I need to migrate email to Microsoft after initially hosting through Bluehost and am now cancelling them as the host

Question

I purchased a domain and hosting through Bluehost a couple of years ago. I now do not need web hosting but need to keep the email address active. So I need to migrate my emails from the Bluehost domain into Microsoft so I can continue to use it going forward.

Additionally, I need to add licenses, as when I first purchased the product, I did not anticipate needing more licenses. However I now have employees. I set up their email on a trial package but it has expired. And because I have a 1 license program, I can't seem to add them either.

Basically I have two issues, and I am exhausted web searching for instructions, which don't make very much sense to me. I am not at an expert at this at all. And I am really nervous to try to manipulate it and get it wrong.

Thank you very much for any help!

Answer 1

Hi @Eric Finch ,

Welcome to our forum!

In Office 365, each user needs to have a separate Office 365 account with the Exchange Online license.

[https://products.office.com/en-sg/exchange/compare-microsoft-exchange-online-plans

[https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/admin/add-users/add-users?view=o365-worldwide

After that, your users have Microsoft 365 licenses, sign in credentials, and Microsoft 365 mailboxes.

So I need to migrate my emails from the Bluehost domain into Microsoft so I can continue to use it going forward.

If your previous email provider supports IMAP, a suggested way is to use IMAP migration to migrate email accounts to Office 365. The step 2 of the IMAP migration need you to prepare your IMAP source email system and get the information you need to migrate. Here are the detailed steps to do it:

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/What-you-need-to-know-about-migrating-your-IMAP-mailboxes-to-Office-365-3fe19996-29bc-4879-aab9-5a622b2f1481?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US

Meanwhile, you can use the Outlook client (for Windows) to migrate the emails to Office 365. Here are the steps for your reference:

1. Export emails to a PST file.

2. Import the PST file.

I now do not need web hosting but need to keep the email address active.

You can add custom domain to the Office 365 subscription. After that, you can use user@ourdomain as your email address. Check this: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/change-your-email-address-to-use-your-custom-domain-f4d8cae9-6d06-4c4b-b4e5-6581fd05ea82