Transfer Emails from Bluehost to Office 365 (Microsoft 365) Effortlessly

  Aldrich Calvin
Aldrich Calvin
Published: May 20th, 2025 • 6 Min Read
Bluehost users often switch to Office 365 for its comprehensive business tools (Teams, OneDrive, Exchange Online) and to address Bluehost's feature limitations and security concerns. This article explores reasons for migration, outlines a manual transfer process, and introduces an automated tool for a smoother transition from Bluehost to Office 365.

Bluehost is a veteran in providing domain registration and web hosting services. However, ‌the absence of core business-related tools for storage, communication, etc, has made its users consider other options like Office 365. Therefore, there has been a dramatic increase in queries asking for a method to migrate email from Bluehost to Office 365. In light of such situations, we came up with this article, which includes reasons, manual solutions, and a professional utility for doing the data transfer. Before diving into the solution, let’s go over the causes of the switch.

Reasons to Migrate Email from Bluehost to Office 365

Office 365 has inbuilt solutions for any business demand, which can be frozen for a fact by the following.

  • Want a platform to conduct online meetings and collaborate across the globe? Use Teams.
  • Need a secure place to store data? Get OneDrive storage.
  • Require a dedicated server that expands according to demand. Exchange Online is there for you.

Moreover, all of these key functionalities are not present within Bluehost.

Additionally, the lack of features is not the only thing holding Bluehost back. It has suffered from a fair share of controversies and security breaches like the ones mentioned below:

  • Bluehost voluntarily suspended the web pages of some of its customers, resulting in widespread outrage, as mentioned in an article in Newsweek magazine.
  • The Syrian Electronic Army breached Bluehost’s security, leading to many customers losing access to their webmails and other vital data.
  • In 2019, a top-rated magazine (WebsitePlanet) published a shocking revelation that many hosting services, like Bluehost, included a massive client-side vulnerability.

Source: Bluehost. (2023). In Wikipedia.

So now it is all the more clear that switching to a more secure webmail provider is necessary. First, learn the basic manual method to accomplish our task.

Perform a Bluehost to Office 365 Migration Manually

Here are the steps to switch your webmail service from Bluehost to Office 365, now called Microsoft 365.

Step 1. Log in to the Office 265 admin center, add users, then purchase and assign licenses for them.

Step 2. Create a TXT to verify and set up your domain in Microsoft 365.

  • Log in to the DNS provider site(Bluehost).
  • Find the location to add the TXT record and update the Name, value & TTL.
  • In the Domains section of the Admin Center, click on verify.

Step 3. Modify the nameserver records on the Domain registrar’s website to comply with the following values:

  • 1st-nameserver: ns1.bdm.microsoftonline.com
  • 2nd-nameserver: ns2.bdm.microsoftonline.com

Step 4. Create a CSV file containing the Email ID, Username, and Password of all users whose data needs to be moved from Bluehost to Office 365.

Step 5. Establish a migration endpoint to synchronize Office 365 with the source email system.

Step 6. Make a migration batch, and then start the migration.

Step 7. Verify by sending a test mail and ask the users to do the same.

Step 8. Modify the MX record to enable your email system to start delivering mail to Office 365 instead of Bluehost.

Step 9. Confirm the re-routing and stop email sync from the original server.

Step 10. Delete the batch migration once everything is set up and working properly.

Source: What you need to know about migrating your IMAP mailboxes to Microsoft 365 or Office 365

This method is highly complicated and time-consuming; to avoid it, we have a better solution.

Automated Tool to Migrate Email from Bluehost to Office 365

Among all other data transfer tools present in the market, SysTools IMAP to Office Migrator is unique in itself. This is because it has been designed with the goal of simplifying the process of migrating email data from Bluehost to Office 365.  Additionally, the utility makes ‌data shifting easier by combining modern algorithms with an easy-to-use interface.

Download Now  Purchase Now

Go through the steps given below and learn to use the tool for yourself.

Step 1. Download and install the utility then on the main screen choose IMAP as source and Office 365 as target.

SysTools IMAP to Office Migrator - Select source IMAP and target Office 365 to migrate email from Bluehost to Office 365

Step 2. Navigate to the Workload section and mark the box next to emails, then choose the required Date filter.

SysTools Migrator - Workload selection and Date filter for Bluehost to Office 365 migration

Step 3. In the left side menu, head to the Source section and pick Other from the IMAP server field; then, provide the necessary information in the given space.

SysTools Migrator - Source IMAP server configuration for Bluehost email

Step 4. Type in the Admin email ID and the Application ID, once validated press “Next”

Destination Office 365 credential validation

Step 5. Either directly upload a premade CSV file or download a template first and customize it and upload the resulting file.

User CSV upload for Bluehost to Office 365 migration

Step 6. In the end, validate the chosen users and press the Start Migration button.

Starting Bluehost to Office 365 migration process

Next, we discuss a few more reasons to choose the tool over the tedious manual technique.

The Outstanding Facilities of the Software

This tool is the ideal option for Bluehost to Office migration, as it offers a number of advantageous features such as.

  • The ability to transfer the data of 20 users simultaneously.
  • Maintain all folder structure and permissions
  • This tool provides you with in-depth reports of the ‌entire migration.
  • Experience no data loss during data transition.
  • Utilize the advanced Date filter feature and move folders from a specific time period.

Conclusion

We initially discussed the justification to migrate email from Bluehost to Office 365, followed by the default method. Furthermore, a tool was highlighted that could be used to make the migration process simpler, thereby eliminating any difficulties that arise from manual approaches.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long of a downtime can I expect during this Bluehost to M365 transition?

We aim to keep downtime as short as possible. Although it is quite difficult to do a manual migration in a live environment, with the help of the tool, it is very much possible to perform a zero-downtime data transfer. Admins should inform their users that a brief cutover period occurs when MX records are switched. Once it passes, the mails start flowing as usual to their new recipient.

What happens to my Bluehost email account and services after migrating to Microsoft 365?

It is entirely up to you whether you want to retain Bluehost hosting for your website or cancel it fully and use Microsoft’s domain distribution facility. Keep in mind that the old emails remain on Bluehost’s servers unless you delete them manually. Moreover, it is well well-known practice among admins to keep the Bluehost account active until migration is complete and successful.

Does the migration into O365 from a Bluehost server really save money?

Although the costs can vary, it is a general trend that when compared on a purely dollar basis, the M365 plan is more expensive. However, the higher overall cost of the cloud platform balances out when we take into account the numerous features present there.