Forum Discussion
Migrating on-prem functional shared mailboxes to 365
I have an on-premises Exchange environment (SE Edition) with Edge servers, configured in a hybrid setup. New users are provisioned directly in Office 365, but many legacy users still exist solely on-premises. In addition, we have around 800 shared/functional mailboxes that are local and were not created as hybrid objects.
I need to migrate these on-prem shared mailboxes to Office 365. I’m unsure of the best approach—should I:
- Convert them to full hybrid and migrate using the hybrid tools?
- Recreate them manually in Office 365?
- Or is there another recommended method?
My goal is to make the transition as seamless and transparent as possible for users, while keeping the process simple and efficient on the admin side.
If you still have users (and mailboxes?) on both sides, it's best to go the first route, as it preserves interoperability. If all the mailboxes are already in the cloud and you don't care about what object type remains on-premises for the shared mailbox, you can do the recreation. It does not cover the content of the mailboxes though, and I'm assuming you'd want to keep that. Which means either manual export/import, third-party tool or getting back to the first scenario :)
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If you still have users (and mailboxes?) on both sides, it's best to go the first route, as it preserves interoperability. If all the mailboxes are already in the cloud and you don't care about what object type remains on-premises for the shared mailbox, you can do the recreation. It does not cover the content of the mailboxes though, and I'm assuming you'd want to keep that. Which means either manual export/import, third-party tool or getting back to the first scenario :)