This guide contains the steps necessary to migrate in-place archive mailboxes from On-Premises Exchange servers (versions 2007 and later) to in-place archive mailboxes on Microsoft 365.
There are some tools and resources that will make the migration easier.
MigrationWiz
MigrationWiz is a migration tool, not a syncing tool. If changes are made at the source after migration, they will not sync to the destination, nor will modifications made at the destination sync to the source. We do not have “live” monitoring of changes (as with a sync agent) and we cannot handle scenarios such as conflict resolution without user interaction.
MigrationWiz supports the capability to share migration projects across a Workgroup. When the Project Sharing feature is turned on, all Agents besides those who are Inactive can view all migrations projects.
First Migration?
We’ve created a guide on scoping, planning, and managing the migration process for your use. If this is your first migration, we recommend reading this guide carefully.
Prerequisites
It is important to highlight and meet the following prerequisites for a smooth migration project.
Licensing
We recommend that you purchase User Migration Bundle licenses for this migration scenario. User Migration Bundle licenses allow the performance of multiple migrations with a single license. For questions on licensing, visit MigrationWiz Licenses.
To use your license by following the next steps:
- Purchase Licenses.
- Create a Customer.
- Apply Licenses.
- Review Considerations.
Important
If you have already completed a mailbox migration project against this Source environment, steps two and three will already have been completed. The endpoints that were created for your mailbox migration project can be used for your in-place archive migration project.
Purchase licenses by following the steps below:
- Sign in to your BitTitan account.
- In the top navigation bar, click Purchase.
- Click the Select button and choose User Migration Bundle licenses.
- Enter the number of licenses you want to purchase. Click Buy Now.
- Enter a Billing address if applicable.
- Click Next.
- Review the Order Summary and enter a payment method.
- Click Place Your Order.
Create Customer on MSPComplete by performing these steps:
- Click the Add button in the top navigation bar
- Click the Add Customer button on the All Customers page
- Select the appropriate workgroup in the left navigation pane and click All Customers.
- Click Add Customer.
- Enter the new customer’s information in the Add Customer form. Primary Email Domain and Company Name are required. The rest are optional.
- Click Save.
- Repeat steps 1 through 4 for each customer you want to add.
Perform these steps on MSPComplete:
- Select the correct workgroup on the top of the left navigation pane.
Important
This is the workgroup which the customer and migration projects were created under. Your account must be part of the workgroup if the project was not created under your account. - Click Customers on the left navigation pane.
- Click the customer that employs the user to whom you want to use the User Migration Bundle license.
- Click the Users tab at the top of the page.
- Apply the license to the users by checking the box to the left of their emails.
- Click the Apply User Migration Bundle License button at the top of the page.
Tip
We recommend adding users to the Customer page with the vanity domain. Then apply the User Migration Bundle Licenses, before editing to show the .onmicrosoft domain, if the .onmicrosoft domain will be used for the migration. - Click Confirm if at least one unassigned User Migration Bundle license is available for each selected user.
Important
If there are no User Migration Bundle licenses currently available to be assigned and your role in the workgroup is Manager or higher, the form that appears provides all the necessary information and will walk you through the steps of purchasing User Migration Bundle licenses.
Licenses are released once payment has been received:
- Licenses are available immediately upon payment if you purchase via credit card.
- If you purchase via wire transfer (100+ licenses), the licenses will be available once payment is received and accepted.
- We do not accept purchase orders because of processing overhead.
In both cases, you will be notified by email that payment has been accepted and licenses are available in your account upon notification.
For more information on licensing, including coupon redemption and other licensing types, see our Licensing FAQ.
Limitations
Consider the following limitations when performing this type of migration.
- App password usage, MFA/2FA, and ADFS are not supported for the migration admin account/service account being used by this endpoint.
Root Migrations
Exchange migrations do not migrate from the root, as EWS only sees and migrates items contained in folders. To migrate items at the root, create a folder for these items, drag and drop the items into the folder, and then migrate as usual.
Migrated Items
Please click the bars below to check the migrated and non-migrated items. We are constantly working to create a better migration experience for you so these items may change over time.
Migrated items vary by version of Exchange. The following list is for Exchange Server 2010 SP1+. If you are using an alternate version of Exchange, please refer to the Migrated and Not Migrated Items list and check for your version of Exchange.
- Inbox
- Folders
- Contacts
- Calendars
- Tasks
- Journals
- Notes
- BCC Recipients
- Post (when the destination is Exchange or Microsoft 365)
- Inactive mailboxes
- Email templates
- Email flags (if the destination is G Suite)
- Safe Sender/Block Lists
- Mail Settings
- Standalone documents stored in Mailbox Folders or Public Folders (Example: IPM.Document item types)
- System Public Folders
- StickyNote folders
- Public folder permissions
- Items located in the root folder of the mailbox
Important
Before submitting a migration, ensure there is no account with the same UPN prefix in the destination as one with Calendar Permissions in the Source. If there is, only the Calendar Permissions will be migrated, the Resource Calendars will not be migrated. Resource Calendars are not migrated.Exchange Questions and Troubleshooting
Our Exchange Mailbox FAQ, Exchange Migration Setup and Planning, and Exchange Mailbox Migration Troubleshooting guides contain several common questions and concerns, along with more information, guidance, and steps to resolve issues such as throttling.
Preparation
If your Source server is running Exchange version 2003, or Small Business Server (SBS), refer to the Prepare Source Exchange Environment section for instructions on how to prepare your Source server for migration: On-Premises Exchange 2003 to Microsoft 365 Migration Guide.
We recommend that the mailbox migration project is performed first, before migrating archives. For guidance, refer to the migration guide that matches your scenario. For example, if your Source server is Exchange 2007 or later, refer to On-Premises Exchange (versions 2007 and later) to Microsoft 365 Migration Guide.
If a mailbox migration project has already been performed, the same administrative credentials that you used during your mailbox migration project can be used for this project. Likely, you have already performed all of the steps in each section, other than the MigrationWiz Steps. Proceed to the MigrationWiz section of this guide.
Important
If the In-Place Archive mailbox being migrated is more than 100 GB in size and auto-expanding archiving is enabled for the In-Place Archive mailbox in the destination tenant, the migration may take 30 days or more to complete due to the auto-expanding archiving process not making space available immediately in the destination archive mailbox when moving data. If you have additional questions, please contact BitTitan support.
Prepare the Source Environment
If you have already completed a mailbox migration project against this Source environment, these steps will already have been completed.
Create Administrator Account
Set up an administrator account for migration on the Source Exchange mailbox server. EWS must be working on the Source Exchange server.
Test Your Account
- Close all browser instances. This ensures that all session state browser cache is flushed.
- Open a new browser instance.
- Navigate to your OWA login page.
- Log in to OWA.
- Once you see the inbox, copy the URL from the navigation bar of the browser. This is the exact OWA URL that should be entered into MigrationWiz.
Set up the Administrator Account
- Open the Exchange Management Console.
- Expand the Recipient Configuration node.
- Right-click on the Mailbox node.
- Click New Mailbox.
- Click Next.
- Click Next.
- Enter "MigrationWiz" as the first name.
- Enter "MigrationWiz" as the user logon name, and optionally select a user principal name (UPN) domain.
OWA
If you have not already done so, set up router ports for OWA traffic, by following the steps in the Prerequisites section of this article. Set different OWA URLs for each environment and configure router ports to accept inbound/outbound mail traffic for those OWA URLs.
If you have followed through all the prerequisite steps of this guide, this step will already have been completed.
Test Mailbox Access
You can verify independently if a mailbox is accessible using EWS with the following steps:
- Go to https://testconnectivity.microsoft.com.
- Select Service Account Access (Developers) and click Next.
- Specify the target mailbox email address.
- Specify the service account user name. If using admin credentials on the connector, enter the same user name.
- Specify the service account password. If using admin credentials on the connector, enter the same password.
- Check the Specify Exchange Web Services URL and specify the URL (example: https://server/EWS/Exchange.asmx).
- Do not check Use Exchange Impersonation.
- Check Ignore Trust for SSL.
- Click Perform Test.
- Once results are displayed, check the overall result, and click Expand All.
Disable Throttling
This is only relevant for Exchange 2010+. Exchange 2007 and earlier do not have throttling policies. Disabling the throttling will allow for a faster migration. Follow the instructions in Option 1 for the relevant Exchange instance.
Prepare the Destination Environment
Modern Authentication Requirements
The steps listed in the Required Permission for Performing M365 Mailbox and Archive Migrations article apply to both the source and destination tenant when they are Exchange Online, in regards to Exchange Web Services (EWS) in the mailbox, and archive mailbox. Use a Global Administrator for the configuration steps.
Please review the documentation before preparing the source.
Create a Migration Service Account
Create a migration service account in Microsoft 365 for the tenant, this account does not require any admin role assigned. However, it must have full access to the user mailboxes or have the required API Permissions.
We recommend adding the necessary API permissions to the Modern Authentication app you are using for your O365 mailbox or archive mailbox endpoint. You can follow the steps outlined in this guide, as this is BitTitan's recommended approach.
Deprecation of Microsoft Application Impersonation Role
From February 2025, Microsoft has started the depreciation process to remove the Application Impersonation role from O365. Exchange On-premise and hosted Exchange are not affected by these changes. For further information please see this article.
If you are currently using Application Impersonation for your migrations, there is no telling when that will eventually fail. It is highly recommended that you switch to using the new API permission process to avoid delays in your project due to permission failures.
Set Up User Accounts
Set up user accounts on the destination Office 365 tenant and assign licenses. These can be created in several ways. (The following links are to external articles.)
Large Items
Prepare the tenant to send and receive large mail items. We do not impose any limit on item/attachment sizes. However, large items/attachments can fail to migrate because of external factors. There are two considerations:
What is the maximum attachment size allowed by the Destination system?
- Most email systems impose size limits. For example, if the Destination system has a 30MB limit, any item/attachment larger than 30MB will fail to migrate.
What is the connection timeout for the Source and Destination system?
- For security reasons, most email systems close opened connections after a predetermined amount of time. For example, if the Destination system only has 512Kbps of network bandwidth and closes connections after 30 seconds, we may be unable to transfer large items/attachments before the connection is closed.
MigrationWiz will automatically make multiple attempts to migrate large items. Upon completion of a migration, you may resubmit it in error retry mode to try to migrate failed items. This is always free of charge:
When migrating from or to Office 365 use the steps provided here to increase the Max Send and Max Recieve quotas for mailboxes in the tenant, Change message size limits in Office 365.
MigrationWiz Steps
Create a Personal Archive Project
Create a Personal Archive Migration project.
- Click the Go to My Projects button.
- Click the Create Project button.
- Select Personal Archive Project.
- Click Next Step.
- Enter a Project name and select a Customer.
- Click Next Step.
- Select or create a source and destination endpoints.
- Click Save Project.
Endpoints
Endpoints are created through MigrationWiz. If you select an existing endpoint from the dropdown, it will only show ten endpoints. If you have more than ten, you may need to search it.
Consider that endpoint search is case and character-specific. For example, Cust0mer will not show up if the search is customer. We recommend keeping a list of endpoints you have created, along with any unique spellings or capitalization you may have used.
Create your Endpoints
Please review the following tabs to create your destination and source endpoints.
Create your source endpoint by following the next steps:
- Click New.
- Name the endpoint.
- Select type Exchange Server 2003+.
- Enter the Outlook Web Access (OWA) URL.
- Provide credentials: Click the Provide Credentials radio button, and enter the admin account credentials for the account that was set up under the “Prepare the Destination Environment” section of this guide.
- Click Add.
- Click Next Step.
Create your destination endpoint by following the next steps:
- Click New.
- Name the endpoint.
- Select the endpoint type Microsoft 365.
- Provide credentials.
- Click Add.
- Complete the Application (client) ID, the Directory (tenant) ID, and the Client Secret fields.
- Click Next Step.
- Click Save and Go to Summary.
Application (client) ID, Directory (tenant) ID, and Client Secret
For Microsoft 365 Mailbox and Archive migrations, MigrationWiz adds the Application (client) ID, Directory (tenant) ID, and Client Secret fields.
While the Application (client) ID and the Directory (tenant) ID are mandatory, the Client Secret field is not. It will depend on the permissions of the user account that performs the migration. Please review the following information before creating your M365 endpoints.
- Do not use the client secret value if you use delegated permissions (not the most recommended approach). When using delegated permissions, do not select the Use Impersonation to Authenticate checkbox in the source/destination tab of your project's advanced options.
- The client secret value is mandatory if you using the API Permissions approach.
- If you already have a migration service account with the Impersonation role enabled (not using the API Permissions approach) the client secret value is not mandatory. Please leave the Client Secret field empty.
Warning
Keep in mind that Microsoft has started removing the application impersonation role from O365, meaning there is no telling when that will eventually fail. It is highly recommended that you switch to the API Permissions approach.
For more information about how to get the Application (client) ID and Directory (tenant) ID values from the Application Registration, review step 3 of this article.
Region of Destination Tenant
The Region of Destination Tenant feature optimizes migration performance and speed by identifying the region closest to the destination tenant (continent-level). For Microsoft 365 endpoints, MigrationWiz detects and selects the appropriate region automatically once you create and save your project.
Please note that each time you edit your project endpoints, the following message will appear at the top of your project window (where XXXX is the detected region):
Automatically detected destination tenant's region and assigned to the 'BitTitan Datacenter' in XXXX.
For this migration type, you cannot manually change the region of the destination tenant. In case you need to modify it, contact our support team.
Endpoint Validation
Once the information has been provided for both, the source and destination endpoint, and the customer selects Save and Go to Summary, MigrationWiz performs an endpoint validation check.
This validation tests the migration service account credentials entered into the project and the Modern Authentication setup only. If there is an issue, the screen redirects to the endpoint and provides an error message or flyout that can be selected for more information regarding the error.
Common Errors when Configuring Your Endpoint
For more information on the AADSTS700016, AADSTS90002, and ADDSTS50126 issues review the Common Errors Using Modern Authentication page.
Add Users
Add the user accounts that will be migrated to the project. Depending on the project's size, this may be done in several ways. You can find the steps for each option in the accordions below by selecting the option you selected.
Small Migrations
For small migrations, it is easy to add users one at a time using Quick Add. The steps for this are below.
Larger Migrations
For larger migrations, we recommend either using the Autodiscover or Bulk Add option.
This option allows you to add items one at a time. To do so, you only have to provide an email address if you entered administrative credentials when setting up the project. If you did not, enter the following user information:
- An email address
- Login name
- Password
- Mailbox status
Bulk Add uses a CSV containing the source and destination email addresses for the users to add the users to the project. If migrating only a specific group from a tenant, we recommend using the Bulk Add option.
MigrationWiz allows you to bulk import mailboxes into the system.
To import one or more mailboxes:
- Sign in to your MigrationWiz account.
- Select the Project for which you want to perform the bulk import.
- Click Add.
- Click Bulk Add.
- Follow the instructions on the page.
Autodiscover process within MigrationWiz can be used to discover items from the Source environment so that they can be imported into your projects. This can then be edited in the project to remove users not being migrated. All users are added with the source and destination email addresses set to match the source email.
This can be changed by using the Change Domain Name button at the top of the project page. If the usernames are changing during the migration, we recommend using the Bulk Add option.
There are a few requirements for this to work:
- The Source has to be Exchange 2007 or later.
- The endpoint on the Source needs to use admin credentials.
- For mailbox migration projects, the admin account that is specified within the Source endpoint needs to have a mailbox associated with it.
- The admin mailbox must be listed in the public Global Address List (GAL).
One additional item to note here is that there is no way to restrict the IP addresses that the connection will come from. This means that the steps outlined in our IP Lockdown guide will not apply here. If your environment requires that any IP addresses be whitelisted, it is recommended that items be added to your project using one of the other available options.
Autodiscover of items will not work while using Modern Authentication
Autodiscovery exposes the following items:
- For mailbox migration, Autodiscover will list all mailboxes at the Source.
Steps to Run Autodiscover
-
Navigate to the project you want to import users into.
-
Ensure that you have created an endpoint for the source project.
-
Once in the project, click the Add drop-down on the top navigation bar, then select Autodiscover Items. This will begin the Autodiscover process.
-
Once discovered, click the Import button, to import the items into your MigrationWiz project.
Advanced Options
Configure or edit your project's advanced options by going to the Edit Project dropdown and selecting
Advanced Options.
The following advanced options may be useful for your migration.
Support Tab
Default Options for Microsoft 365 Endpoints
By default, some fields are view-only. In other words, you cannot edit or remove them from the support options page. To edit them, you need to edit the source or destination endpoint of your project.
Among these default options, you can find ModernAuthClientIdExport, ModernAuthTenantIdExport, ModernAuthClientSecretExport, ModernAuthClientIdImport, ModernAuthTenantIdImport, and ModernAuthClientSecretImport.
The support options above are required when configuring your endpoint.
Important
Keep in mind that the ModernAuthClientSecretExport and the ModernAuthClientSecretImport support options are text-masked.
Warning
You cannot update the default Advanced Options, in case you try to modify or add new ones the following message arises.
The following advanced options show you some options that will help you to perform or complete a migration.
Performance Tab
Set the Maximum concurrent migrations. If the Source server has enough server resources, set this parameter based on the bandwidth guideline of three (3) mailboxes per 1Mbps of bandwidth.
Therefore, for example, if there is a 10Mbps connection, we recommend setting the maximum concurrent migrations parameter to 30. If the Source server has very few available server resources (e.g., it is running low on memory or it has a very high CPU utilization), we recommend setting this value to a lower number to avoid overwhelming the Source server with requests.
Source/Destination Tab
For now, the new API Permissions approach does require the Use Impersonation to Authenticate box checked for your O365 endpoints along with the Client secret value that you supplied during the Endpoint creation.
Under the Destination: Microsoft Office 365 section, the mailbox option is selected by default. This means that mail is migrated into the primary mailbox, not the archive mailbox at the Destination. Change it to Archive Mailbox.
Run Verify Credentials
- Sign in to your MigrationWiz account.
- Open the Project containing items to validate.
- Select the items to validate.
- Click the Start button in your dashboard.
- Select Verify Credentials from the drop-down list.
Once complete, you can check the results of the verification in the Status section.
Notify Users
Notify users that a migration is occurring. Send an email to all users telling them the time and date of the migration.
Run Migration
For archive migrations, we recommend only running a Full Pass Migration, rather than following the Pre-Stage Migration strategy (typically used with mailbox migration projects).
Since the archive migration project is typically performed after the mailbox migration project has been completed (or at the same time), this guide does not include the steps for MX record cutover.
Full Pass
- Select the users.
- Click the Start button from the top.
- Select Full Migration.
- Click Start Migration.
Run Retry Errors
Look through the user list and click any red "failed migration" errors. Review the information and act accordingly.
If problems persist contact Support.
Request Statistics
Click the pie chart icon in the MigrationWiz dashboard to receive an email containing all the project migration statistics.