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Prepare to roll up your sleeves and block out a chunk of time on your calendar: transferring data between two Microsoft 365 accounts is a manual, complicated, and time-consuming process. This is not an automated or supported process. We'll get you started.
Caution
There will be down time during the process where email, Skype for Business and a public website hosted on Microsoft 365 won't work. Users will get new user names and passwords, and they'll need to reset up Outlook.
Only transfer data manually using the instructions in this topic if one of the following applies:
You need to change to a plan in a different service family.
Your company name changed, and you decided to create a new subscription and migrate your data because you want to use different initial domain names.
You need to combine multiple subscriptions into one new one.
Important
If you need to
change your subscription plan
and can use the Switch plans wizard, or if you need to transfer to a new subscription plan in the same subscription family even when the Switch plans wizard doesn't work, you don't need to manually transfer your data, and there is no down time.
Purchase the plan you want to move to.
When you sign up, you specify the company name to use in the initial domain names:
yourcompany
.onmicrosoft.com,
yourcompany
-public.sharepoint.com, and
yourcompany
.sharepoint.com. You need to use a different
yourcompany
name than you did for any existing subscriptions.
> [!NOTE]> It typically takes a minimum of several months after canceling a subscription to release the initial domain names that use
yourcompany
from our systems. Even if you plan to save all your data from your old Microsoft 365 subscription, and cancel that subscription, the old
yourcompany
value is not immediately available for use in a new subscription.
Remove your custom domain from your old Microsoft 365 subscription.
Follow the
required steps before you remove a domain
to remove the domain name from user email addresses and remove DNS records for email and Lync for the custom domain. If you host your public website on Microsoft 365, you'll also need to remove the CNAME record that points to it.
> [!IMPORTANT]> After you remove the MX record that routes email to this custom domain, email will stop working until you have added the domain to your new account, set up the new MX record, and set up your users. When you remove the DNS records for Lync, Lync will stop working. And after you remove the CNAME record that points to your public website, it will not be available.
Remove the domain
.
Set up your custom domain for your new subscription, and set up your users.
Set up your new subscription, including creating the required DNS records for your custom domain.
Create your users, with email addresses on your custom domain.
Transfer data from your old subscription to your new subscription.
Sign in to both accounts in separate browser windows:
Right-click your browser icon, and open two private browser windows. You can use different credentials in the two windows to sign in on both accounts.
Transfer administrative settings between subscriptions
Transfer team site structure and data
Transfer a public website between subscriptions
Transfer administrative settings between subscriptions
Cancel the subscription for the plan you're done with by calling Microsoft Support for Microsoft 365.
Verify that your new subscription is working and all data has been transferred.
Contact customer support
to cancel your old subscription.
Transfer administrative settings between subscriptions
Go to the following pages on each account, and set up the new account based on the old account's settings.
If you are transferring data from Microsoft 365 to Microsoft 365 Midsize Business or Microsoft 365 Enterprise, the admin pages are structured differently. Watch a
Video: Introducing Microsoft 365 Enterprise
, and go to the following places to look at admin settings.
For Microsoft 365 Enterprise and Microsoft 365 Midsize Business:
Location
Purpose
Admin
>
Microsoft 365
>
Service settings
Select each tab for settings for mail, sites, Lync, user software, passwords, community, rights management, and mobile.
Admin
>
Exchange
Exchange Online settings
Admin
>
SharePoint
SharePoint Online settings
Admin
>
Skype for Business
Additional Skype for Business settings
For Microsoft 365 Small Business
Location
Purpose
Transfer a public website between subscriptions
If you have a public website hosted on Microsoft 365, you need to save it and re-create it on your new subscription.
If your public website is hosted at a DNS hosting provider, no changes are required. It will not be affected by your transition.
To save a document library or list content from a SharePoint Online environment to file shares or to a local computer, see
Manual migration of SharePoint Online content
.
The Public site migration app can't transfer data to a different subscription.
Transfer team site structure and data
There are several ways to save or transfer team site data:
You can save the old site as a template and import the template into the new site.
To transfer documents, first manually recreate your hierarchy on the new site. Then you can open both SharePoint team sites at the same time, open both document libraries with Windows Explorer, and copy and paste the documents. See
Video: Copy or move library files by using Open with Explorer
.
To transfer list data, save a
list template
, and use the saved template to re-create the list on the new site.
To save a document library or list content from a SharePoint Online environment (OneDrive for Business or team sites) to file shares or to a local computer, see
Information about manual migration of SharePoint Online content
.
Transfer users' data between subscriptions
Email:
Ask users to
move their email, contacts, tasks, and calendar information
after you set up your new subscription. They can get to their old email by using their initial user name, such as sue@contoso.onmicrosoft.com.
OneDrive for Business data:
Ask users to Copy/Sync
OneDrive for Business content to their computer
, and then add it back to their new subscription.
OneNote
Ask users to
Back up OneNote
and to
Restore notes from a backup
to their new subscriptions.
