Take your Microsoft 365 documents with you when you move school

Leaving or moving to a new school? Just graduated or started university? Do you need to take your school work or teaching resources with you? Don’t worry, it’s really easy to copy your school Microsoft 365 documents to another Microsoft account.

In this guide, I’m going to show you how to simply and easily copy all of your school OneDrive files from your school Microsoft 365 account to a personal Microsoft 365 account. Once the transfer has completed you’ll have access to all of your school work even after your school Microsoft account has been deleted.

Who should use this guide?

On this page I’ll show you how a teacher or student can copy their documents from a school Microsoft 365 account to a personal account. But these instructions can also be used in several different ways:

• Teachers moving to a new school can copy documents from their current school to their new school.
• Students moving to university or another school can copy their documents to their new school account.
• Administrators can copy documents between two school accounts at the same school.
• Administrators can copy documents from a personal account to a school account.

How to move your files without downloading them first

Normally when transferring files between two Microsoft accounts you have to first download them to your computer or an external hard disk and then upload them to the new location. Luckily it’s not 1995! Instead, I’ll show you how to copy your files between your Microsoft accounts in the cloud — no downloading required.

The advantage of using cloud-to-cloud transfer is that all of the work is carried out online, not on your computer. Using this process means that your files are moved directly from one Microsoft account to the other without having to download all of your files.

Which files will this move?

This process will copy anything stored in your school OneDrive, including:

• All of your OneDrive files and documents.
• Your personal OneNote notebooks.

What does this not copy?

Basically, anything outside of your OneDrive, including:

• OneNote Class Notebooks.
• Microsoft Teams files and assignment documents.
• Your school email.

Use the links above for instructions on how to copy these files from your school to personal Microsoft account.

First Step – sign up for a Microsoft 365 personal account

If you don’t already have one, you’ll need to sign up for a Microsoft 365 personal or family account. You get 5GB of storage for free, which is enough storage for most, or you can upgrade your account for 1TB or more of storage.

How to copy your school documents to a personal Microsoft 365 account

This guide will show you how to copy your documents from your school Microsoft 365 account to a personal one using the free service, Mover.io.

Mover.io is a Microsoft service that copies files directly between two Microsoft accounts meaning you don’t have to download them first. It’s a simple way to transfer files in the cloud with just a few button presses.

So, let’s get started!

1. Sign up for a Microsoft 365 account. If you have 5GB or less of files to transfer you can use a free account. If you have more than that you’ll need to upgrade to a paid account.
2. Go to Mover.io and sign in with your school Microsoft 365 account.

3. The first time you log in to Mover with your Microsoft account, you’ll be asked to give permission to access your files. Choose Yes to continue. Don’t worry, this is completely safe.

4. On the next page, under Step 1: Select Source, choose Manage and then Connect.

5. All of your OneDrive files and folders will now be listed. If you want to copy all of the files in your OneDrive, move on to the next step. If you just want to copy a single folder, click the folder you wish to copy.

6. Under Step 2: Select destination, choose where you want to copy your files to by clicking Authorize New Connector.

7. By OneDrive Consumer click Authorize.

8. If you want to you can enter a display name to make it easier to remember which account is which, otherwise, click Authorise.

9. Now sign in with your personal Microsoft 365 account — the account you want to copy your work to. The process is similar to the one above.
10. Once done, your screen should look like the image below. From here you can choose the folder you want to copy your files to or create a new one using the Create Folder option.

11. Then all you need to click Start Copy to begin copying your files from your school account to your personal account.

Depending on how many files you have, the transfer can take a long time. Because all the work is done in the cloud you can safely close your web browser and your files will be moved in the background for you.

Remember: Your original files will remain in your Microsoft 365 school account and will not be removed.

If you want to see how the transfer is going click Transfer. If some files were skipped for any reason, it will show you why here.

Is it safe to use Mover.io?

Mover.io is owned by Microsoft, so it’s about as safe as you can get. Your files are transferred directly between your two accounts and never stored in an external location.

You can also receive free business level support direct from Microsoft if you experience any problems when using Mover.io, so give it a go.

What if I need to migrate lots of files?

Mover.io also allows administrators to move files and documents between multiple school Microsoft 365 accounts, SharePoint and Teams document libraries, and even Azure storage. Google Drive and Dropbox accounts are also supported, although you cannot transfer between Microsoft and non-Microsoft services.

Are there any limitations?

Mover will transfer almost any files between accounts, but there are a few limitations you’ll want to be aware of:

• Files larger than 15 GB are not migrated.
• Files with a size of 0 bytes (zero-byte files) are not migrated.
• The following characters in file or folder names are removed: " * : < > ? / \ |
• Leading tildes (~) are removed.
• Leading or trailing whitespace is removed.
• Leading or trailing periods (.) are removed.
• Filenames can have up to 256 characters.
• Folder names may have up to 250 characters.
• Total path length for folder and filename combinations can have up to 400 characters.

Let me know how you got on!

Let me know in the comments how your file transfer went. Were there any files that it didn’t move that I could create a guide for as well?