Migrate to Microsoft 365 from IONOS, OVH or Gandi (full 2026 guide)

Traditional European hosters remain competitive on basic email pricing, but Microsoft 365 adds features that, for an SMB, justify the price gap: Office desktop installed on 5 devices per user, Teams with HD video and recording, 1 TB OneDrive per mailbox, and Microsoft Defender anti-spam that filters 99.9% of phishing.

Three concrete reasons we see most often:

• Daily productivity: your team already uses Word, Excel and PowerPoint. With basic email at OVH, they pay for Office on top of email. Microsoft 365 Standard bundles everything for €13.90/user/mo (annual) — often cheaper overall.
• Mobility: Outlook mobile, Teams on smartphone, OneDrive synced with your PC. Traditional IMAP/POP still works but feels dated in 2026.
• Security: native MFA, mailbox encryption, AI anti-phishing, GDPR compliance. On IONOS Mail Basic, you manage DNS security records (SPF/DKIM/DMARC) by hand, without proactive alerts.

If you have under 5 users and only use email for a few messages a week, IONOS or OVH remain reasonable. Beyond that — especially if you invoice clients by email, handle sensitive contracts, or collaborate on files — moving to Microsoft 365 pays for itself.

Before the actual migration, gather these 4 items:

1. Full list of mailboxes to migrate: first name, last name, email address, mailbox size (in GB). A 30 GB mailbox takes more time than a 2 GB one.
2. Admin access at the domain registrar: you need to modify MX records and add SPF/DKIM/DMARC. If your domain is at OVH/IONOS/Gandi, that's the client UI. If NS point to Cloudflare, that's Cloudflare DNS.
3. Passwords or access to source mailboxes: to orchestrate IMAP/EAS copy from the old provider to M365, we need either a global admin of the source tenant (rare at OVH/IONOS), or each mailbox password. For 5+ mailboxes, contact your current provider's support to activate a temporary "impersonation/admin" mode.
4. Plan B in case of bug: before any DNS change, export the entire current DNS zone (TXT export at most registrars). If something goes wrong, you can revert in 5 minutes.

Plan 2 hours of prep for 5 mailboxes, 1 day for 50 mailboxes. The migration itself is largely automated — most of the work is in the preparation.

Here is the sequence we follow at AfricWebHosting to keep downtime under 30 minutes:

1. D-7 — Create M365 destination accounts with a temporary domain (e.g. mycompany.onmicrosoft.com). Not yet connected to your prod domain. This lets your team test Outlook login without touching prod.
2. D-3 — Start background email copy via Microsoft Migration Manager (built into the M365 Admin Center). IMAP sync is progressive: D-3 for the last 30 days of email, then delta every 4 hours.
3. D-1 — Test forwarding and auto-replies: configure temporary rules on source mailboxes to redirect new emails to M365 target mailboxes during the cutover.
4. D-Day, morning — MX cutover: change your domain's MX record to point to *.mail.protection.outlook.com. DNS propagation: 5–30 minutes.
5. D-Day, immediately after — Activate SPF/DKIM/DMARC: publish the TXT/CNAME records specific to your M365 tenant. Without these, outbound emails will land in spam.
6. D-Day — Deliverability check: send a test email from each mailbox to Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo. Confirm none land in spam and that SPF/DKIM/DMARC are green.
7. D+1 to D+7 — Final delta sync + revoke source access: ensure no new email arrives in source mailboxes, run one last delta sync, then deactivate the OVH/IONOS/Gandi accounts.

For 50+ mailboxes, we batch in groups of 10, spaced 24h apart, to allow targeted rollback if a specific mailbox has issues.

1. Wrong MX vs SPF order: if you change MX before publishing the M365 SPF, outbound emails leave from Microsoft but are rejected as spam because the SPF doesn't include spf.protection.outlook.com. Always publish SPF FIRST, then MX.
2. Unmigrated "shared" mailboxes: OVH and IONOS sometimes have "info@" mailboxes in multi-user alias mode that don't appear in the standard list. Verify via SMTP that all public addresses are on your migration list.
3. Forgotten calendars and contacts: standard IMAP migration covers ONLY emails. For calendars and contacts (Outlook: .pst, Apple Mail: .icloud), you need a separate export/import or a tool like MigrationWiz.
4. 30-day IMAP history limit at source: some hosters limit IMAP to the last 30 days by default. Enable "full IMAP" in settings before the copy, otherwise you'll lose history.
5. Third-party apps authenticating via password: your CRM, invoicing software, WordPress that sends mail — all reference the old SMTP server. List them before the cutover, update SMTP settings on D+1.

For 1 to 3 mailboxes, you can reasonably migrate yourself in 4 to 6 hours spread over 1 week. Microsoft Migration Manager is free. Estimate:

• 2h reading Microsoft docs + YouTube tutorials
• 1h M365 tenant configuration
• 1h initial copy (background, you can do other work)
• 30 min MX/SPF/DKIM/DMARC cutover
• 1h tests and validation

Beyond 5 mailboxes, or if you lack DNS expertise, delegating becomes worth it. Our AfricWebHosting migration package starts at €290 (1-5 mailboxes) up to €990 (16-50 mailboxes), with zero email loss and under-30-min downtime guaranteed. It is included in onboarding if you go annual.

For 50+ mailboxes or complex cases (on-premise Exchange to cloud, multi-domain, hybrid with shared calendars), this is a 2-4 week project requiring a detailed plan. Quoted on demand (contact us).

1. Enable 2FA for ALL users in the M365 Admin Center. Without 2FA, a compromised password gives full mailbox access. Set up Microsoft Authenticator for each user (~5 min/user).
2. Configure Defender anti-phishing policies. On Microsoft 365 Premium, it's included and powerful. On Standard, the basic anti-spam is OK but at least enable link analysis (Safe Links).
3. Set up third-party backup strategy. Microsoft 365 does NOT back up emails in the "backup" sense — it does resilience. If a user deletes a mailbox by mistake, it's gone after 30 days. Third-party tools: Veeam, Spanning, Datto.
4. Train users on Teams. Email migration is easy, but Teams really changes habits. 1h group training + an internal PDF guide = high adoption. Without training, your team keeps using only email and misses the benefits.

Migrating to Microsoft 365 is a serious project but not insurmountable. The key is preparation: mailbox inventory, DNS planning, internal communication. The technical phase (copy + MX cutover) is largely automated.

If you want to delegate the migration to us, see the Microsoft 365 page for plans, or order directly with the migration option ticked — we'll come back to you within 24 business hours with a personalised plan.

Specific questions about your case (multi-domain, on-premise Exchange, shared calendars, large PST archives)? Contact us: contact@africwebhosting.com — response within 24h.