How we can Migrate Shared Mailboxes to Microsoft Exchange Online

I frequently get questions from customers on how to migrate shared mailboxes to Exchange Online and which points they should make before doing so. For this reason, I decided to write a dedicated blog on this subject.

What do we exactly mean by Shared Mailbox & SharePoint Data Migration?

A shared mailbox is used to transmit and accept email from a common account. A shared mailbox is open for multiple users. When someone responds to an email that was sent to a shared mailbox the reply which we get is not from the user's email address, but the email address of the shared mailbox, for example, [email protected]. The main difference between a normal user mailbox and a shared mailbox is that a normal user mailbox has its username and password, while in the case of the shared mailbox it is not possible to sign in. In the case of shared mailbox and SharePoint migration cloud service, data is moved to the new tenant. 

How to Migrate a Shared Mailbox to Exchange Online?

Administrators usually create a regular user mailbox and later share this mailbox with different users. By doing so the mailbox will have the type named “regular”. This indicates that the mailbox is just a normal user mailbox. Thus, after moving this mailbox to Exchange Online, a license is needed to obtain access to the mailbox. However, using shared mailboxes is free of cost in Exchange Online. Although, if no license is assigned, and if the mailbox is of type “regular” then will be deleted after 30 days by default. To stop that shared mailboxes will be deleted in Exchange Online without adding a license. 

Before you start shared mailbox migration, first convert the mailbox type in the Exchange on-premises environment so that it can get the type as "shared". Note that this cannot be done in the case of Gmail to Exchange migration.

How to Convert a User Mailbox to a Shared Mailbox

To convert a user mailbox to a shared mailbox, you can start by checking in the on-premises Exchange environment where mailboxes have type as "shared". Following are the steps which one can follow:

Open the Exchange Management Console in that go to Recipient Configuration then to Mailbox. In the column of Recipient Type Details, check the type of user mailbox whether it is discovery mailbox, equipment mailbox, room mailbox, or shared mailbox. One can also use PowerShell command: Get-Mailbox -RecipientTypeDetails SharedMailbox Then convert the mailbox to the type “shared”: Set-Mailbox -Identity “email address or alias” -type shared.

Now that the mailbox is converted to “Shared” we can migrate it to Exchange Online. After the migration is done check whether the shared mailbox is listed under the Exchange admin center.

As we all know migration of data can be a difficult task and requires skills and experience to migrate all the data safely and securely. So, choosing the right provider is an important decision in the overall migration process. And after considering all the different factors, Apps4Rent will be the perfect choice for you. Over the past 15 years, they have successfully completed various migrations like Exchange to Office 365 migration, SharePoint Online migration, and many more. They even provide cloud desktop services with the help of which one can access their data from anywhere at any time. Get to know more about Windows virtual desktop pricing in detail.