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Sid_F

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Exchange mailbox move

My company has acquired a company with a few hundred users. I need to create AD accounts in my environment and mailboxes. The mailboxes will obviously be empty.

I need to import their mail from their old exchange server to their new mailbox and also migrate the email domain. The old and new ads are in separate forests. Some colleagues have suggested simply exporting PST files however this seems a very basic way of doing it with lots of manual processes. What is most simplified way ideally automating as much as possible.
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Adam Brown
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Delete the mailboxes you've created in your AD and perform a cross forest mailbox move. (https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/exchange/2010/08/10/exchange-2010-cross-forest-mailbox-moves/ covers how to do this.) The mailbox move method is the preferred one, since exporting PSTs breaks a lot of things in the mailbox and is actually more complicated than moving the mailbox from one Exchange forest to another.
You can use Quest for Exchange migration tool. Easy to implement and use. However it is a paid tool.
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Sid_F

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Which option in the link is for my requirement thanks
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ASKER

Just to confirm this is mailbox move only, I don't want to join domains or get involved in complex ADMT :  )
Is there a AD 2 way trust in place between your 2 companies. If not I think the mailbox export to pst, is probably the best way. you can use exchange PowerShell to export all the mailboxes to pst and then import to the new mailboxes in your domain. this is really a simple process with PowerShell and doesn't require to much effort on your part. hopefully the mailboxes aren't huge because pst file don't always play nice when the mailboxes are really large. the other option is to use the software Amit mentioned earlier in his suggestion.
Hello,

If those are few hundred users, Export /import method is best. I have done something similar few years ago for exchange 2010.

I followed these steps:
1) Ask users to export their data to PST with Alias name(use unique property either alias or login ID which suits you) as pst file and, and copy to their homeshare.
2) Ask users to start using your new mailbox in your ENV. Outlook Anywhere will be required if they still login with old AD account.
3) Use PST capture tool to collect them at one location in their ENV.

 link: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/use-the-pst-collection-tool-to-find-copy-and-delete-pst-files-in-your-organization-7a150c84-049c-4a9c-8c91-22355b35f2a7?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US 

4) Copy those PST to your network location and run PS1 script to import them to their mailbox.
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ASKER

I think asking a few hundred users to manger their own migration would be challenging and also impacts confidence in IT. Maybe for a 20 users network but I would not consider it as an option for several hundred users.
Ya, that seems a right approach unless you have access to acquired company Infra.
 Good luck with your activity.
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Sandeep Kumar
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Thanks to other undertaking an export and import into a different exchange environment, don't forget to also transfer the exchange legacydn value from the old mailbox to the new one. It will save a lot of user frustration as mails bounce with NDR