Leaving Zoho Mail is a two-evening job when it is planned, and a two-week mess when it is not. This is the plan we use when a customer moves to XgenPlus, written so that you can follow it yourself or hand it to us. The only real difference between customers is whether they are on Zoho's free plan, which has no IMAP, or on a paid plan, which does.
Before you start: three things to collect
- The user list. Every mailbox, every group address (support@, sales@) and who receives each. Zoho's admin console lists them under Users and Groups.
- Registrar access. The MX, SPF and DKIM records for the domain live at your registrar or DNS host, not at Zoho. Find the login now; it is the step that stalls most migrations.
- The size. Total mail storage and the largest mailboxes, from the admin console's storage report. It decides which XgenPlus plan each person needs (2 GB to unlimited, mixed on one domain).
Step 1: set up the domain on XgenPlus, in parallel
Add the domain, create the same users and the same group addresses, and verify the domain with the TXT record XgenPlus gives you. Nothing changes for Zoho yet; both services can hold the domain's users at the same time, and only the MX record decides where new mail arrives.
Step 2: copy the old mail
On a paid Zoho plan (Mail Lite and above) IMAP is enabled per user under Settings, Mail accounts, IMAP access. With it on, mail is copied mailbox by mailbox over IMAP into XgenPlus while Zoho stays live, so users keep working. Contacts and calendars export as vCard and ICS from Zoho and import into XgenPlus. From the Premium plan upwards the XgenPlus team runs this copy for you and sends you a per-mailbox count when it is done.
On the Zoho free plan there is no IMAP, so the copy goes through Zoho's export: each user, or the admin, exports mailbox folders as EML or ZIP from Zoho Mail's settings, and the files are imported into the new mailbox. It is slower, and it is the reason we advise free-plan customers to migrate before the sixth hire rather than after: fewer mailboxes, fewer exports. The Startup Desk walks free-plan customers through it.
Step 3: switch the DNS
At the registrar, on an evening or a weekend:
- Replace Zoho's MX records with the XgenPlus MX records.
- Replace the SPF record so it names XgenPlus instead of Zoho (one SPF record per domain, never two).
- Add the XgenPlus DKIM record and remove Zoho's.
- Keep DMARC as it is, or add it if you never had one.
Mail starts arriving on XgenPlus within minutes for most senders and within a few hours for the slowest. Anything that still lands on Zoho in that window is copied across in a final sync the next morning.
Step 4: users sign in
Each user signs in to XgenPlus webmail with the same address, and sets up the phone and Outlook over IMAP or ActiveSync. The autodiscover record means most mail apps find the settings on their own. Old mail is already there from step 2. Signatures, filters and vacation replies are recreated by the user in five minutes; they do not migrate from Zoho.
Step 5: close Zoho
Keep the Zoho organisation for two weeks in case anyone needs an old folder, then cancel the subscription or delete the free organisation. Remove the domain from Zoho last, after the cancellation, so nothing bounces.
What XgenPlus does for you
- On hosted plans from Premium upwards: the IMAP copy, the counts, the DNS records prepared for you, and the final sync, included in the plan.
- On Starter and Starter Pro: the written steps above, the DNS records prepared for you, and support by email and phone.
- For free-plan customers: the export route, one mailbox at a time, with the Startup Desk on the call.
Prices and the comparison with Zoho's plans are on the Zoho Mail alternative page, which also has the form to tell us about your Zoho setup. If you are still on the free plan and counting hires, what breaks at the sixth hire explains why the move is easier now.
