Moving your business email to Zoho Mail
Moving email is mostly a DNS job plus a copy job. Do the copy first, switch the mail routing second, and nothing gets lost. Plan on an evening or a weekend.
Step 1: Pick a plan
Zoho lists Mail Lite and Mail Premium (email only) and the Workplace plans (email plus files and office tools). Prices and storage per user change and vary by region, so read the current pricing page rather than trusting a blog. Zoho also lists a free plan for up to five users on one custom domain, but it is limited by data center, and the page says IMAP, POP and ActiveSync are not included. That matters if you rely on a desktop mail app or want to use IMAP tools. A free trial of the top edition is offered without a credit card.
Step 2: Sign up and verify your domain
- Create the account and add your domain in the Admin Console.
- Prove you own it with one of Zoho's methods: one-click for some providers (GoDaddy, Cloudflare, IONOS), a TXT record, or a CNAME record. Zoho does not recommend the HTML file method.
- For TXT, add the record with the host set to @, wait an hour or two, then click Verify.
- Create your mailboxes and aliases (info@, sales@) before you go further.
Step 3: Copy the old mail first
Zoho's Data Migration tool can pull mail from any server that supports IMAP.
- In the Admin Console, open Data Migration and start a new migration. Choose IMAP.
- Enter your old provider's IMAP server and port (993 with SSL is typical). Look these up in your old provider's help pages.
- Choose folders and a date range, then add each user with their old username and password, or upload a CSV.
- Start the migration and watch for failures. Keep the old passwords unchanged until it finishes, as Zoho requires.
Zoho notes that old accounts using only a login that blocks IMAP, or servers with untrusted certificates, may fail. Zoho's help page lists troubleshooting for this.
Step 4: Prepare the DNS records
You will change these at whoever hosts your DNS. Use a low TTL if allowed.
- MX: for the zoho.com data center, mx.zoho.com (priority 10), mx2.zoho.com (20) and mx3.zoho.com (50). Other regions use a different ending, so copy the values shown in your own Admin Console. Delete the old provider's MX records, because a lower priority number would keep mail going to the old place.
- SPF: one TXT record on the root:
v=spf1 include:zohomail.com ~all. You may have only one SPF record per domain. If other services also send as you, merge them into that one record. - DKIM: in the Admin Console go to the domain, Email Configuration, DKIM, Add. Pick a selector name and key length, copy the generated TXT value, publish it at
selector._domainkey, then click Verify.
Cutover day checklist
- Confirm every mailbox exists in Zoho and the first migration pass is complete.
- Swap the MX records. Allow up to 24 hours for the change to spread.
- Send a test email from outside the company to each address and reply to it.
- Run the migration's Sync option (if shown for your account) to catch mail that arrived at the old server in between.
- Add the new account to each phone and laptop.
- Publish SPF and DKIM, then send a test to a Gmail account and check "Show original" for SPF and DKIM pass.
- Keep the old plan for a week or two as a safety net, then cancel it.