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Migrating from Amazon WorkMail

Beta

The migration tool is currently in QA. If you want to participate as a beta tester, please get in touch.

Amazon has announced end of support for WorkMail on March 31, 2027. Our web-based migration tool handles both single-mailbox and bulk migrations directly from WorkMail to Kopano Cloud.

Migration modes

The tool supports two migration modes:

Mode Use case WorkMail auth method
Single mailbox Migrate one mailbox at a time Individual mailbox credentials
Bulk migration Migrate multiple mailboxes in one run WorkMail migration administrator account

For bulk migrations, source and target email addresses do not need to match. For single-mailbox migrations, the source and target address must be identical — if they differ, use bulk migration instead.

Pre-migration checklist

On Kopano Cloud

  1. Create your domain and all target mailboxes in the Manage console.
  2. Disable the target mailboxes in the Manage console before starting the migration. This prevents IMAP/ActiveSync clients from delivering new mail to an empty mailbox during the transfer.
  3. Do not update MX records yet. Keep mail flowing into WorkMail until the migration is complete.

On Amazon WorkMail (bulk migration only)

Bulk migrations require WorkMail's "Migration mode" to be active:

  1. Log in to the WorkMail console.
  2. Navigate to Organization → Migration → Enable Migration Mode.
  3. On the same screen, assign a migration administrator account. This account is used by the tool to access all mailboxes without individual credentials.
  4. Prepare the list of mailboxes to migrate — the migration tool provides instructions for exporting this list from WorkMail.

Single-mailbox migrations do not require Migration mode; you authenticate directly as the mailbox owner.

Running the migration

Dry run is enabled by default

The importer runs in dry run mode by default — no data is written to the target mailboxes. Always perform a dry run first to verify connectivity and mailbox mapping, and to get a realistic estimate of how long the full migration will take. You can duplicate a migration run in the tool to re-run it with dry run disabled.

  1. Log in to the Webshop and open the Manage console.
  2. The Manage console displays a link to the migration tool once it has been activated for your account.
  3. Follow the tool's guided workflow to configure the source (Amazon WorkMail) credentials, mapping and submit the migration job.

Post-migration cutover

Lower DNS TTLs in advance

24–48 hours before the planned cutover, reduce the TTL on your MX and autodiscover records to 300 seconds. This minimises propagation delays when you flip them.

Once the migration completes and you have verified data integrity:

  1. Re-enable the mailboxes in the Manage console.
  2. Update the following DNS records for your domain to point to Kopano Cloud — do this in a single change so clients and mail flow cut over together. The exact values are shown in the domain overview in the Manage console, see Using your own domain for reference.
    • MX — routes inbound mail to Kopano Cloud
    • Autodiscover (autodiscover.<yourdomain>) — lets Outlook and mobile clients automatically discover the new server settings
  3. Notify users to reconfigure their mail clients using the client setup guides.