Your Guide to Migrate Shared Mailbox to Office 365 Effectively!

Understanding Shared Mailbox Clearly!

A shared mailbox is a mailbox that can be accessed by more than one user. It allows tenant members to view, read, and respond to messages. A shared mailbox email address is not associated with a dedicated user account, meaning no user name and password are associated with a shared mailbox.

Users do not need to assign any license to the shared mailbox because the user of Office 365 tenant use their accounts to access the shared mailbox.

In this type of mailbox, the admin grants the access to the members. When an admin grants access to a particular mailbox members can see it in their mailbox with a separate folder. Microsoft only offers a storage quota of 50 GB for shared mailboxes, which can be limiting for organizations with large volumes of shared email data.

Now, let us take a scenario to understand shared mailbox in depth –

Assume that you are the Head of the Human Resources department of an organization where your assistant also needs to access your mailbox to manage the emails and accomplish the tasks, by using a shared mailbox you can assign access to them to manage your emails and contacts.
This example is a representation of a shared mailbox and from this, we can also able to understand the need for a shared mailbox.

Different Ways to Migrate Shared Mailbox to Office 365

Before knowing the procedure to move Office 365 mailbox to another user account, you have to understand there is no direct way to do this transition. However, you can convert the shared mailbox to Office 365 user mailbox using Exchange Admin Center and using the PowerShell script. Microsoft does not provide any built-in tools for this.

#Solution 1. Convert Shared Mailbox to Regular Office 365 Using New EAC

For the same, you’ll need to access the EAC > navigate to the shared mailbox settings > follow the conversion process. Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you through the process:

Step 1. Login to the New EAC (Exchange Admin Center) and navigate to Recipients > Mailboxes to migrate shared mailbox to Office 365. 

Step 2. Here you will find the list of all the user mailboxes and shared mailboxes. Filter the list and set it to display only the shared mailboxes by clicking on the Filter button.

Step 3. Choose the desired shared mailboxes that you want to convert into regular mailboxes. Click on the display name.

Step 4. Navigate to more options pane, and then click on the “Convert to regular mailbox” option. 

Step 5. It will open the mailbox conversion wizard. Click on the Confirm button to proceed further. 

Know the Challenges with this Solution – 

Migrate shared mailbox to Office 365 is a daunting task with EAC, want to know how? Let’s understand – 

• Limited Features: EAC lacks some advanced features available in PowerShell.
• User Interface: The interface can be unintuitive for some administrators.
• Slow Performance: EAC may experience slow load times under heavy usage.
• Search Functionality: Searching for specific settings can be cumbersome and inefficient.
• Role-Based Access: Managing permissions through EAC can be complex and confusing.

#Solution 2. Use PowerShell Script to Migrate Shared Mailbox to Exchange Online

Another option is to convert the shared mailbox to an Office 365 user mailbox through PowerShell scripts. To do this, we have to use the “Set-Mailbox cmdlet” in which we are going to specify the respective email address as the mailbox identity. You can use the mailbox name as well. However, the email address makes it more unique and removes the chances of choosing the wrong mailbox, which makes it an optimal choice for running in the script.

PowerShell to Migrate Shared Mailbox to Office 365!

Limitations to Migrate Shared Mailbox to Office 365 Via PowerShell –

Here are some of the noteworthy limitations that you can encounter with PowerShell:

1. Overall Complexity of the Process – It becomes technical and complex when the PowerShell is involved. While dealing with this Office 365 Tenant to Tenant migration process, requires the admin to be technically sound to incorporate the PowerShell script into Exchange Online. Mistype or incorrect PowerShell scripts can result in data loss or other issues, which can not be undone later. 
2. Chances of Data Loss Risks in the Process – Executing the PowerShell script to migrate shared mailbox to Office 365 and selecting the respective shared mailbox email address, all these steps require human efforts. Which can also result in human error at the same time. Choosing the wrong shared mailbox can completely change the identity and permissions of the respective users. 
3. Confusion in Permission Handling – Shared Mailboxes often have unique permission settings set by admins, which allows specific users to access the respective mailboxes. While the shared mailbox to Office 365 user mailbox conversion, any confusion can lead to data duplicacy or a breach in data integrity throughout the process.
4. Only Conversion not Migration – Using this method, only administrators can convert mailboxes to user mailboxes. which eliminates the possibility of the coexistence of shared mailboxes. When a shared mailbox is converted to a user mailbox, that shared mailbox no longer exists.

Time to Say Good Bye!

By following the steps outlined in this guide, you can successfully migrate shared mailbox to Office 365. Whether you choose the EAC or PowerShell method, our instructions will provide valuable guidance to have a successful transition. Remember, both solutions have limitations, so whenever proceed with the task using the manual method, first get a backup of all your data, to ensure data continuity.