Migrate Public Folders to Office 365 Tenant With Tech Expertise Solution

  

Chirag Arora   
Published: Dec 17, 2018 • Office 365 • 5 Min Read

Public folders are originated for shared access purpose and render an effective approach to gather, manage, and share data with other employees in the organization. They help in organizing information in a proper hierarchical structure, making it easier in browsing. On the other hand, Microsoft Office 365 offers bundle of online tenants with no maintenance headache. Therefore, enterprises put forward a demand to migrate public folders to Office 365 account. This post is going to guide users with solution over the same and that too totally for free.

Why Public Folders Migration to Office 365 Is Needed?

Public folders are not same the Office 365 groups. These Office 365 Groups are the recent collaboration offered by Microsoft whereas on the other hand, Public Folder is an old technology. Microsoft does not render a systematic user interface for a smooth Public Folders migration. Well, following are the reasons due to which company’s individuals prefer using Office 365 Groups instead of Public Folders :

• Microsoft O365 groups render a dedicated platform for the conversation in Groups. It enables individuals to collaborate with other officials in the Group and maintain the dedicated space. On the other hand, mail-enabled public folders store all the projects associated with data communication that can be viewed by entire team.
• A proper platform for the documents collaboration purpose results in a dedicated files tab in Office 365 Groups. This tab displays all documents as well as the mail attachments from the team site of SharePoint Group. Talking about the Public Folders, documents are unavailable in a single view. This means that users have to look for a specific file in the folder to migrate public folders to Office 365 account.
• By default, users get a shared calendar just after the Groups creation in Office 365. They are having the option of updating this calendar whenever needed. But, on the other hand, public folders are utilized for sharing timetables and schedules only.
• Just within a second, assigned users in Office 365 are granted with the permissions automatically after their demand. On the other hand in Public Folders, administrators have to manually assign the permissions of all users licenses.
• One can access their data on mobile through internet connection in the case of Microsoft Office 365 but, this is not at all possible with Public Folders.

There exists some disadvantages in Office 365 groups also and they are mentioned-below:

• The folder hierarchical structure in O365 tenant is entirely flat.
• There are only two roles in Office 365 groups i.e., owner and member.

All the above defined cons and pros of Public folders and Exchange Online tenant describe the need to migrate public folders to Office 365 step by step.

Prerequisites Before Export / Convert Public Folders to Office 365 Account

The migration of public folders to O365 tenant demands for following prerequisites to be fulfilled :

• The end user should be an executive of Enterprise Management role group.
• Beware from all the keyboard shortcuts for performing and reading instructions thoroughly. This ensures that the requirement for migration is completed.
• Public folder size should not exceed 2GB. If it is so, split it into several public folders.
• The total number of public folders should never exceed from 1000.
• Prior to the Public folder migration, transfer all end user mailboxes.
• Upgrade the Microsoft Exchange 2007 to PowerShell 2.0.

Migrate Public Folders to Office 365 – Let’s Begin

Despite of proper migration planning, administrators and users get stuck when they start with migrating public folders. Therefore, here comes the stepwise method for the same, assisting users with a systematic approach for it :

1. Click on https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=38407 link and download the script for migration purpose. Save all the scripts locally on your PC for executing them in PowerShell in future. Also, you have to download the files that are present on the same website
2. Create a setup for migration purpose by fulfilling the prerequisites described on https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/collaboration-exo/public-folders/batch-migration-of-legacy-public-folders this official site of Microsoft
3. Ensure that none of the orphaned public folder mail and the duplicate public folder objects exists.
4. Verify the email address of SMTP for public folders by making proper use of Active Directory
5. Create a CSV file and public folder mailboxes on the Exchange folder online
6. Begin with the migration procedure and then, generate the downtime request
7. Impose a lock on public folder in the Legacy Exchange server, and migrate all public folders
8. Finalize and verify the migrate public folder to Office 365 process
9. Unlock the public folder, which you have locked in Step (7)
10. Remove all the databases of public folder from the server of MS Exchange

All You Need to Have Is Technical Expertise

The manual method to migrate public folders to Office 365 step by step demands for high-level of technical skills to be present. The individual who is attempting the migration should be well-known with technical topics of Office 365 as well as public folders. Still, if you are not having confidence on your knowledge, we recommend you to take help of third-party applications. If you are a continuous Invorx blog reader, you might be well-know that we hardly recommend use of third-party products. Here, we are suggesting you this for adding & moving public folder to Office 365 because the risk of data loss in high during migration via manual method.