - Add your domain to Office 365

• Log in to the Office 365 portal and add/verify your domain name following the steps below:
  • Sign in to Office 365 with your admin account.
  • Add and verify domain names with help from the link below, using the TXT record. At Step 7, choose Skip this step (i.e. do not add/update other DNS records for now).
  • Add a Domain with the setup wizard (At Step 7, choose to Skip this step)

If the verification fails at first, wait awhile, and try again. 

If there is more than one domain required, please add and verify each of them. 

Step 2 - Provision the users in Office 365

Follow the link below to learn how to add multiple users to Office 365. 

• Add several users at the same time to Office 365 - Admin Help

Step 3 - Sync mailboxes in the old platform

Make sure you have an Outlook profile fully synced for each of the existing accounts (NOT synced with the new Office 365 platform).   

Part 2 - The cutover

Follow these steps at the time of the cutover and ONLY when Part 1 (above) is complete.

Step 1 - Point the DNS records to Office 365

Follow the link below to learn how to point the DNS records so that all new incoming mail goes to Office 365.

• Create DNS records at any DNS hosting provider for Office 365

Step 2 - Users log in

Have users login to the Office 365 Outlook Web App (OWA). Users should use only OWA for their email until such times that their desktop Outlooks and Mobile devices are fully configured and updated:

• https://outlook.office365.com

Step 3 - Export mail

Using Outlook synced to the old mailbox, export the mail data to a PST file:  

• Import and export Outlook email, contacts, and calendar on PC
• Import and export Outlook email, contacts, and calendar on Mac 

Step 4 - Configure devices

Create new Outlook profiles and reconfigure mobile devices with Office 365.

• Add an email account to Outlook on PC
• Add an email account to Outlook on Mac
• Add an email account on mobile devices

In case of trouble configuring Outlook, try the Microsoft Support and Recovery Assistant   

Step 5 - Import mail

Import the PST files from Step 3 into the new Outlook profile:   

• Import and export Outlook email, contacts, and calendar on PC
• Import and export Outlook email, contacts, and calendar on Mac 

Let the new profile update completely; it should say All Folders Up to Date when complete. 

If you prefer, you can alternatively upload multiple PST files in bulk to Office 365 using a network upload:

Use network upload to import PST files to Office 365