Exchange Public folders were introduced as a method of creating a collaborative space for sharing information within a workgroup or organization. They were used to share calendars, documents, and contacts in the absence of a mail-enabled feature. In later versions of Exchange, public folders were mail-enabled, allowing users to send and receive emails from them. Public folders work similarly to a container in which you can store files and other information that other users with access to those files can view. It is a quick and simple way to collect, organize, and share information with the employees of the organization. Unlike a Shared Mailbox, a public folder does not have an associated email address. Previously, public folders had their own public folder database. When they were mail-enabled, public folders were integrated into the mailboxes using database availability group (DAG), and the previous architecture was done away with. A public folder’s permissions can be assigned and removed by an Exchange administrator, and they can be shared among multiple users in a specific group or team to collaborate on a project. It is important to understand that public folders have a deep hierarchy, which Exchange administrators can define and assign ownership status to different parts of the hierarchy to reduce administrative burden. The delegated owners can then manage permissions directly from Outlook. In this article, we’ll look at the challenges of migrating Exchange public folders to Office 365, as well as how EdbMails Exchange public folder migration tool can help.
What are the advantages of using Public folders?
- Using a public folder makes project organization easier.
- They serve as a collaboration tool in a team.
- Calendars in public folders allow a group of users to track and adhere to a common deadline.
- You can send auto-replies to your clients using public folders.
- They can be made available to all members of the organization.
- There is no need to give multiple users access to mailboxes.
What are the challenges of migrating Exchange public folders?
Many users prefer to migrate to Office 365 in order to take advantage of the cutting-edge collaborative features. When an organization has a large number of public folders, migrating them can be a never-ending task. Before we get into how to migrate public folders, it’s important to first understand the challenges.
- Public folders, as previously stated, are organized in a deep hierarchy, and it is not uncommon for an organization to have a large number of public folders.
- Second, unlike in the past, public folders are now part of mailboxes and do not require a separate database. Users who want to migrate from a legacy version of Exchange to Exchange 2016, 2019, or Office 365 must consider this factor additionally.
- Users may be frustrated by public folder mailbox size limits, and the complex hierarchy may be intimidating if you only want to migrate data selectively from public folders.
- Microsoft’s native method of migrating public folders necessitates the execution of PowerShell scripts, which may not ensure data consistency when migrating from older versions of Exchange to the most recent ones.
- Traditional methods of migrating public folders, or doing it manually without any tools, take a long time.
- Downtime is common, and important resources are tied-up when administrators migrate public folders on their own.
- You cannot view or migrate public folders, if the Exchange database is severely corrupted.
How to migrate Exchange Public Folders to Office 365 with ease?
If you’re looking for a simple way to migrate public folders to Office 365, EdbMails Exchange migration tool is the way to go. Let’s take a look at the advantages of EdbMails over traditional approaches.
- EdbMails displays the public folder structure in a tree-view simplifying the complex folder hierarchy.
- The tool can directly migrate public folders from legacy Exchange versions to Office 365, retaining the folder structure on both the source and target.
- Using the EdbMails tool, you can migrate public folder contents such as attachments, contacts, and calendars selectively by applying filters.
- You do not need to learn or use elaborate PowerShell scripts to perform the migration.
- EdbMails handles Exchange and Office 365 throttling automatically and ensures no downtime. You can continue working while the application migrates everything from the source to the destination without consuming system resources.
- You no longer need to be concerned about Exchange server crashes or corruptions since EdbMails tool can also recover a corrupted EDB file and migrate the public folder contents to Office 365.
EdbMails is an award-winning, user friendly and cost-effective Exchange migration tool
Given the complexities of public folders and their migration to Office 365 or Exchange, it is best to use a reliable and secure tool like EdbMails. The application specializes in Exchange and Office 365 recovery and migration operations and was thoughtfully designed with organizational migration needs in mind. EdbMails is an easy-to-use and inexpensive tool that works on all Windows operating systems and discounts of up to 75%. You can get in touch with 24/7 customer service to request a free personalized demo or to learn more about the product.
Conclusion
Public folders were originally designed for sharing and collaboration, but they were later made mail-enabled, allowing users to send and receive emails from them. Although public folders have their benefits, their deep hierarchy and change in database architecture made migration difficult. Furthermore, the native method of migrating public folders from Microsoft necessitates the execution of PowerShell scripts. To maintain data consistency, a handy tool such as EdbMails, which can simplify public folder migration to Office 365, is required.
EdbMails guarantees a trouble-free public folder migration experience with no downtime and can even handle large-scale migration operations.
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