Shared Mailbox Migration Guide

5 min read Updated on December 1, 2024 Cloudiway Team

Overview

Shared mailboxes are commonly used for team collaboration, support queues, and departmental email addresses. Cloudiway provides dedicated tools for migrating shared mailboxes between Office 365 tenants and handling the differences in Google Workspace's approach to shared mailbox functionality.

What Gets Migrated

  • All emails and folders
  • Calendar items (if applicable)
  • Contacts
  • Mailbox permissions and delegates
  • Send-As and Send-on-Behalf permissions

Office 365 Shared Mailboxes

Cloudiway's migration tool includes a dedicated shared mailbox migration list for transferring shared mailboxes between Office 365 tenants. The setup process mirrors standard mailbox migration.

Setup Steps

  1. Access the Mail Migration section in your project
  2. Locate the Shared Mailboxes section
  3. Use the Manage dropdown to populate the migration table:
    • CSV import for bulk additions
    • Manual entry for individual mailboxes

Automated Detection

The Get List option automatically identifies shared mailboxes in your source environment. You'll need to configure:

Source and Target Connectors

Select the Office 365 connectors for your source and target tenants.

Target Mailbox Type

Choose the type of mailbox to create in the target:

  • Shared - Standard shared mailbox (recommended)
  • Standard - Regular user mailbox
  • Archive - Archive mailbox

Target Email Address Format

Define how target email addresses are constructed using matching rules and target domain.

Domain Considerations

Two Office 365 tenants cannot actively use the same domain name simultaneously. You must use a different domain in the target tenant and apply matching rules other than "Mail Exact Match".

Migration Process

  1. Populate your shared mailbox migration list using automated detection or CSV import
  2. Review and verify the source-to-target mappings
  3. Select the mailboxes to migrate
  4. Choose Pre-Processing to create target shared mailboxes automatically, or skip if targets already exist
  5. Click Start to begin the migration
  6. Monitor progress in the dashboard
  7. Run delta passes for incremental synchronization

Pre-Processing Creates

  • The shared mailbox in the target tenant
  • Required permissions
  • Email aliases based on your configuration

Google Workspace Shared Mailboxes

Google Workspace handles shared mailbox functionality differently than Office 365. There is no direct "shared mailbox" object type in Google.

Google Groups Collaborative Inbox

Google Groups with Collaborative Inbox enabled function similarly to shared mailboxes. These require special handling during migration.

Delegated User Mailboxes

User mailboxes with delegated access are migrated through the standard user migration list with delegation permissions preserved.

Migration Path

For Google Workspace to Office 365 migrations, collaborative inboxes typically become shared mailboxes in the target, while delegated mailboxes can remain as either user mailboxes with delegation or be converted to shared mailboxes.

Best Practices

Inventory First

Run a discovery to identify all shared mailboxes and their sizes before planning migration windows.

Document Permissions

Export and document existing permissions before migration for verification afterward.

Migrate Users First

Migrate user mailboxes before shared mailboxes to ensure permission assignments work correctly.

Test with Pilot Group

Migrate a few shared mailboxes first to verify permissions and access work as expected.

Ready to Migrate?

Ensure your connectors are configured and tested before beginning shared mailbox migration. Run pre-processing first to create target mailboxes, then proceed with data migration.

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