2018-03-09

Are you fed up with looking for a perfect and reliable solution to import iCalendar to an Office 365 account? Are you aware of the simple method to add ICS to Office 365 in just a few clicks? If no, then in this post, apart from the manual method that has some limitations, you will get to know about an easy solution for the same. However, in this post, both the methods are discussed so you can choose between them.

iCalendar is the universal format used to store the calendar file in the ICS format. It is basically a plain text file that contains all its related details like beginning and ending times, title, description of event, location etc. This file format is mainly used to send meeting invitations and used by several email applications like Outlook, Lotus Notes, Gmail, Mozilla Thunderbird etc. But in some circumstances, a user needs to switch from one email client to another, for example, Office 365. In addition, to open and access calendars anywhere a user wants, one needs to import ICS to Office 365 account. In this post we’ll look at the possible solutions to add iCalendar to an Office 365 account.

How to Import ICS to Office 365 Using Manual Method?

Switching from a desktop-based application to a web-based application is always beneficial. After this, it becomes easy for the user to access calendars anywhere they want without any hassle. Now, to import iCalendar to Office 365 account, a user needs to follow the steps mentioned below:

Step 1: Transfer ICS file into Outlook
To import ICS file of Thunderbird to Exchange Online, a user first needs to move ICS file to Outlook and after that, import it to Office 365.

  • To begin, you need to go to the location where ICS file is located and the default location is:
    C:UsersadminAppDataRoamingThunderbirdProfiles70pvsl2z.defaultMailpop.gmail-1.comEMAIL-IDCalendars
  • Then, from the Import and Export Wizard, choose Import an iCalendar or vCalendar option and click Next
  • After that, click on the Browse button in order to add the ICS file and click on Open button
  • Here, two different options are displayed in front of you i.e. Open as New or Import button. You have to select the Import option and start the process. Then, selected ICS files are imported successfully to Outlook account

Step 2: Export iCalendar file into PST format

  •  Now, choose the Outlook Data File (.pst) to save the ICS file from the Export Wizard dialog and then, click on the Next button
  • Then, click on the Browse button to choose the destination location and click on the Finish button
  • Now, to get the required PST file click on the Browse button
  • The Default location on the system is:
    C:UsersadminDocumentsOutlook Filesbackup.pst

Step 3: Add Outlook PST file into Office 365 account

After exporting ICS to PST format successfully, its time to import Outlook PST file into Office 365 account. Now, to do the same, there are two manual solutions available i.e. via Network Uploading and Drive Shipping. But both the manuals are very lengthy, time-consuming and not at all a reliable solution.
Drive shipping means that you copy the PST files to a hard disk drive and then physically ship the drive to Microsoft. When Microsoft receives your hard drive, data center personnel will copy the data from the hard drive to a storage area in the Microsoft cloud. The Office 365 Import service copies the PSTs from the storage area to user mailboxes. Using drive shipping to import PST files to user mailboxes is one way to migrate your organization’s email to Office 365.
Network upload method The Network upload method is a Microsoft method to import PST to Office 365. A technically sound user can try this method to import their PST file data to Office 365 cloud. To use this method, you should download Azure AzCopy tool first. The import process is very long and time-consuming.

The method that we have listed above (Network & Drive Shipping) are quite complicated if the person is not technical enough to understand. So, to ease up the work we have listed top 3 products that move PST to Office 365 account. 

  1. DataHelp PST to Office 365 Migrator
  2. PST to Office 365 Importer
  3. EmailDoctor OST to Office 365 Converter

Conclusion

Office 365 is a web-based application offers various services to its users like access to data anywhere, free up storage space on the local machine, etc. All such benefits make this application more popular among the users. Thus, users want to import iCalendar to Exchange Online to avail all such advantages.

About the author 

Lily Martin