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Migration to Zoho Mail

Posted by Nishi on 22 November 2022

Email migration from current email servers to Zoho Mail servers:

Zoho Mail offers a very simple solution to migrate data from your previous email provider to the respective user accounts in Zoho Mail directly. These user accounts need to be created in Zoho Mail before adding the migration. Follow this link for detailed instructions on user addition.

Migration from G Suite:

If your email was previously hosted with G Suite, you can migrate to Zoho Mail using the migration options that are specific to G Suite.

G Suite migration has multiple advantages over Gmail IMAP migration since you can also migrate your Calendar and Contacts data along with email. Further migration to G Suite can be done by using just the Administrator credentials. Refer here for detailed instructions on G Suite migration.

If you do not want to use the G Suite migration, you can use the IMAP protocol to migrate your emails from Gmail to Zoho Mail. Refer to this help page for more details.

Migration from Office 365:

If your email service was hosted with Office 365 previously, the administrator can make use of the Office 365 migration option in the Zoho Mail Admin Console. This will migrate not just the emails, but also the calendar and contact details saved under each user's account. Follow this help page for more details on specific migration from Office 365.

Alternatively, you can migrate your emails with the help of IMAP migration from your Office 365 account to Zoho Mail. Refer to this help page for more details.

Migration from Microsoft Exchange Server:

The Microsoft Exchange Server is an email and calendaring server developed by Microsoft. If your email service was previously hosted with an Exchange Server, you can migrate to Zoho Mail by preparing the source environment for migration and then adding the migration. Email, Contacts and Calendar data from the Exchange Server to Zoho Mail. 

Follow this help page for more details on specific migration from Microsoft Exchange Server.

Migration from GoDaddy:

If your email service was either hosted with GoDaddy or you have purchased Microsoft office 365 via GoDaddy previously, the administrator can perform a server to server migration via IMAP from the Zoho Mail Admin Console. The data from the user accounts from your source server will directly be migrated to the respective user accounts in Zoho Mail.

Follow this help page for more details on specific migration from GoDaddy

IMAP / POP Migration:

The most recommended way to migrate emails to Zoho Mail is the IMAP Migration. After migration, they can continue from where they left, as the email statuses and email folders are maintained and migrated in IMAP Migration. 

In case your previous email server does not support IMAP, then the emails can also be migrated via POP migration. Refer here for detailed instructions.

​Zoho Exchange / Outlook Migration Wizard:

If your previous email service was run by an in-house/ on-premise Exchange Server (without POP/IMAP support) or the user's emails are available as offline PSTor EML files, then the administrator can use Exchange Migration Wizard to migrate the emails from Exchange Server to the respective user accounts in Zoho Mail. This wizard can also be used to discover users from Active Directory to their Zoho Mail organization accounts. You can download the Exchange migration tool from here.

Best Practices

  1. Run a sample migration for around 2 to 10 users before the actual email migration process. This will help us know the source server behaviour (user limit, mail size limit, speed of migration etc.)
  2. The maximum connection limit is the number of connections accepted by a server at a given time. Set the maximum number of connections depending upon the server load and the number of users.
  3. While setting up migration for a batch of users, set the priority for each user. Users whose priority is as ‘1’ will be migrated first, and the rest will follow according to the priority that you have set.
  4. Some servers will throttle the data fetch in IMAP after a certain interval. After that, the mail fetching for migration will be slow to avoid real-time mail traffic.
  5. The sample users mailboxes should be migrated again to fetch the emails that got delivered before changing the MX. Duplication will be handled at our end. Alternately, you can also set a date limit while adding the final migration for the sample users’ mailboxes to ensure that all emails after the sample migration have been migrated.

In general, to complete the migration for a batch of 25 users, each with a mailbox size of around 2 GB, and the maximum Connection Limit set to 10, it approximately takes 11 hours.

Choosing the right type of migration:

Choosing the migration type that suits the requirements of your organization is vital to ensure a smooth and proper migration. Each migration type is best suited for a specific type of users. Read through the next section to determine which type works best under which situation.

IMAP vs POP Migration

If your emails are in a cloud-hosted email service like Google Apps or Yahoo or any other cloud email server which support IMAP Access, you can perform a server-to-server migration via IMAP from the Admin Console. The data from the user accounts from your source server will directly be migrated to the respective user accounts in Zoho Mail. These user accounts need to be created in Zoho Mail before adding the migration. Follow this link for detailed instructions on user addition.

Zoho Mail supports both IMAP and POP Migration, but IMAP Migration has more advantages compared to POP Migration. To know more on which migration would be ideal for your accounts, refer to the Advantages of IMAP Migration over POP.

Advantages of IMAP Migration over POP

If your emails are in a cloud-hosted email service like Google Apps or Yahoo or any other cloud email server which support IMAP Access, you can perform a server to server migration via IMAP from the Control Panel. 

Zoho Mail supports both IMAP and POP Migration, but IMAP Migration has more advantages compared to POP Migration.

PST Migration:

When to Use:

  • Migration might be performed by user or Admin
  • The user data is available as PST files.
  • All Mailbox data (Mail/Contacts/Calendar/Tasks/Notes) needs to be migrated to Zoho Mail.

Things to Crosscheck:

The exact folder and mail count can be rechecked from the ‘View Folder Details’ option in the ‘Archive Policy’ page. This page will list the folder-wise email count and the mailbox size.

EML Migration:

When to Use:

  • Migration might be performed by user or Admin
  • The only data to be migrated is the user's emails
  • User's email data is available as ZIP files, containing EML files.

Things to Crosscheck:

The exact folder and mail count can be rechecked from the ‘View Folder Details’ option in the ‘Archive Policy’ page. This page will list the folder-wise email count and the mailbox size.

Exchange Migration:

When to Use:

  • Admin can use the GAL or LDAP option to fetch user list for migration.
  • User data is available on an Exchange server.
  • All Mailbox data (Mail/Contacts/Calendar/Tasks/Notes) needs to be migrated to Zoho Mail.

Things to Crosscheck:

The exact folder and mail count can be rechecked from the ‘View Folder Details’ option in the ‘Archive Policy’ page. This page will list the folder-wise email count and the mailbox size.

Before Migration

1. Add domain(s) in Zoho Mail.

2. Verify domain(s) in Zoho Mail.

3. Create all users and groups in Zoho Mail.

4. Run sample migration for 3 or 4 users to test the migration.

5. Ideally, a weekend is suitable to switch the service (low incoming emails).

6. Inform the users about the switch of email and provide the login details for the users before the switch.

7. Change the MX to Zoho Mail. (Friday night/ Saturday early morning).

8. Email Routing can be configured to avoid any loss of data.

9. Create a catch-all account (not applicable in case of Split Delivery) to monitor and find out if any email addresses (groups/ users) were missed when creating the users.

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