File share migration to SharePoint Online Permissions?

[Ozlem]

We are in the midst of planning the migration of our file shares to SharePoint Online.

Is there a tool that we can use to carry over the permissions in file shares to SharePoint Online?

[#2 · Accepted solution]

Microsoft's free SharePoint Migration Tool can do this, migrating file shares to SharePoint Online and bring across permissions with caveats:

File and folder permissions when using the SharePoint Migration Tool

[#3]

Take a look also to any of the commercial tools you can use

[#4]

Thanks a lot Cian. I appreciate the quick reply.

[#5]

One more question.  I'm trying to understand the caveats.  Are there any situations where the permissions can't be carried over? 

[#6]

@Ozlem Yes, for it to work at all, users must be mapped between on-premises and SharePoint Online, usually done by syncing your Active Directory accounts to Office 365 or with an SPMT user mapping file.

The only permissions that will be migrated are Read and Write. If a file has Write permission for user1, then the file will be set to Contribute for user1 in SPO. If a file has Read permission for user1, then the file will be set to Read for user1 in SPO. Special permissions, such as Deny, will not be saved.

These are the different combinations when using the setting above or not:

[#7]

Thanks a lot for your quick help again Cian. I think I got it. Just trying to digest the table above a bit more.

[#8]

@Ozlem Glad I could help!  Agreed about that table, it's a lot to take in and tally with given circumstances.

[#9]

Hi, reading this thread with some interest. I am migrating a large amount of data (approx 15TB) across different libraries / sites, but my source data has been azcopied into Azure Files so there are no permissions at source, does that render the user mapping file useless, or can I leave source column blank, but add the location and confirm that they are not a group