1. Introduction
Companies of all sizes and industries planning to migrate Dropbox to OneDrive can ensure 100% success and security with a structured migration plan. And to create a proper plan, it is crucial for your IT team to understand the use case, factor in the timeline, prioritize the migration goals, and choose the right migration partner.
At CloudFuze, we have 12+ years of experience in creating Dropbox to OneDrive migration success stories for large enterprises. Using our years of insights, we have developed this detailed guide that can help you plan the migration strategically.
Watch our migration video for a detailed walkthrough of the migration process.
You can also explore our Dropbox to SharePoint Online migration guide if your company’s plan to move to Microsoft 365 also includes SharePoint as one of the target clouds.
2. Dropbox vs OneDrive
From most Dropbox vs OneDrive comparisons, the main insights businesses can draw is that both storage drives are on a league of their own. While Dropbox is a standalone user-oriented cloud storage drive that integrates with 3rd party apps, OneDrive is a part of the cohesive Microsoft 365 cloud suite ecosystem and is designed to integrate seamlessly with all the apps under the cloud suite along with other 3rd party apps.
From our years of learning, the use case pattern we have identified is businesses that are planning to consolidate their cloud operations into a single platform benefit the most from Dropbox to Microsoft 365 migration investments.
3. Challenges for Businesses to Migrate Dropbox to OneDrive
Regardless of the size of the migration, every business planning to move from Dropbox to OneDrive faces several challenges. Here are some of the common challenges that your IT team must overcome to make the migration journey smooth and error-free.
| Migration Challenges | Solutions from CloudFuze |
|---|---|
| Migrating user accounts and user data (file and folders) at a high volume. | Our enterprise-grade solutions are designed for large-scale migrations that ensure zero downtime during high-volume migrations. |
| Replicating sharing permissions and access levels in OneDrive and SharePoint Online. | We ensure accurate replication of sharing permissions between internal users and with external collaborators. |
| Links breakage in the destination cloud post-migration. | With our link fixing tool CloudFuze Hyperlink Fixer, we help businesses avoid the issue of broken links. |
| Migrating files exclusive to Dropbox, including Dropbox Paper. | We migrate Dropbox Paper files in the .DOCX format that OneDrive and SharePoint Online supports. |
| Overcoming OneDrive’s file and folder naming convention limitations. | Our migration tool automatically adheres to OneDrive’s limitations and eliminates the need for manual intervention. |
| Protection of company’s data during the migration. | We do not store any type of customer information right from the pre- to post-migration stage with high-level security measures, including the use of OAuth 2.0 for cloud authentication and REST API for data transfers. Learn more about our security. |
4. Planning Dropbox to OneDrive Migration
The success of any Dropbox to OneDrive data migration project depends on the plan. Therefore, your plan must be proper and include action items that focus on all critical aspects of migration.
1) Pre-Migration Analysis
The basics of proper migration planning are getting the pre-migration analysis right. If you do not have a lot of information about your company’s source cloud, perform an in-depth pre-migration analysis on it.
The analysis should help you gain clarity in several important areas, including:
- The total number of users
- Collaboration structure between users
- Workflows of individual users and teams
- Types of number of files and folders
- Admin/hierarchy structure
- Available API calls
2) Planning the Scope of Work
After the pre-migration analysis is complete, plan the scope of migration. What data does your company need to migrate? Are you planning a partial or complete cutover? Make strategic decisions in these areas. Here are some of the items to include in the scope of work:
- Total number of users (internal and external) to migrate
- Total data size of the files and folders to migrate
- Types of metadata to migrate
- Total number of hyperlinks to migrate
3) Developing a Communication and Change Management Plan
Helping users adapt to the change is one of the most important focus areas for IT managers. And to do this, having a solid communication and change management plan is a must! When planning,
- Decide the communication methods and schedules (to understand the migration progress).
- Understand the tool’s migration reporting features and plan validation stages.
- Train users for the cloud transition by helping them understand OneDrive’s features and functionalities.
4) Planning the Roadmap and Timeline
After you have planned the basics, the next step is to plan the migration roadmap and timeline. Based on the scope of work you have finalized, plan the roadmap by considering each stage of the migration, such as user mapping and batch creation, one-time migration, delta migration, validation, etc. Also, plan a timeline that sets realistic expectations on the project completion dates.
5. Preparing for the Migration
After the planning part is done, the next course of action is to prepare for the migration. Here are some of the action items that can help you ensure proper preparedness:
1) Choosing a Dropbox to OneDrive Migration Tool
Preparing for the migration starts with choosing the right cloud migration tool. The tool you choose determines what your company can migrate, the security parameters implemented, and much more. A proven tool like CloudFuze Migrate can help you perform a completely successful Dropbox to OneDrive migration.
2) Mapping Users Accurately
It’s only when the users are accurately that the entire migration becomes accurate and proper. To ensure 100% mapping accuracy, we recommend using the CSV mapping approach. Our migration team can help you follow best practices, such as using correct syntax and folder paths, to create perfect mappings.
3) Readying Admin Login Details
Since cloud authentication is the first and one of the most important steps of migration, make sure to be ready with the login details of both Dropbox and OneDrive admins. At CloudFuze, we secure the cloud authentication process with the secure OAuth 2.0 protocol.
6. CloudFuze’s Role in Dropbox to OneDrive Migration Success
Apart from the technical capabilities of our migration tool listed above, we enable businesses to migrate data from Dropbox to OneDrive successfully with our managed migration service. Through this, our migration team handholds your IT team in every step of the way while ensuring 24/7 technical support during and after the migration.
From consulting and validation to change management, our migration team is involved in all the critical stages of the migration to ensure your IT team does not oversee any roadblocks.
7. CloudFuze vs Competitor Dropbox to OneDrive Migration Tools
As one of the industry leaders in Dropbox to OneDrive migrations, we offer some of the most advanced migration tool capabilities. Check out how our tool functionalities compare against other options:
| Migration Features | CloudFuze | Competitors |
|---|---|---|
| One-time migration | Yes | Yes |
| Dropbox Paper migration | Yes | No |
| Inner folder permissions migration | Yes | No |
| Inner file permissions migration | Yes | No |
| Root folder permissions migration | Yes | Yes |
| Root file permissions migration | Yes | Yes |
| Long folder path trim | Yes | No |
| Embedded links preservation | Yes | No |
| Shared links migration | Yes | No |
| External shares migration | Yes | No |
| All versions migration | Yes | No |
| Selective versions migration | Yes | No |
| Special character | Yes | No |
| Delta migration | Yes | No |
| Comparison delta | Yes | No |
| Suppressing email notification | Yes | No |
8. Steps to Migrate from Dropbox to OneDrive
In this section, we have laid out all the steps for migrating user accounts and files and folders from Dropbox to OneDrive using our cloud migration tool, CloudFuze Migrate. Follow along for a clear understanding of the entire process.
Step 1: Create a CloudFuze Account
To get started, log into our webapp to test migrate. You can create a new CloudFuze account here if you don’t have one.
Step 2: Add the Dropbox Cloud to CloudFuze
Next, in the “Business Clouds” section of the webapp’s dashboard, locate the Dropbox cloud and click on “Add Cloud.”
Step 3: Enter Dropbox Admin Credentials
Enter the login credentials of the Dropbox’s admin account to add the cloud to our migration platform.
The entire cloud authentication process is carried out via the secure OAuth 2.0 protocol to ensure we do not store login information.
Step 4: Add the OneDrive Cloud to CloudFuze
Similarly, locate the OneDrive cloud on the “Business Clouds” section and click on “Add Cloud.”
Step 5: Enter Microsoft 365 Global Admin Credentials
Add the Global Admin login credentials of your organization’s Microsoft 365 license.
Step 6: Check and Ensure Both Clouds are Added
Visit the “Manage Clouds” section and check and ensure both clouds, Dropbox and OneDrive, are added properly. If one or both clouds are missing, restart the cloud adding process.
Step 7: Configure the Source and Destination Clouds
Navigate to the “Team Migration” panel and choose Dropbox as the source and OneDrive as the destination cloud.
Step 8: Create the User Mapping
Next, map the user accounts from Dropbox to OneDrive. Our tool offers two types of mapping options: auto-mapping and CSV mapping. You can choose auto-mapping if you want to create straightforward user mapping without customizations.
However, for specific user mappings and customization options, CSV is the option we recommend. Create user mapping on a CSV file and upload it to our webapp by clicking on the CSV upload icon.
Our tool will automatically validate the CSV mapping and indicate if you have mapped properly by using correct syntaxes.
Step 9: Choose the User Mapping Pairs to Migrate
After mapping the user accounts, select the mapping pairs that you want to test migrate.
Step 10: Check Permissions Mapping
Our tool automatically maps permissions from the source to the target cloud accounts based on the email aliases. However, if you want to map the user permissions in a particular way, you can click on the edit icon of each pair and make changes accordingly.
Step 11: Choose Permissions and Other Features to Migrate
In the “Migration Options” section, choose the types of features (associated with Dropbox users and their files/folders) you want to migrate to OneDrive. You can also configure other types of migration parameters, including migration job type, migration job name, file type exclusion, email notifications suppression, and notifications about migration progress.
Step 12: Preview and Start the Migration
Preview all the parameters you have configured and click on “Start Migration” to initiate the process of moving files and folders from Drobox to OneDrive.
Step 13: Monitor the Migration
Our tool will automatically redirect you to the “Reports” panel upon starting the migration. Here, check the latest updates of the ongoing migration. The “In Progress” status indicates that the data transfer process is in progress.
The status will display “Completed” after all the user accounts and their files and folders have been migrated from Dropbox to OneDrive.
9. Post-Migration Activities
After completing the one-time migration, there are a couple of other steps to complete. Check them out below:
1) Delta Migration
Since incremental changes accumulate during one-time migration (as a result of users continuing to work), it is important to transfer them via delta migration. With this process, you move only the incremental changes without re-migrating all over again.
2) Migration Validation
Validate each user batch’s one-time and delta migration as and when they completed. We recommend using the migration reports our tool provides to validate comprehensively. Check for key parameters, such as the size of data migrated, user count migrated, and more.
3) Post-Migration Integration
Identify the third-party apps previously integrated in Dropbox, find those in Microsoft store, and manually integrate them in OneDrive. This step helps create a familiar environment in OneDrive post-migration and enables users to adapt quickly.
4) User Onboarding and Go Live
After completing post-migration integration, onboard the users to OneDrive. Make sure to track OneDrive adoption metrics like folder and file creation, usage of other apps in Microsoft 365, etc., to understand how efficiently users are able to adapt. Based on the analysis, schedule post-migration training sessions for further assistance.
Migrate Dropbox to OneDrive with CloudFuze
Leverage our industry-leading cloud migration solution to migrate your company’s entire Dropbox data and users to OneDrive securely and successfully. From pre-migration to post-migration stages, we offer unparalleled performance, security, and support to ensure you do not go wrong in any area.
Contact us for a free and no-obligation demo of our Dropbox to OneDrive migration tool.
10. Dropbox to OneDrive Migration FAQs
1. How to copy files from Dropbox to OneDrive with versions?
You can use our migration tool, CloudFuze Migrate, to transfer all or selective versions when migrating files from Dropbox to OneDrive. All versions get migrated accurately with optimal security.
2. How to determine if a Dropbox to OneDrive migration tool is secure?
The tool must implement robust security practices, such as performing the data transfer through REST API, authenticating the clouds through the token-based approach of OAuth 2.0, and adhering to GDPR, SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001, and other regulations/certifications.
3. How to move Drobox files to OneDrive without breaking the links?
Our link fixing tool, CloudFuze Hyperlink Fixer, ensures you do not break links when migrating files and folders to OneDrive from Dropbox or from any other source cloud.
4. How to migrate data from Dropbox to OneDrive without downtime?
Use an advanced cloud migration tool like CloudFuze Migrate that uses dedicated instances with high performance. The tool also helps you avoid the API throttling issue which is the most common reason for downtime.
5. How to map Dropbox users to OneDrive for migration purposes?
Using the CSV mapping approach is one of the best ways to map users from Dropbox to OneDrive accurately. The biggest advantage of choosing the CSV mapping option is that you get the flexibility to customize the mapping paths as per your requirements.
6. What are the steps to preserve permissions during migration?
CloudFuze Migrate makes it easy to preserve sharing permissions during migrations. When configuring the migration in the tool, select permissions and other metadata in the Migration Options stage. Using the tool, you can migrate internal as well as external sharing permissions.
