OUR SERVICES

Email Archive Migration

Consolidate your ecosystem under a single, secure and compliant roof.

Microsoft continues to raise the bar on email security and compliance. That makes it harder and harder to justify the additional costs and complexities of third-party email archiving solutions.
Breaking free of these often intentionally locked-in platforms may not be easy, but the rewards are significant. We’re here to smooth your email archive migration journey and make sure you enjoy all the cost, functionality and security benefits of a unified Microsoft estate.

Your needs

Email is the lifeblood of your organisation. You need it to function as an integrated part of your technology ecosystem, playing by the same security and governance rules as everything else.

You’re likely already paying for cutting-edge email security and compliance features as part of your existing Microsoft subscription. It’s time to take advantage of those to unify your ecosystem and stop duplicating efforts. Consolidate your admin, reduce your overheads, increase productivity, and improve security and compliance coverage and response times. Say goodbye to data siloes and bring your email home.

Our solution​

As Gold certified Microsoft partners with decades of migration experience, getting your email data out of third-party solutions and into your Microsoft environment is all in a day’s work. What sets us apart is our commitment to achieving more than just a successful migration.

Our goal is to help you fully leverage the functionality available within Microsoft to not just replicate, but improve on the email archiving capabilities you had before. Together, we’ll help you achieve a secure, compliant and consolidated environment, and lay the foundations you need to take advantage of future innovations.

What’s included?​

Clarity

On Microsoft’s capabilities and security and compliance approach.

Advice

On security and compliance from both technical and legal experts.

Design and deployment

Of the migration to Microsoft online, including legacy data extraction, preparation, mapping, clean-up and import.

Alternative archives

With ongoing journaling if necessary.

Future proof progression

That positions you for optimal security and compliance and prepares you for future innovations and technologies.

A fully managed, end-to-end process

Led by an experienced project manager.

A competitive fixed price

For the deployment phase.

Discuss your email archive migration challenge with us.

Our email archive migration credentials

  • 11 years’ experience in complex cloud migrations 
  • 7 Gold Microsoft Partnerships 
  • Charter Member in Microsoft Content Services Partner Program
  • Extensive experience in highly regulated sectors 
  • Email archive migration experience at scale; some of our largest projects have involved migrating over 180TB of legacy email archives into a cloud-based solution

Our favourite challenges

Embracing Microsoft cloud for email retention requires a mind shift from the old days of traditional archives. Especially if you’re fully embracing Microsoft 365 security features.

As you transition from your third party solution we can help you with:

  • Legacy email with no logical home in Office 365
  • Surfacing legacy content for eDiscovery
  • Clearing out the ROT (redundant, outdated, trivial)
  • Aligning with retention and compliance
  • Establishing ownership of emails (senders/recipients)
  • Transferring from third party security features to native Microsoft 365

Legacy email archives can slow down cloud adoption by creating accessibility, compliance, and security challenges. Migrating email to Microsoft 365 centralises data, making it easier for users to access historical emails within the tools they already use. It also ensures that emails are protected by Microsoft’s built-in security features, while governance tools like retention policies and eDiscovery help organisations meet compliance requirements. 

By eliminating outdated archive systems, businesses can simplify IT management and fully embrace the benefits of a modern, cloud-first approach.

Decommissioning legacy email archives can be complex, with several key challenges to consider:

  • Lack of a clear destination in Microsoft 365 – Some legacy email may not fit neatly within Microsoft 365’s structure, requiring careful planning for preservation and compliance.
  • eDiscovery and legal hold requirements – Ensuring historical emails remain accessible for legal and regulatory purposes without disrupting current workflows.
  • Removing redundant, outdated, or trivial (ROT) data – Identifying what needs to be migrated, archived, or deleted to optimise storage and compliance.
  • Aligning retention policies – Mapping legacy retention rules to Microsoft 365’s built-in policies to maintain compliance.
  • Establishing clear ownership – Defining who is responsible for migrated emails, especially when original senders or recipients are no longer with the organisation.
  • Transitioning from third-party security features – Replacing legacy security and compliance tools with native Microsoft 365 capabilities while maintaining protection.

With the right strategy and expertise, organisations can overcome these challenges and move away from costly, outdated archive platforms without compromising security or compliance.

Without a defined strategy, migrations risk compliance gaps, data loss, or unnecessary costs. A structured approach ensures alignment with security policies, retention needs, and operational requirements.

Microsoft 365 offers a range of built-in features to help organisations manage email retention and compliance, including:

  • Retention policies – Automatically retain or delete emails based on organisational or regulatory requirements.
  • Litigation holds – Preserve email content indefinitely to support legal and compliance needs.
  • eDiscovery tools – Enable advanced search and retrieval of emails for legal, regulatory, and investigative purposes.
  • Microsoft Purview Compliance Centre – Centralised management of retention settings, policies, and audit logs.
  • Sensitivity labels – Classify and protect emails based on content sensitivity and compliance rules.
  • Audit logging and reporting – Track email access and modifications to maintain security and oversight.

These features ensure organisations can effectively manage email preservation while maintaining security and compliance.

Migrating from legacy email archives to Microsoft 365’s built-in retention management offers several key benefits:

  • Cost savings – Eliminates third-party archive costs and maximises the value of Microsoft 365 licensing.
  • Improved security – Ensures emails are protected by Microsoft’s advanced security and compliance tools.
  • Simplified compliance – Centralises retention policies, eDiscovery, and legal holds within Microsoft Purview.
  • Better user experience – Provides seamless, searchable access to emails without relying on outdated archive platforms.

Preserving metadata during journal data extraction is critical for maintaining email integrity, compliance, and eDiscovery capabilities. Best practices include:

  • Using specialist extraction tools – Ensuring metadata fields (such as timestamps, message headers, and legal hold status) are retained.
  • Maintaining the original chain of custody – Documenting data movement and ensuring secure, auditable transfers.
  • Validating extracted data – Running quality checks to confirm accuracy, completeness, and consistency of metadata.
  • Mapping metadata to Microsoft 365 – Aligning extracted data with Microsoft Purview’s retention and compliance structures.
  • Preserving journal envelopes – Retaining envelope metadata to maintain sender/recipient context for legal and compliance purposes.

Following these best practices ensures that email records remain legally defensible and fully searchable in Microsoft 365.

From Our Clients

Great team of responsive and skilled professionals that feel like an extension of our IT team. A partner not a vendor.

Global Food Distribution Company

Head of Infrastructure and Deployment

The Cloud Essentials’ team have shown they are a partner, not just a supplier. The company we acquired advised that the IT integration project was the most successful part of their conversion to join us, which is a reflection on everyone involved. Thank you!

Head of Infrastructure

Job well done! I appreciate your knowledge, expertise, and teamwork/engagement which contributed to a successful migration/cutover.

Client

"Cloud Essentials performed a mail migration for our Institute of Astronomy, from a legacy Microsoft Exchange server to the University Microsoft 365 Tenancy. Cloud Essentials were extremely professional from start to finish. They understood our Higher Education context. They were very flexible when setting the timeline when we had some challenges in our availability to support the work. Their staff were helpful and friendly. They demonstrated great expertise and guided us throughout the process. The migration itself was smooth and fast. Great service by a great team! I would recommend and use their services again."

Higher Education Institution

Project Manager

“This has been very refreshing. And Cloud Essentials have been not just an implementer, but a trusted partner. They’ve effectively become our ‘SharePoint arm’ within the company. They haven’t taken a cookie-cutter approach with something from another environment, but have genuinely wanted to find the best way to help us.”

CIO, Prominent law firm

Colin Short

"Cloud Essentials carried out a very professional service. They stayed cool, calm and collected. I’m sure it won’t be the last time we work with Cloud Essentials."

Global chemical company

Client

It is no small achievement to reduce a corporate enterprise data footprint this significantly in a responsible, well planned and executed manner.

Information Manager, Alexander Forbes

Pierre Blignaut

“Cloud Essentials understand the importance of carrying out a project the right way, no matter the size of it. They don’t take any short cuts.”

Tenant Migration client

“This was a smooth migration with very little impact on the business during the changeover, we would definitely use Cloud Essentials and the Binary Tree toolset again if we need to do another migration!”

CFO, Empact Group

Alan Quinn

Our experience

We’ve been around the migration block a few times – here are a few of our project highlights.

The only way to really know if we’re a good fit is to get in touch, so let’s have a chat! One of our friendly experts will get straight back to you. You never know, this could be the beginning of a great partnership.
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