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Summary: Users often plan to migrate from Greatmail to Office 365 to access advanced security and get better productivity. With this migration, you have advanced features and security updates. You can use IMAP migration methods to migrate emails as described in this article. Moreover, consider using Kernel IMAP to Office 365 migration tool to export Greatmail emails to Microsoft 365 with accuracy and consistency.

Greatmail is a US based email service provider known for its email and SMTP hosting among other services. It provides cost-effective email hosting that is widely compatible with webmail clients, such as Gmail, Outlook, etc. Even though Greatmail provides a great scalability and security, businesses are switching towards Office 365. This is probably because of the cloud-based suite, co-authoring, document sharing, and other advanced features that Microsoft provides.

If you’re one of the businesses planning to migrate emails from Greatmail to Office 365, this is the article you should refer to. It will guide you through the hand-picked practices to make an easy transition.

What are the benefits of Greatmail to O365 mailbox migration?

Office 365 is becoming the preferred collaboration platform for organizations around the world for the following reasons:

Integrated with productivity suite

Office 365 is integrated with a wider suite of apps that support enhanced productivity. It provides easy access to components like Word, Excel, OneDrive, Exchange Online, SharePoint, and even more. All these together will help you make your operations easier.

Diversity of available mailboxes

With Greatmail emails to O365, you get access to diverse mailboxes, which include primary user mailboxes, shared, and archive mailboxes, along with the Office 365 groups. This diversity is easily manageable through IMAP migration, which allows smooth integration between your existing Greatmail mailboxes and Office 365.

Enhanced threat protection

Another remarkable advantage of using Office 365 is the enhanced threat protection and security it offers. Office 365 involves security measures like data loss prevention and multi-factor authentication to keep your data secure.

Easy to scale and upgrade

When it comes to scaling and business expansion, Office 365 is the most suitable choice. With just a simple subscription upgrade, you can scale your business to accommodate the growing users and resources needs.

Support regular backups

Microsoft 365 provides in-built backup and recovery facilities to protect your business data. It runs automated and regular backups on the tenant data every 12 hours, supporting a retention period of 14 days.

Access from any device

Since Office 365 is a cloud-based productivity suite, you can access it on any device and from anywhere just with an internet connection. This helps to promote the remote work culture, boosting the productivity and flexibility to work.

Detailed checklist to export Greatmail emails to Office 365

Here is a checklist that you can follow to avoid experiencing errors during the migration process.

Pre-migration checklist

Carefully perform the following list of tasks before starting the Greatmail to O365 mailbox migration process:

  1. Determine the number of users, mailboxes, and the size of email data.
  2. Find out the data you want to migrate: emails only or complete mailbox.
  3. Setup Office 365 tenant and get licenses for the users you’ll be migrating.
  4. Add new domain to Office 365 and verify it if planning for a custom domain.
  5. Backup IMAP emails, contacts, calendars, etc. to local storage for data security.
  6. Inform and train the end users about the new environment.
  7. Migration checklist

    After preparing, follow the steps below to migrate emails from Greatmail to Office 365:

    1. Decide on the migration approach you will use to transfer the data.
    2. Identify the right migration tool if you want to migrate data using a tool.
    3. Start with a batch of data to run migration for error detection.
    4. Address the identified errors using the migration reports.
    5. Migrate the data in multiple phases in case of bulk migration.

    Post-migration checklist

    There are a few tasks that you need to perform after migrating to avoid conflicts and errors in accessing the Office 365 environment:

    1. Validate that all the users, mailboxes, and data are correctly migrated.
    2. Verify the email flow by sending some test mails internally as well as externally.
    3. Decommission the Greatmail mailboxes if not going to use in the future.
    4. Conduct a thorough monitoring and analysis to identify errors.
    5. Ask the users to share feedback to help you make improvements.

    How to migrate Greatmail email to Office 365?

    Follow the given stepwise procedure to migrate Greatmail Emails to O365:

    Step 1: Create new accounts within the Office 365 tenant to accommodate the users you’ll be migrating from Greatmail.

    Step 2: Provide the users with the relevant Office 365 licenses and login to the Office 365 admin center.

    Step 3: In the admin center, follow the process to add the Greatmail domain to access the mailboxes.

    Step 4: Set up Greatmail account in Outlook and use the IMAP server settings to access the information about the server.

    Step 5: Now, generate a CSV file with the email ID and passwords mentioned of all the users in the Greatmail and then specify the Office 365 admin center credentials.

    Step 6: Create migration endpoint in the Exchange admin center to establish connection between Office 365 and Greatmail IMAP server.

    Step 7: Manage migration batches and then start the Greatmail to O365 mailbox migration process.

    Step 8: Update the DNS records to forward all the emails to Office 365 mailbox.

    Step 9: Open EAC and then remove the migration batches after the process completion.

    Drawbacks of the manual Greatmail to Office 365 migration

    Here are some limitations that make this process not feasible for migrating the mailboxes:

    1. Requires you to possess technical knowledge and understanding of Greatmail.
    2. Process is quite lengthy and often time-consuming.
    3. Might involve potential data loss during the process.

    What is the best way to migrate Greatmail email to Office 365?

    Migrating Greatmail mailboxes with the manual method includes complex and technical process, which often causes significant data loss. Therefore, the best way to migrate emails to Office 365 is by using a professional tool like Kernel IMAP to Office 365. The tool allows you to migrate emails from IMAP server-based mailboxes to Office 365 with just a few clicks. Some of the prominent features of the IMAP to Office 365 migration tool include:

    1. Migrate primary, shared, and archive mailboxes and public folders.
    2. Transfer entire mailbox data, including emails, contacts, calendars, etc.
    3. Migrate Greatmail email to Office 365 with attachments.
    4. Move bulk emails with metadata and original hierarchy.
    5. Use incremental migration to eliminate redundancy from the destination.
    6. Supports migration of large mailboxes without size limitations.
    7. Includes filters that support controlled and selective migration.
    8. Free trial version allows migration of 10 items per folder for free.

    Use the tool to make an efficient transition from Greatmail to Office 365 even if you don’t have technical expertise. The tool has a user-friendly interface and works with all major Windows OS versions.

    Conclusion

    With this detailed guide to migrate emails from Greatmail to Office 365, you can expect a swift and secured migration. You can use the manual methods, but they require in-depth knowledge of Greatmail and Office 365. Consider a professional IMAP to Office 365 migration tool like Kernel IMAP to Office 365 migration solution. The tool allows selective migration of emails and supports more than 20+ IMAP servers for migration. It features a simple and user-friendly interface, which makes it easy for all users to execute the data transfer. Take the free trial today to know more.

Kernel IMAP to Office 365
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