Dropbox to SharePoint Migration Guide

Overview

This Dropbox to SharePoint Migration Guide shows you how to migrate your Dropbox files and folders to SharePoint Online using the Cloudiway platform.

What's Migrated

The following items are migrated from Dropbox to SharePoint:

Limitations

The following items are not migrated or have limitations:

• Dropbox Shared Links: Shared links are not migrated and must be recreated in SharePoint.
• Dropbox Comments: File comments are not migrated to SharePoint.
• Dropbox File Requests: File request links are not migrated.
• Dropbox Integrations: Third-party app integrations are not migrated.
• External Collaborators: External users must be re-invited in SharePoint.
• Dropbox Showcase: Showcase presentations are not migrated.

Prerequisites

To perform the Dropbox to SharePoint migration, you need admin access to both platforms.

Dropbox Requirements

Microsoft 365 Requirements

Migration Process

The Dropbox to SharePoint migration follows these steps:

Step 1: Create Connectors

Create connectors for both Dropbox and Microsoft 365.

Dropbox Source Connector

Go to Connectors > New, select Dropbox as connector type and select Files.

Click the Get Access Token button to authorize Cloudiway to access your Dropbox account.

You'll be redirected to Dropbox. Log in with your administrator account and approve the permissions requested by Cloudiway.

Once authorized, your connector is created and ready to use.

Microsoft 365 Target Connector

Create a Microsoft 365 connector for the target SharePoint. Go to Connectors > New, select Microsoft 365 and Files.

Click GRANT ADMIN CONSENT to authorize the Cloudiway application to access your Microsoft 365 tenant.

Step 2: Fill User List

To retrieve or upload your Dropbox users, select the User List tab under the Files product. There are three ways to populate the migration list.

Option 1: Discovery (Get List)

Under MIGRATION, click on the Get List option to discover all Dropbox team members:

Select your source Dropbox connector and click GET to start the discovery process. All Dropbox team members with their root folders will be listed.

Option 2: CSV Import File

The second way to populate the migration list is to upload a CSV file.

Check this article for generating the CSV file correctly: How to fill the Users/Groups CSV file

Click MANAGE > Import:

Click UPLOAD to import the user list.

Option 3: Manual Creation

The third way is to manually create an entry. Click the MANAGE tab, and from the drop-down list click Create.

Step 3: Configure Target Location

Configure where Dropbox content will be migrated in SharePoint. You have several options:

1. Migrate to a SharePoint site document library
2. Migrate to a specific folder within a document library
3. Migrate to OneDrive for Business (for personal folders)

Assign Target Connector

Select users in the list and from the menu, click on MANAGE, then Assign Target to assign the Microsoft 365 target connector.

Set Target Location

Configure the target SharePoint site URL and document library name in the Target Name field.

Step 4: Mapping Table

The mapping table converts Dropbox user emails to Microsoft 365 accounts. This ensures permissions are correctly migrated.

Navigate to Settings > Mapping Table to verify that:

• All Dropbox users have a corresponding Microsoft 365 account
• Email addresses are correctly matched
• External collaborators are mapped if needed

Step 5: Audit

The audit is optional and purely informative. You do not have to run it unless you want to see how many files and folders you have in Dropbox.

This feature reports information about the Source Dropbox account:

• Number of files
• Number of folders
• Total data size

To Audit a Dropbox user, in User List, select it and click MIGRATION > Audit.

Step 6: Preprocessing

The preprocessing step creates the target SharePoint sites and document libraries if they don't exist.

To run preprocessing, select the users and click MIGRATION > Preprocess.

After preprocessing completes successfully:

Step 7: Run Migration

Start the migration to copy Dropbox files to SharePoint.

Migrate to Specific Folder

It is possible to split and reorganize your content during migration.

In particular, you may want to migrate only specific folders or to migrate content to a specific folder. You can refer to the following article to determine how to configure the migration platform for these specific scenarios:

How to migrate files from or to a specific folder

Exclude Folder

If you want to exclude different folders from the migration, enter the Folder ID or Folder Path in the exclusion settings.

Delta Pass

Cloudiway supports delta passes for Dropbox migrations. After the initial migration:

• Only new or modified files since the last migration are copied
• New folders are created
• The platform does not duplicate content

Frequently Asked Questions