Listonics moves business email from any source, whether Gmail, Google Workspace, hosted Exchange, an on-premises server, cPanel or plain IMAP, into Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace. Mailboxes are pre-copied while staff keep working, the switch happens at a weekend, and an engineer covers the first two working days. Projects are fixed scope and run from AED 2,500 to AED 30,000 depending on requirement.
Part of our guide to Microsoft 365 & Cloud.
Which email platforms can be migrated?
Any of the ones Dubai offices actually run. The most common source is a web-hosting mailbox on cPanel or Plesk that came bundled with the company website, followed by Google Workspace, an older hosted Exchange plan from a local provider, an on-premises Exchange server that is out of support, and plain IMAP accounts on a registrar. Each has its own quirks, and the tooling differs, but the destination is nearly always Microsoft 365, occasionally Google Workspace.
Microsoft documents the supported routes in its guide to ways to migrate multiple email accounts to Microsoft 365, from cut-over and staged Exchange moves to IMAP and Google Workspace batches. We use those native tools where they fit and a third-party migration service where a source is awkward or the volume is large. The choice is made at scoping, and it is priced into the fixed quote rather than discovered on the weekend.
- cPanel, Plesk and registrar IMAP mailboxes: moved by IMAP batch, folders preserved.
- Google Workspace and Gmail: moved with Microsoft's Google migration, labels become folders.
- Hosted or on-premises Exchange: staged or cut-over migration with calendars and contacts intact.
- Microsoft 365 to Microsoft 365: tenant-to-tenant moves after a merger or rebrand.
- PST archives and old laptops: imported so historical mail lands in the right mailbox.
What does the migration include?
Everything between the decision and the first quiet week. We audit the source: how many mailboxes, how large, which are shared or group addresses, which aliases exist, and what forwarding rules and auto-replies are hiding in them. We prepare the destination tenant, including the security baseline, because an empty tenant is the cheapest place to switch on multi-factor authentication and administrator separation. Then the pre-staging copy runs in the background for as long as it needs.
The cut-over is a scheduled weekend. Mail records move, a final delta copy collects anything sent since pre-staging, the old platform is set to forward for a transition period, and the domain's sending authentication is configured so the new mail is trusted rather than junked. Outlook and phones are set up on the Friday. Two engineers' days of hypercare follow, then a documented handover. The Microsoft 365 and cloud page covers the platform work that surrounds it.
- Source audit: mailboxes, sizes, aliases, groups, forwarding rules, auto-replies.
- Destination tenant prepared with the security baseline before users arrive.
- Pre-staged copy while staff keep working on the old platform.
- Weekend cut-over with delta copy, forwarding and sending authentication.
- Outlook, mobile and shared mailbox setup; two days of hypercare.
- Written handover with the decommission date for the old platform.
What usually goes wrong, and how is it prevented?
Three things account for most bad migrations. Sending authentication is skipped, so the new platform's mail lands in recipients' junk folders for a fortnight and the office blames the migration. Shared and group addresses are forgotten, so info@ and accounts@ stop receiving on Monday. And phones are left until the last minute, so half the staff are still replying from the old app on Tuesday. Each is a checklist item rather than a technical problem, and each is on ours.
The fourth is subtler: aliases and distribution lists that exist only in someone's memory. The source audit finds them by reading the platform rather than asking, because nobody remembers the address the accountant set up four years ago until it stops working. Our Google Workspace to Microsoft 365 migration guide walks through the sequence for the most common source in detail.
How long does an email migration take?
For a Dubai office of ten to fifty mailboxes, one to two weeks from scoping to cut-over, with the disruption confined to a weekend. Pre-staging is the long part and it runs unattended; large mailboxes on slow hosting can take several days to copy the first time, which is why it starts early. The cut-over itself takes an afternoon, and mail record changes propagate within hours.
Migrations from an on-premises Exchange server or with hundreds of mailboxes take longer because there is more to verify, not because the copy is slower. Where an office cannot lose a weekend, a staged migration moves mailboxes in groups with coexistence between the platforms, at the cost of a period where calendars across the two groups do not fully see each other.
What does email migration cost in Dubai?
The project is quoted as a fixed scope after a free assessment, and Listonics projects run from AED 2,500 to AED 30,000 depending on requirement. A small office moving a handful of IMAP mailboxes sits at the lower end. A larger firm moving from an on-premises server with shared mailboxes, archives and a security baseline to build sits higher. Licences for the destination platform are a separate monthly cost paid at the vendor's published rate and are always shown on their own line.
What moves the price is mailbox count and size, the source platform, how many group and shared addresses exist, and whether old PST archives need importing. What saves money is deciding what not to move: a departed employee's mailbox can be exported to an archive rather than licensed and migrated. The Microsoft 365 migration cost page sets out the quote structure in more detail.
What happens to the old email platform afterwards?
The old email platform forwards for a month, then it is closed on a date written in the handover. The month matters: it catches senders who used an old alias, gives anyone who missed a folder a chance to retrieve it, and lets the new platform's backup complete a first full cycle. Microsoft 365 does not include a backup of your mailboxes, which is why we connect one during the project; the cloud backup services page explains the options.
Closing the old platform deliberately also stops a common cost: offices that migrated a year ago and are still paying a hosting provider for mailboxes nobody opens.
Why choose Listonics for email migration in Dubai?
Because we run the office around the mailbox, not just the copy. The same engineer sets up the tenant security, the devices, the backup and the phones, so the migration is one project with one point of contact instead of a hosting provider, a licence reseller and a support desk pointing at each other. The quote is fixed, the checklist is written down, and Monday morning has a name to call.
Frequently asked questions
It is quoted as a fixed scope after a free assessment, and Listonics projects run from AED 2,500 to AED 30,000 depending on requirement. Mailbox count and size, the source platform and the number of shared addresses move the figure most. Destination licences are a separate monthly cost shown on their own line.
No. Mailboxes are pre-copied while staff keep working, then a final delta copy at cut-over collects anything sent since. The old platform forwards for a month afterwards as a safety net. Folders, calendars and contacts move with the mailbox; on Google sources, labels are reconstructed as folders.
Yes, and it is the most common migration we do in Dubai. Hosting mailboxes are moved by IMAP batch with folder structures preserved, then the domain's mail records are pointed at Microsoft 365. Calendars and contacts on those platforms usually live in Outlook locally and are handled separately during the desktop setup.
In practice, minutes rather than hours. Mail records are changed at a weekend and both platforms accept mail during propagation, with the old one forwarding to the new. Staff open Outlook on Monday to a mailbox that already holds everything. The visible change is the sign-in, not a gap in mail.
Yes. Outlook profiles and mobile mail are configured on the Friday before cut-over, and the old account is removed from phones so nobody keeps replying from it. Shared mailboxes are added to the people who need them. This is the step most migrations skip and the one that causes the most Monday-morning calls.
Not if sending authentication is configured, which is part of every Listonics migration. The domain's SPF, DKIM and DMARC records are set for the new platform before cut-over so recipients' mail systems trust it from the first message. Skipping this is the most common reason a migrated office finds its mail in clients' junk folders.
Written by Srinivasan Ramachandran, Founder, Listonics · Last reviewed October 8, 2026