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Migrating Shared Mailbox to O365 Group?
If we have a shared mailbox, lets say a years worth of history of emails, several folders in it, and we want to "migrate" over to an O365 Group:
- Does the conversations/inbox of a group have folder capabilities like a Shared Mailbox?
- Can you drag and drop/copy old emails into the group somehow?
- Can you drag and drop/copy conversations into your mailbox somehow?
I had assumed the Group conversations acted like a shared mailbox, but now that we are testing it out, I dont really see that at all.
That's a no on all questions. If you are used to the way you dealt with messages in the shared mailbox, stick with it. If you want to add some group-based functinality, such as Planner, you will have to adapt to the conversation based style groups use, and forget about (sub)folders, rules, categories, etc.
I am a little confused about the answers here. It seems to me the ,air function of office365 groups and shared mailboxes are the same.
That is a mailbox that can be accessible between multiple users. Okay groups don't support folders and rules. I don't currently have that in my shared mailbox, I have to believe there is some migration path from shared mailbox to office 365 groups.
- The reality is that there is not such a migration path...for now Microsoft has only provided a way to migrate from distribution lists to Groups but not from Shared mailboxes to Groups. See this: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Migrate-distribution-lists-to-Office-365-Groups-Admin-help-787d7a75-e201-46f3-a242-f698162ff09f?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US
IMO the confusion stems from the fact that virtually all MS advertising (and also many technical documents) about Groups says that every Group has an associated shared mailbox.
This is technically true, but unfortunately the standard features of the associated shared mailbox are not accessible: no folders, no sent mail, no contacts, etc.
In practice the only accessible part of the underlying shared mailbox is the inbox, which is used to implement the Group conversation space. (The calendar is accessible too, but in a peculiar way...)
Moreover, the concept of "subscribing" to the Group makes the shared mailbox act in practice as a Distribution List.
All this said, will the features of the shared mailbox associated with a Group be ever fully accessible? I am afraid not, because this would require to change drastically the present implementation of the Group conversation space.
Hence I am afraid that we will never have a migration path from Shared Mailboxes to Groups.
But of course I could very well be wrong... ;-)
That's a no on all questions. If you are used to the way you dealt with messages in the shared mailbox, stick with it. If you want to add some group-based functinality, such as Planner, you will have to adapt to the conversation based style groups use, and forget about (sub)folders, rules, categories, etc.
- These are really good questions I would like also to know...I thik the answer to most of them is no, but I would like a confirmation from someone of the team or the Groups gurus over here
- Was a bit suprised by the answers, much of the marketing I've seen referred to a group as getting a shared mailbox, which I read to mean a "shared mailbox", might be better to refer to it as like a "shared conversation list" or something.
