Migrate from Gmail to Office 365

[MyBite]

Hey Everyone,

I'm currently in the process of migrating a client from GSuite to Office 365 for the first time and had a question regarding shared mailboxes.

The client has a ton of user mailboxes in GSuite that they would like converted to shared mailboxes. Would I be able to create their accounts as shared mailboxes in Office 365 before migrating the accounts and move the emails directly into those accounts or will I need to create the accounts as User accounts with a license in Office 365 first and then move the emails over and then convert to a shared mailbox and remove the license.

Hopefully that makes sense! Thank you!

[#2]

You can create shared mailboxes in Office 365 without licenses and migrate a mailbox to it, yes!

What will you use to do the migration?

Adam

[#3]

@adam deltinger 

My plan was to follow this guide and use the IMAP migration for emails

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/mailbox-migration/migrating-imap-mailboxes/migrate-g-suite... 

So I can go ahead and create all my shared mailboxes before hand and should be okay in migrating the emails to it with IMAP?

EDIT: I found that this was an option https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/exchange/2019/04/16/introducing-the-new-migration-experience-fro...

Seems like Microsoft has added a new GSuite migration option within the EAC. I found this guide https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/Exchange/mailbox-migration/perform-g-suite-migration but I'm unsure if it will work for Shared mailboxes

[#4]

@MyBite 

You don't need a license for the shared mailbox but need to assign a licensed user to it prior to migration. If this is your 1st G-Suite migration and budget allows, you might want to consider using a 3rd party migration tool to assist. G-Suite IMAP migrations can be tricky and time consuming, for example Google throttles mailbox transfer @ 2GB per day with a 24 hour wait before the sync process starts again.

disclaimer: i have no interest, financial or otherwise, with any of the tool vendors. i have however used several over the course of many migrations, they really do save time and provide top notch support.

[#5]

Keep in mind also that a 3rd party license will probably be required for the shared mailbox

[#6]

@adam deltinger 

yes, agreed and good point. the one's I've used do count shared mailboxes as a migration 'seat'.

[#7]

It seems that you are considering moving from Gmail to Office 365. Fortunately, the process can be completed quickly with the help of a little, useful tool called DailySoft IMAP to IMAP Migration Software. You can easily and quickly transfer all of your calendars, contacts, and emails from your old Gmail account to your new Office 365 account with the help of this application.