There is a way of transferring your email accounts over with as little time as possible. It is very important that you follow these steps carefully in order to avoid disruptions to your services. Please note, this guide is for people who already know the basics of moving their email to another provider. If you think that this guide is complicated, maybe it is necessary to opt for an assisted migration instead.
Step 1
If you have access to the DNS records on your domain, please change the TTL to 300 (5 minutes) on the DNS records. By default most DNS TTLs are set to 1 hour or greater. If there is an issue and when it comes to updating the MX records, the most you wait is 5 minutes if there is a mistake. It is important to let the TTL update propagate before you change any DNS records. TTL is known as Time to live. It simply tells the DNS server how long the record caches in the system before the record expires.
Step 2
Order a plan. Hosted Exchange or cPanel hosting from our website.
Step 3
Log in to the global administration area if purchased and office 365 exchange subscription and set up your domain and mailboxes. When setting up your domain, you will need to create a DNS TXT entry to verify your domain. The console will take you through the process and give you a TXT record with the value MS=XXXXXXXXX (where X is a number). You need to add this into your DNS records when this is issued to you via the office 365 portal. If you have ordered a cPanel service, your domain would already be set up.
In cPanel, you can create your email accounts by clicking on email accounts within the emails section. In office 365, you can add the user’s mailboxes and assign the mailbox license by clicking on Users -> Active users and up to top ‘Add a user‘ button.
Our recommendation is to not have the same passwords as your old provider so you know when it comes to add the new account to the system, this will be a different account.
Step 4
Once you have created all the email accounts in Office 365 or cPanel, you can proceed to update the DNS records at your registrar or wait an hour or so before you update the DNS records. If you are transferring your domain over to us, you can update the nameservers to:
- ns1.perthwebhosting.net.au
- ns2.perthwebhosting.net.au
- ns3.perthwebhosting.net.au
If you are maintaining the DNS with your existing provider. You need to update the DNS records at your register to:
cpanel (basic imap/pop3) hosted email:
MX Record 1: mxfilter.pwh.com.au (Priority: 0)
MX Record 2: mxfilter2.pwh.com.au (Priority: 10)
A Record: mail.yourdomain.com.au – replacing yourdomain.com.au with your actual registered domain name.
IP Address: (Shared IP address of the server – The IP address can be located in the New Account Information email which you would have received when your order was activated)
Office 365 Hosted Email:
MX Record – This can be found in your office 365 admin portal user settings and domains. Click on your domain -> DNS Records Tab and under MX it will be something like:
yourdomain-com-au.mail.protection.outlook.com (Priority 0) replacing yourdomain.com.au with your actual registered domain name.
TXT Record – SPF:
v=spf1 include:spf.protection.outlook.com -all
You may need to tweak this record a bit if you have a contact form on a website and emails are sent from your website otherwise, most mail servers will reject the email as it sees the email as spam.
cname Record:
autodiscover.yourdomain.com.au – autodiscover.outlook.com
Before you set up the new accounts or start changing server settings in your mail program, it is best to back up your data. If you use Outlook 365, Outlook 2016 / Outlook 2019 and need to back up your email account, please follow the following steps:
- Open Outlook and go to the File menu.
- Click on the Open & Export option and then select Import/Export.
- In the Import and Export Wizard, select Export to a file and click on Next.
- Choose Outlook Data File (.pst) as the file type and click on Next.
- Select the email address that you want to backup. You can choose to include subfolders if you want to backup the entire folder tree. Click on Next.
- Choose a location where you want to save the backup file and give it a name. You can also choose to set a password for the file if you want to secure it (This is only optional but not necessary). Click on Finish.
- If you have chosen to set a password, you will be prompted to enter it. Enter the password and click on OK.
- Outlook will start backing up your selected folder to the specified location.
- Once the backup is complete, you will have a copy of your email saved as a .pst file that you can use to restore your email to Outlook if needed.
If you are using another mail application, it is best to consult their guides on how to back up the data.
We recommend creating another outlook profile rather than removing the accounts from your existing outlook/mail profile. This is so you can refer back to your old data if required. To set up a new profile for outlook, You need to set this up via the Control panel. Please ensure you close outlook before creating a profile. You also need to clear (or flush the DNS cache) to ensure the computer can see the DNS changes. Sometimes the dns can be cached in your machine or at your modem. DNS cache can be cleared quickly by restarting your modem and computer, using a command prompt to flush out the DNS, or manually changing the DNS to another server such as Google DNS (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4)
When you create a new profile, it should automatically add a new account. Enter the new information and it should connect automatically. If the account fails to connect, the username/passwords will be incorrect or your machine could be still caching the old server. We also recommend trying to log on to webmail in office 365 or cpanel webmail (if you purchased the basic IMAP/POP3 package).
Start outlook in the new profile and let the program connect to your inbox. You can then import the pst file.
