Migrate a Mailbox From Microsoft 365 (Office) to SmarterMail

SmarterMail > Domain/User Configuration and Management
This article applies to recent versions of SmarterMail. View articles for SmarterMail 15.x and earlier.
NOTE: As of October, 2026, EWS is no longer a viable method for migrating from Microsoft 365 or similar services (e.g., Outlook.com). Only IMAP or Microsoft Graph are available migration types.

Migrating from Microsoft 365 (Office) is easy. However, there are a few things that aren't as clear-cut as moving from an Exchange server or from a mail service such as Gmail. Below is a step-by-step for anyone migrating from Office 365 to SmarterMail using the mailbox migration utility:

  1. Log in to SmarterMail as a user.
  2. Click on the Settings icon. 
  3. Select Connectivity from the navigation pane.
  4. Find the Mailbox Migration card, and click the Migrate text link to open the migration modal.
  5. Select Microsoft 365 (Office) from the list of services displayed.
  6. By default, SmarterMail will pre-fill some information for you: specifically, it will pre-select the Type of migration to use (Microsoft Graph by default) and the items to migrate over.
  7. If you don't want a particular item to migrate over, such as Notes, simply de-select it on the modal. 
  8. In addition, SmarterMail pre-fills the Server Address used to log in to your Microsoft 365 (Office) account when selecting IMAP as the migration Type. This should not be changed unless absolutely necessary.
    1. When using Microsoft Graph, no Server Address is necessary as the user will need to log in to Microsoft 365 directly, so a separate modal will appear.
  9. Type in the full email address you use to log in to Microsoft 365 (Office) as your Username. For example, JDoe@example.com.
  10. If you are moving to a brand new account in SmarterMail, there's no need to enable "Delete existing SmarterMail mailbox items." If you're migrating to an existing account, enabling this will completely overwrite any existing information in that account with what's being migrated over, completely removing any existing contacts, calendars, etc. If left disabled, the data being migrated over will be "merged" with any existing data in the account.
  11. From there, the rest is easy. Just click the Start button to start the migration process. 
When you do, you'll be asked to sign in to your Microsoft Account. This is because Microsoft has transitioned their services from using standard "plain text authentication" (I.e., using your email address and password) to using OAuth 2.0. As such, you'll need to validate your account with Microsoft in order to migrate information away from services such as Microsoft 365, Hotmail, and Outlook.com. The migration process is the same, it's just the authentication is more robust now.

Using Microsoft Graph
  • Contact groups (personal distribution lists) are not imported. Microsoft Graph does not expose them; individual contacts are unaffected.
  • Notes kept in additional notes folders, such as folders created in classic Outlook, are imported into the default Notes folder. Graph does not expose those folders, so their names and structure cannot be reproduced.
  • Deleted occurrences of a recurring event are reproduced only within a window from the series start to two years after the migration date, or the series end if earlier. A deleted occurrence beyond that window reappears in SmarterMail.
  • Tasks come from Microsoft To Do, which has no percent complete, actual or total work, mileage, billing or company fields. Percent complete is 100 for completed tasks and 0 otherwise; the other fields are left empty. The Flagged Emails list is not imported because its items are mail messages.
  • Contact notes arrive as plain text; Graph does not expose a contact's rich-text notes.
 
Learn more about using SmarterMail for your email accounts and company-wide chat.
Article ID: 2810, , Modified: 10/27/2026 at 10:34 AM

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