How to Migrate Outlook to Office 365? - Get Efficient Solution?

Microsoft renders office suite applications for both i.e. for cloud and local platform. Outlook is also one of its application that a user can use to manage emails, organize meetings, and plan schedule on Outlook calendars. In addition, Outlook is widely used by both the business users and home users. But when it comes to Office 365, the organizations can subscribe the latest Office application also for their domain. Thus, many users are looking for a solution to migrate Outlook to Office 365. Microsoft permits users to import Outlook emails, contacts, calendars to Office 365. Thus, in this post, both manual and professional solution is covered in order to have proper migration without any loss of data. Apart from this, why it is necessary to migrate from Outlook to Office 365 is also discussed.

All Possible Reasons Behind Outlook to Office 365 Migration

Switching from Outlook email client to Office 365 account is always beneficial. There are various benefits that a user can avail and all of them are discussed below:

1. Office 365 is one of the efficient means of uploading or exporting organization's email to the cloud.
2. Outlook to Office 365 migration also saves total infrastructure and maintenance cost.
3. It enables the mailbox archiving to offer some additional mailbox storage space.
4. It also lets users keep complete email mailbox data of the company in a centralized way.
5. The Outlook PST file to O365 migration allows users to store their mailboxes on hold in order to preserve the content.
6. t provides a better searching option to look for any particular content in the mailbox, as it has MS eDiscovery tools to look for a specific data in the mailbox.
7. Provides users an option to impose retention policies in order to control how long the mailbox data is preserved.
8. It will keep all crucial data safe and secure against all type of intentional/ intentional data loss.
9. Increase the availability Outlook PST file, a user can access it anywhere with the help of internet connection.

How to Migrate Outlook Data to Office 365?

In order to export outlook emails, contacts, calendars to office 365 account, there are two manual approaches i.e. Network Upload and Drive Shipping. With the help of any of this approach, a user can easily move Outlook PST file to Office 365.

Approach #1: Migrate Outlook to Office 365 Via Network Upload

In the case of network upload, the admin will transfer Outlook PST files over the network. After that, it saves all Outlook mailbox files in Office 365 using Office 365 Import service.

1. First of all, you need to install Azure AzCopy software, which will copy or move Outlook data file to Office 365. After that, copy SAS URL of the organization, which is a combination of network URL for Azure location in Exchange Online and the Shared Access Signature (SAS) key
2. With the help of this SAS key, the admin will get the permission to upload Outlook PST files to storage location of Azure
3. After that, admin can move data files in the Azure storage location using AzCopy.exe tool, which will import data from Outlook data file to Office 365.
4. Using Microsoft Azure Storage Explorer, admin can also verify the list of uploaded PST files
5. When PST files are transferred to the cloud storage, the admin can create a CSV file, which will define the mailboxes associated to the respective Outlook PST files
6. After all this, an admin can create an import job in Office 365, it will fetch information from the CSV file in order to move PST files to the respective user mailbox.

Approach #2: With the Help of Drive Shipping

In this approach, the admin will move Outlook data file to a temporary storage like BitLocker encrypted hard drive. After that, physically move the drive to Microsoft. Then, an admin can use import service of Office 365 to export Outlook data to Office 365.

Drawbacks of Using Manual Approach

There can be various limitations that a user may face while using manual approaches and are listed below:

• Uploading PST file data during migration will take lots of time.
• A user needs to have complete technical knowledge to copy or import Outlook mailbox to Office 365 manually.
• There are high chances of data loss or corruption if any of step is missed or not performed properly.

A Perfect Solution to Migrate Outlook to Office 365

As discussed above there are various limitations that a user might face while using manual approach. Therefore, to have a simple, easy, and reliable solution, a user is suggested to use a professional solution named PST to Office 365 Migration software. It migrates complete data from Outlook file to Office 365 (Exchange Online) in just a few simple clicks. Moreover, it maintains the original formalizing and integrity of data throughout the process. A user can easily use this application on any version of Microsoft Windows OS without any hassle.

Conclusion

Migration from Outlook to Office 365 is always beneficial because it increases the accessibility and availability of Outlook data. Thus, keeping this requirement of users in mind, this blog let users know how to migrate Outlook mailbox to Office 365 account. The manual methods sometimes become very complex and time taking to perform. Therefore, a guaranteed solution to import Outlook PST files to Office 365 is also suggested.