A shared mailbox is a type of mailbox wherein multiple users can read and reply from the same email address in Microsoft Office 365. These types of mailboxes are created and managed by the admin. In this article, we will be talking about how to migrate shared mailbox to Office 365 without license.
We will be looking at different methods that can be used including manual methods and an automated tool. And what are the benefits of using one method other the other?
Microsoft themselves does provide an inbuilt method to change shared mailbox to user mailbox. Using this method we can perform the task mentioned above. Take a look at the steps below to know how to follow them.
- First, use your admin credentials to log in to Office 365 and then go to EAC( Exchange Admin Center) and from there click on the Exchange option.
- Navigate through recipients> shared and then click on the shared mailbox option
- Now from under the covert to regular mailbox option click on the convert option.
- Confirm your request by pressing the yes button.
- Wait for the process to be completed. Once the process is completed click to close this window.
Limitations
Mainly there are two limitations to using the manual method.
When we are using the manual method, the mailbox is completely converted into a user mailbox. What it means is that the shared mailbox doesn’t exist anymore. The whole thing is converted into a user mailbox.
The other problem is that when you are using the manual method to convert shared mailbox to user mailbox. You have to assign licenses as per the requirement once it is converted into a user mailbox.
There isn’t a direct easy method provided by Microsoft to perform this task. Reliable Office 365 Migration Tool is one of the best tools in the industry for this very purpose. The tool can be used to easily migrate shared mailbox to Office 365 without license.
Let us look at the steps that you have to use to perform this function.
- Click on the link given above, download install and run the tool.
- From the setup menu in the welcome screen choose Office 365 as both source and destination.
- Next in the workload section select the type of data you want to migrate to Office 365 such as Category, Email, Contact, Task, Calendar, and Document. And make the option to enable users to create users and groups is checked.
- If needed the users can also add a date filter to select data between a certain time period to migrate.
- After selecting the required options click on next and move to the source section.
- Now enter the admin email address and the application ID of the source system.
- Now click on the validate button to validate the required permissions. Once completed click on the next button.
- Now move on to the destination tab.
- Same as above enter the admin email address and the application ID of the destination account.
- After that click on the verification button and verify the required permissions. Once completed click on the next button.
- Moving on to the resource tab there are three options that you can use to get the details of the users from the source. Click on the fetch users option to fetch the details of the user from the source automatically.
- You can also get the details of the users from the source manually by downloading the template in CSV format. And then adding the details of the users in the CSV file and then importing this file into the tool.
- Once the details of the users are fetched you can see them listed in the tool
- Now select the mailboxes that you want to convert.
- You can also create users at the destination from the tool by clicking on the “Create user” button.
- Now we have to map the source to the destination.
- This can be done by entering the destination email id for each of the source accounts.
- It can also be done in bulk by importing a CSV file with the same information.
- Right-click on the shared mailbox and select the option “ignore Office 365 license validation. To migrate shared mailbox to Office 365 without license.
- Now the tool will show a red icon near the shared mailbox.
- Users can also set higher priority for certain user accounts to migrate these accounts first.
- After this click on the validate button and, validate the necessary permissions.
- Once everything is selected as per your need, click on the start migration button to finally start the migration process.
You can download the migration report once the migration process is completed. And verify that all the files have migrated properly.
Conclusion
In this article, we have seen how to migrate shared mailbox to Office 365 without license. We have seen that using the manual method has its limitations. Like the fact that you have to assign licenses once the shared mailbox account is converted to a user mailbox. Hence for easy and seamless migration, we recommend using the above mentioned-tool.
