How to migrate email from cPanel to Microsoft 365

1. Preparation: Gather necessary information and prepare your environment
2. Backup Emails: Ensure all emails are backed up
3. Set Up Microsoft 365: Configure your Microsoft 365 environment
4. Migrate Emails: Transfer emails from cPanel to Microsoft 365
5. Update DNS Records: Point your domain to Microsoft 365
6. Verify and Test: Ensure everything is working correctly

1. Gather information:

• Delete junk email and deleted items from cPanel email accounts
• List and assess email accounts/data volumes to be migrated
• Assess broadband to calculate projected download/upload times
• Login credentials for cPanel and Microsoft 365 admin accounts
• Login credentials for your domain name registrar, or wherever your authoritative domain name’s zone record is managed. In some case this might be handled by your Microsoft 365 tenancy.

2. Backup emails:

• Use cPanel’s backup tools to download a copy of your emails

3. Setup or review your Microsoft 365 tenancy

• Ensure you have the necessary Microsoft 365 licenses
• Use the Email Accounts tool to download emails as .mbox or .pst files

1. Log into cPanel dashboard with your admin credentials

2. Export your emails

• Navigate to the Email section
• Use the <Email Accounts> tool to download emails as .mbox or .pst files

3. Log in to Microsoft 365 Admin Center with your global admin credentials

 4. Set Up your 365 Migration Endpoint

• Go to the Exchange admin center
• Navigate to Recipients > Migration > More > Migration endpoints
• Create a new migration endpoint using the IMAP server details from cPanel

5. Create a Migration batch

• In the Exchange admin center, go to Recipients > Migration
• Click on “+” and select “Migrate to Exchange Online”
• Choose “IMAP migration” and follow the prompts to create a migration batch

 6. Start the migration

• Start the migration batch and monitor progress
• Once the migration is complete, verify that all emails have been transferred

1. Log into your domain name registrar

• Access your domain registrar’s dashboard with your credentials

2. Update MX records

• Replace the existing MX records with those provided by Microsoft 365
• This ensures that new emails are delivered to Microsoft 365

3. Update other DNS records

• Update SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records as recommended by Microsoft 365
• Review rDNS and edit as necessary

1. Check Email Delivery

• Send test emails to and from the migrated accounts to ensure proper delivery

2. Verify new 365 account settings

• Ensure that all email settings and folders are correctly configured in Microsoft 365

3.  Monitor for Issues

• Keep an eye on the accounts for any issues over the next few day

These steps will migrate accounts  from cPanel to Microsoft 365. UNless you are expert, you should migrate one email account at a time. This affords better scope for stepping back if you encounter issues, and also migration of accounts in bulk require practiced experience. 

Large email accounts backups can take a lot of time to download especially with poor broadband, and uploading content can take even longer. Be prepared for some hours of outage if you have large backups and poor bandwidth.

Bear in mind that IMAP is an older technology and it is possible when migrating to Microasoft’s more modern ActiveSync environment, it accounts with large folder may appear corrupted. In this case, creating a new folder and copying content (rather than moving) usually resolves the problem.

If you encounter any issues, Microsoft’s support resources are well documented for additional help.