Secure Ways to Migrate Public Folders Between Office 365 Tenants

In an organization, the public folders of the Exchange are the most crucial files. Because the public profile contains a lot of important information like emails and other data. In some scenarios, the Exchange admin wants to move their Exchange public folders to Office 365 tenants. In this article, we will provide you with a solution to a typical query on how to, Migrate Public Folders from Exchange to the O365 environment.

Introduction

Office 365 is a cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). It provides a single place to do all the tasks regarding business purposes and personal work. Under the O365 Suite, there are many applications, including Word, Powerpoint, Excel, Outlook, OneNote, etc. Because of so many features presented in O365, many users are going towards Microsoft O365. On the other hand, the Exchange is a mail server whose role is to deliver email messages sent through one mail account to another. 

When the Exchange admin wants to show the public folder’s information to all the teams at that time, they need to Migrate Public Folders to Office 365 tenants to give them access to see all the information.

In some instances, Office 365 users also want to know how to perform Office 365 tenant to tenant migration to transfer the data between Office 365 tenants. So, in the following part, we will discuss the methods of migrating Exchange public folders to Microsoft 365 tenants.

Native Method to Move Public Folder Mailbox From Exchange to Office 365 Sub-Users

You can execute it with the scripting method that we are providing here. Follow these steps to move your public folder to Microsoft 365.

Method 1. By Using Microsoft Public Folder Migration Script

Method 2. Export Public Folder into PST Through Outlook

Follow these two manual methods to migrate your public folders to your Office 365.

Method 1. By Using Microsoft Public Folder Migration Script

Consider the below-given steps one by one carefully to execute your given task.

• Download the public folder migration script from the Microsoft official website.
• Save these scripts at the exact location on your local system where you will run PowerShell.
• Afterward, download the Mail-enabled Public Folders – directory sync script. Then download both files which are available in this script.
• Download SourceSideValidations.ps1 PowerShell script also. Save it at the same location where you saved the earlier script.
• In PowerShell, run the SourceSideValidations.ps1 script. It helps to scan the Exchange. If any issue occurs there, run this .\SourceSideValidations.ps1 script to fix that.
• Check that there are no duplicate folders or corrupted ones.
• Check your SMTP email address before processing the migration task.

Now, follow Microsoft suggested reference library guide, to complete the process of migrating public folders to O365.

Method 2. Export Public Folder into PST Through Outlook

Here we have divided this method into two stages, follow them to migrate your public folders in Exchange to Office 365.

Stage 1. Export Public Folder into PST format through Outlook

• Launch the Outlook Application and go to File Menu.
• Click on the Open & Export option, and hit the Import/Export icon.
• Select Export to a file and click on the Next button.
• Choose the Outlook Data File (.pst) format and hit the Next button.
• Afterward, select the public folder from the list.
• Browse the location where you want to save Exchange public folders in PST file format.

Stage 2. Import the exported PST file into O365.

• Download the public folder migration script.
• Run the script .\Export-PublicFolderStatistics.ps1 MyServerName.csv to generate a CSV file.
• Map source public folders to Office 365 to follow the below script .\PublicFolderToMailboxMapGenerator.ps1 MailboxSize ImportFilePath ExportFilePath.
• Now create a public folder in Microsoft 365 based on the mapping file.
• Create a public folder in each public folder’s mailbox with the help of the New-PublicFolder cmdlet.
• After that, import the PST file into O365 using the Import/Export wizard.
• Finally, Use the Exchange Administration center to assign public folder permissions.

You can follow these methods to Migrate Public Folders into Microsoft 365. But using these methods, you can face some restrictions, which we have described in the later part.

Restrictions to Using the Manual Method

Here are the limitations when you perform the manuals to move the mailbox of the public folder to O365.

• There are high chances of data losses if any of the steps have not been used accurately by a user.
• Due to its technical interface, there is a need for a high level of technical knowledge to execute the manuals.
• These methods are very time-consuming and lengthy for the users.

These are some limitations that you may face during the execution of these methods. To overcome these, you can opt for a professional approach, Office 365 Migration Tool, which will help you to move public folders to your O365. In the following part, we are going to discuss professional utility.

Best way to Migrate Exchange Public Folder to Microsoft 365

Office 365 Migration Tool is a reliable solution to back up and migrate O365 email data, including all the attachments of the mailboxes. Also, you can save your Microsoft 365 data in different file formats and move the mailbox to various email clients. In addition, the software provides some additional benefits that we have accomplished in the next part.

Advanced Features of the Office 365 Email Backup Software

Here we are mentioning the additional characteristics of the utility, which are as follows.

• The tool allows you to export O365 mailbox data into numerous file formats such as PST, EML, MSG, JSON, MBOX, PDF, TXT, DOC, HTML, JPG, etc.
• This utility permits users to move Office 365 emails to various email clients like Gmail, Thunderbird, Yahoo Mail, O365, Zoho Mail, Hotmail, AOL, IMAP, iCloud, and others.
• It offers a Naming Convention Feature, which allows selecting the naming format of the result backup file.
• The software backup all O365 email items like Contacts, Journals, Calendars, etc., along with the emails.

Final Words

In this write-up, we have discussed how you can Migrate Public Folders of Exchange to Office 365 tenants. We have provided you with all the possible manual ways to execute your task. Moreover, there were some limitations to using these methods. So, we advised you to switch to a professional tool, Office 365 Email Migration Tool, which gives you an easy way to move your public folder mailbox between Office 365 tenants.