Microsoft's native cross-tenant SharePoint and OneDrive migration moves sites and personal content between tenants without data leaving the Microsoft cloud, preserving permissions, versions and sharing links. It cannot merge into an existing site, run delta passes, or move workflows, apps or labels. EPC Group uses it where it fits.
Last updated: 2026-07-31
EPC Group is a Houston-based Microsoft consulting firm operating since 1997, with six Microsoft Solutions Partner designations and 216+ M&A tenant migrations covering 1.83M users. Governed Microsoft AI, Data & Cloud — since 1997.
Key facts
- Native cross-tenant SharePoint and OneDrive moves run inside the Microsoft 365 cloud — content never leaves it — and leave a redirect at the source URL so existing links and sharing links keep working.
- They are one-and-done moves. The content is moved, not copied. Incremental and delta passes cannot be performed.
- You cannot overwrite or merge into an existing target site. If the site already exists in the target, the migration fails. The same applies to OneDrive: a pre-existing target OneDrive fails the move.
- Hard ceilings: 5 TB of storage or 1,000,000 items per site or OneDrive account. The item count includes files, file versions, folders and list line entries. A site over 5 TB eventually times out and fails while smaller sites in the same batch continue.
- Up to 4,000 accounts can be queued at a time, and that queue is shared between the OneDrive and SharePoint migrations. In multi-geo, each source instance is subject to the same 4,000 limit regardless of how many targets exist.
- Full path limit is 400 characters, measured on the combined source file path plus the new target site or user URL. This is the most common silent failure in the whole process.
- Licensing splits in two. OneDrive is covered by the per-user Cross-Tenant User Data Migration add-on. SharePoint sites need Cross-Tenant Shared Data Migration, sold per 100 GB of data moved with a 20% storage grace allowance, currently to Enterprise Agreement customers only.
- Two hard blockers: Service encryption with Microsoft Purview Customer Key enabled on the source tenant, and source sites set to read-only. Both fail the migration outright.
Quick facts
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Does Microsoft ship a native cross-tenant SharePoint move? | Yes — Start-SPOSiteContentMove family via SharePoint Online PowerShell |
| Does content leave the Microsoft cloud? | No |
| Can it merge into an existing site? | No — target site must not exist |
| Incremental / delta passes? | Not supported |
| Site size ceiling | 5 TB or 1,000,000 items |
| Item definition | Files, versions, folders and list line entries all count |
| Queue depth | 4,000 accounts, shared across OneDrive and SharePoint |
| Path limit | 400 characters, source path plus target URL |
| SharePoint licensing | Cross-Tenant Shared Data Migration, per 100 GB, EA only |
| OneDrive licensing | Cross-Tenant User Data Migration, per user, one-time fee |
| Teams channels included? | No — only the SharePoint site content behind a team |
| ShareGate published list price | $9,995/year flat, unlimited users and data (vendor-published, June 2026) |
The wedge: what a tool vendor cannot tell you
ShareGate's tenant-to-tenant page is the citation currently ranking on this query. It is a well-built page. It also does not mention, anywhere in roughly 4,200 words, that Microsoft ships a native cross-tenant SharePoint and OneDrive migration capability.
That is not an oversight. ShareGate sells a migration tool. Its comparison table benchmarks ShareGate against BitTitan and Quest — three paid tools, with the first-party option absent from the field. A vendor cannot publish "here is when you should not buy our product," and so the one question a buyer actually has on this query goes unanswered.
Two things follow. First, the honest framing is not "free versus paid." Microsoft's native SharePoint path costs money — per 100 GB moved, EA customers only — and on a large estate that can exceed ShareGate's published flat $9,995 annual fee. Second, the real decision is not about price at all. It is about capability boundaries: merge, delta, Teams structure, and metadata fidelity. Get those right and the price falls out of the answer.
The Native-Path Fit Test
The Native-Path Fit Test is EPC Group's five-question screen for cross-tenant SharePoint and OneDrive work. Fail any one test and the native path is not viable for that content. Run it per site collection, not per project — most enterprises end up running a hybrid, native for the bulk and a tool for the exceptions.
| # | Test | Native path passes when | Native path fails when |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 — Merge | Does target content already exist at the destination? | The target site or OneDrive does not exist and can be created fresh by the migration | You are consolidating two departments into one existing site, or the target OneDrive is already provisioned |
| 2 — Delta | Can users freeze for the whole move? | A single one-and-done move with a short read-only window is acceptable | You need pre-seed plus repeated delta passes, or a long coexistence with both sides writing |
| 3 — Scale | Is every site inside the ceiling? | Every site is under 5 TB and under 1M items, counting versions | A single site exceeds either ceiling, or version sprawl pushes item counts past 1M |
| 4 — Scope | Is the content actually a SharePoint site or OneDrive? | Documents, libraries, lists, permissions, versions and sharing links | You need Teams and channel structure, Planner, Microsoft 365 Groups, public folders, or on-premises sources |
| 5 — Commercial | Can you buy the licence? | You are an Enterprise Agreement customer and can purchase Cross-Tenant Shared Data Migration | You are CSP or web-direct and the SharePoint licence is not available to you |
Test 5 is the one that ends most conversations early, and it is the reason so many mid-market tenant migrations use a third-party tool for SharePoint even when the native path would technically fit. Test 1 is the one that surprises people — "we'll just merge the two intranets" is a sentence that rules out the native path in a single breath.
Fidelity: what actually survives each path
This is the table the vendor page does not publish. "Native" means Microsoft's cross-tenant SharePoint and OneDrive migration. "Third-party tool" means the general class of API-based migration tools (ShareGate, Quest, BitTitan, AvePoint, Cloudiway); exact behaviour varies by product and version, so verify against the vendor's current documentation before you commit.
| Attribute | Native cross-tenant path | Third-party tool (general) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Files and folder structure | Moves | Copies | Native moves — source is emptied and redirected |
| Version history | Moves | Usually configurable, often trimmed to N versions | Every version counts toward the 1M item ceiling |
| User and group permissions | Preserved for principals present in the identity map | Preserved via the tool's mapping table | Anyone absent from the map loses access, silently |
| Sharing links | Redirect automatically to the new location | Typically rebuilt | Native redirects persist until the source is deprovisioned |
| Created / Modified / Created by / Last modified by | Preserved | Usually preserved | Confirmed in Microsoft's published migration detail tables |
| Retention labels and retention policies | Not carried | Not carried | Retention settings travel with content only within a tenant; recreate the taxonomy and policies in the target |
| Sensitivity labels | Labels may not render correctly and protection and policy are not present after the move | Varies; commonly stripped | Microsoft's guidance is to remove labels before migration and reapply after |
| Sensitivity labels with user-defined permissions | Blocks the migration entirely | Varies | Must be removed first, manually or with Unlock-SPOSensitivityLabelEncryptedFile |
| SharePoint workflows (2010 / 2013) | Not carried | Not carried | Must be re-created and republished on the target |
| Power Apps and Power Automate flows | Not carried | Not carried | Recreate and reconnect to the target site |
| Apps | Not carried | Not carried | Republish and possibly modify on the target |
| Web parts referencing other sites or services | May break | May break | Audit and rebuild — email, calendar and cross-site web parts are the usual casualties |
| Custom lists and content types | Move with the site | Move; schema fidelity varies by tool | Verify lookup columns and managed metadata bindings after the move |
| InfoPath forms | No native cross-tenant statement; treat as at-risk | Varies; often unsupported | Microsoft's SPMT explicitly cannot migrate InfoPath forms — plan to replace with Power Apps |
| Classic pages and master pages | Site templates including classic sites are supported | Varies | SPMT cannot migrate master pages; treat heavily branded classic sites as a rebuild |
| Site templates supported | Group-connected, modern, classic, communication | Broad | Group-connected targets need Microsoft 365 Groups pre-created in a specific way |
| Teams channels, tabs, apps, Planner | Not included — only the SharePoint site content | Some tools cover Teams structure | This is the clearest capability gap in favour of a tool |
| Guest / external users | Preserved if pre-created in the target and present in the identity map | Varies | Pre-create guests, or external sharing breaks |
| Customer Key encrypted source tenant | Migration fails | Varies | Confirm Customer Key is not enabled on the source before you start |
Two rows carry most of the risk. Sensitivity labels are a Purview problem disguised as a migration problem: you strip protection to migrate, then reapply it in a tenant whose label taxonomy does not yet exist. And version history is a scale problem disguised as a fidelity problem: a library with 500,000 files and five versions each is 2.5 million items, and it will not migrate natively at any speed.
Throughput and scale reality
Microsoft does not publish an items-per-hour figure for cross-tenant SharePoint or OneDrive migration, and any vendor number you see is a lab result. Plan against the published limits instead, because they are the constraints that actually shape a schedule.
Queue depth is 4,000, and it is shared. You can schedule up to 4,000 SharePoint or OneDrive accounts at a time, drawing from one shared pool. As migrations complete you can schedule more, but 4,000 pending is the ceiling. In a multi-geo estate, each source instance carries the same 4,000 limit no matter how many target geos you are feeding.
The per-site ceilings are absolute. 5 TB or one million items. Over either, the site fails — and in a batch of many sites, the oversized one times out while the others continue, which means your failure shows up hours later in the log rather than immediately.
User-visible downtime is short but real. Microsoft describes OneDrive moves as requiring "only a few minutes where a user's OneDrive is read-only," and source SharePoint sites are set read-only while a migration is in progress. The user impact is not the transfer window; it is the re-sync. Every OneDrive user must sign in to the sync client with their new identity, at which point files begin re-syncing to the device. Do a thousand of those on a Monday morning and the constraint is your network, not Microsoft's.
Two structural rules shape sequencing. Because moves are one-and-done, there is no pre-seed; the content moves when it moves. And because the identity map must be complete every time it is uploaded — a new map overwrites the previous one entirely — you cannot iteratively bolt on users you forgot. Get the map right before the first wave.
For the broader estate view, our SharePoint migration services guide covers methodology and our My Sites in SharePoint page covers the OneDrive-and-profile layer underneath this.
Prerequisites and consent checklist
Work this in order. Every item is a documented requirement, and skipping any one of them produces a failure that looks like something else.
Commercial
- Cross-Tenant User Data Migration licences purchased for every user whose OneDrive moves. Assign on either the source or the target object — not both.
- Cross-Tenant Shared Data Migration licences for SharePoint sites, sized per 100 GB. Size it from
Get-SPOSite -Limit, summed and converted, with the 20% grace allowance in mind.| Select-Object Url, StorageUsageCurrent
Source tenant
- Confirm Service encryption with Microsoft Purview Customer Key is not enabled — if it is, the migration fails.
- Set every in-scope site and OneDrive to Read/Write. Read-only sources fail.
- Restrict new OneDrive site creation if users will keep working in the source during coexistence.
- Remove sensitivity labels configured for user-defined permissions from every file in scope.
Target tenant
- Pre-create every user, security group and Microsoft 365 Group that appears in any permission you want to survive — including guests.
- Pre-create target Microsoft 365 Groups for group-connected sites in the specific documented way; they cannot be linked to existing SharePoint sites.
- Do not pre-create target SharePoint sites. Do not let OneDrive sites provision. Both cause an immediate failure.
- Keep target site and user URL names short — you are spending characters from a 400-character budget.
Both tenants
- Latest SharePoint Online Management Shell on both sides.
- Establish the cross-tenant trust with
Set-SPOCrossTenantRelationship, then verify it. - Run
Get-SPOCrossTenantCompatibilityStatusagainst the partner host URL. Compatible or Warning may proceed; Incompatible may not — wait 48 hours, and if it persists, open a support case. - Build and upload the identity map with
Add-SPOTenantIdentityMap. One-to-one only; the same source user cannot map to multiple targets. Re-upload the complete map after any change.
After the move
- Remove redirects with
Remove-SPOSiteonce the full migration is done — and remove the target redirect first if you ever migrate a site back, or the URL conflict fails the move. - Remove the trust relationship on both tenants before the source licences expire; once they do, the removal command no longer works on the source.
- Reapply sensitivity labels. Microsoft is explicit that customers must manually add back labels removed before migration.
Remediation before migration — the sequence that saves the schedule
Remediation is the phase that determines whether this project lands on time. Run it in this order, because each step changes the numbers the next step depends on.
1. Inventory and size. Pull storage and item counts for every site and OneDrive. Flag anything over 4 TB or 800,000 items as at-risk — you want headroom, not a coin flip at the ceiling.
2. Kill version sprawl. Versions count as items. Apply version-history limits and run cleanup on the worst libraries before you count anything else. This is the single highest-yield remediation action and it frequently moves sites back under the ceiling on its own.
3. Fix paths. Find everything approaching 400 characters when combined with the intended target URL. Shorten target site and user URL names first, then flatten deep folder structures. Usernames or URLs containing an apostrophe fail with an invalid-character error — rename them.
4. Strip protection. Remove sensitivity labels, prioritising any configured for user-defined permissions since those block the move outright. Confirm Customer Key is not enabled on the source.
5. Resolve ownership. Orphaned OneDrive accounts owned by an admin cannot map one-to-one. Reassign ownership to the correct user, or those files do not migrate.
6. Catalogue what will not move. Workflows, apps, Power Apps, Power Automate flows, cross-site web parts, InfoPath forms, classic branding. Decide per item: rebuild, replace, or retire. Most of this list is genuinely retire — a cross-tenant migration is the cheapest opportunity you will ever get to delete a 2013 workflow.
7. Split or archive the outliers. Anything still over ceiling after steps 2 and 3 needs to be split across multiple target sites or archived out of scope. Decide this before you build waves, not during them.
8. Rebuild the label and policy taxonomy in the target. Retention labels, retention policies and sensitivity labels do not travel across a tenant boundary. Build them in the target before content lands, so newly migrated content can be labelled immediately rather than sitting ungoverned. Our data governance consulting guidance and SOC 2 for Microsoft 365 cover the evidence obligations that survive the move.
What breaks — failure modes
| Symptom | Root cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Migration fails as soon as it starts | The target site or OneDrive already exists | Never pre-create target sites; disable OneDrive creation for in-scope users the moment you create them |
| Whole batch fails at the source tenant | Service encryption with Microsoft Purview Customer Key enabled on the source | Confirm Customer Key status before anything else; the migration cannot proceed with it enabled |
| Site fails while the rest of the batch continues | Site exceeds 5 TB or 1,000,000 items | Trim version history, archive, or split across multiple target sites — then re-queue |
| Files silently absent after a successful-looking move | Combined source path plus target URL exceeded 400 characters | Shorten target site/user URL names, flatten deep folders, re-run |
| "Invalid character" error on a user | Apostrophe in the username or URL | Rename the user or URL before migration |
| Site with encrypted files will not move | Sensitivity label configured for user-defined permissions | Remove labels first — manually or with Unlock-SPOSensitivityLabelEncryptedFile — then migrate and reapply |
| Migration refuses to start | Source site set to read-only | Set every in-scope source site and OneDrive to Read/Write |
| Trust cannot be established or verified | Tenants report Incompatible on the compatibility check | Wait 48 hours for schema updates; if still incompatible, open a support case. Re-check before every batch |
| Users lose access to migrated content | The user or group was missing from the identity map | Rebuild the map with the complete population and re-upload — a new map overwrites the old one entirely |
| A user's files do not migrate at all | Multiple OneDrive accounts owned by one admin account; one-to-one mapping violated | Reassign ownership to the correct user, then re-map |
| Group-connected site fails | Target Microsoft 365 Group is linked to an existing SharePoint site | Pre-create target groups in the documented way, unlinked |
| Cannot remove the cross-tenant trust after the project | Source tenant licences already expired | Remove the trust on both tenants before source licences lapse |
| Site cannot be migrated back to the source | The redirect created by the original move still holds the URL | Remove the redirect with Remove-SPOSite before attempting the reverse move |
Cost and effort drivers
Native SharePoint licensing is volume-based. Cross-Tenant Shared Data Migration is priced per 100 GB moved, EA customers only, with a 20% storage grace allowance. Sum StorageUsageCurrent across in-scope sites, divide, and take the number to your Microsoft account team — Microsoft does not publish the rate. Cross-Tenant User Data Migration for OneDrive is a separate per-user one-time fee.
Tool licensing is flat or per-user. ShareGate publishes $9,995 per year for unlimited users and data; the same vendor's comparison table cites BitTitan at $57 per user and does not list Quest pricing (vendor-published figures, verified by the vendor as of June 2026). On a 500-user, 3 TB estate a flat tool fee is often the cheaper line. On a 200-user, 40 TB estate it is almost certainly the cheaper line. Do the arithmetic both ways before assuming native is the economical choice.
Remediation is the dominant effort line, and it is identical either way. Version cleanup, path shortening, label stripping, ownership repair and workflow triage cost the same whether you migrate natively or with a tool. Any business case that shows a tool "saving" this effort is not measuring it correctly.
Rebuild is the dominant hidden line. Workflows, Power Apps, Power Automate flows, apps, cross-site web parts, InfoPath forms and Teams structure are rebuilt on the target on every path. Cost them per item and put them in the plan.
Coexistence duration drives everything else. Because native moves are one-and-done with no delta, a long native migration means a long period where content is split across two tenants and users must know which side a document lives on. Tools with delta support let you pre-seed and shorten the switchover window — that capability, not price, is usually the real reason to buy one.
What changed in 2026
- Cross-tenant SharePoint site migration is documented as a mainline capability, not a private preview, with a seven-step process — connect, establish trust, verify trust, pre-create users and groups, prepare identity mapping, start migration, post-migration steps. Licensing remains EA-only, per 100 GB.
Get-SPOCrossTenantCompatibilityStatusis documented as a pre-flight check with Compatible / Warning / Incompatible states and explicit guidance to run it before any batch — not once at project start.- The Microsoft 365 Migration Orchestrator arrived and explicitly excludes SharePoint sites and Teams channels. If you read anything that says the Orchestrator covers SharePoint, check it against the Orchestrator's own overview page, which states it does not migrate shared data.
- FastTrack now offers cross-tenant migration for Exchange, SharePoint and OneDrive on an invitation-only preview basis, requiring a minimum of 150 licences and a Cross-Tenant User Data Migration SKU, and excluding Teams, Microsoft 365 Groups, Planner, Stream, Power Automate, Power Apps and device management.
- Microsoft published explicit what-migrates / what-doesn't tables for SharePoint and OneDrive cross-tenant moves, naming version history and ownership history as preserved and workflows, apps and Power Apps as not.
- Post-migration hygiene is documented. Redirect removal via
Remove-SPOSite, trust removal before source licences expire, and the requirement to manually reapply removed sensitivity labels are now written down rather than folklore.
Where to go next
Run the Native-Path Fit Test against your own site inventory before you buy anything. EPC Group delivers it as a fixed-scope assessment — a per-site verdict, a remediation backlog sized in effort, and a licence-versus-tool cost comparison you can take to procurement. Start with SharePoint migration services or enterprise Microsoft consulting.
Related: SharePoint consulting Dallas · My Sites in SharePoint · SharePoint network drive mapping · SharePoint vs Google Drive · Box vs SharePoint · Exchange to Microsoft 365 migration · Microsoft 365 E3 vs E5 · Teams Premium features · Data governance firms · Delivery partner vendor risk · Microsoft Frontier Company · EPC Group
Frequently asked questions
Does Microsoft have a free native cross-tenant SharePoint migration?
It is native but not free. Cross-tenant SharePoint site migration runs inside Microsoft 365 using SharePoint Online PowerShell, but it requires Cross-Tenant Shared Data Migration licences sold per 100 GB of data moved, currently to Enterprise Agreement customers only. Cross-tenant OneDrive migration uses the separate per-user Cross-Tenant User Data Migration add-on.
When is the native path enough?
When you are creating fresh target sites rather than merging into existing ones, every site is under 5 TB and one million items, you can accept a single one-and-done move with no delta passes, you do not need Teams channel structure, and you are an EA customer who can buy the licence. Fail any of those and you need a tool for that content.
When do you need a third-party tool instead?
When you need to merge content into an existing target site, run pre-seed and delta passes to shorten the switchover window, migrate Teams and channel structure or Planner, move from on-premises or non-Microsoft sources, or when you cannot purchase the Enterprise Agreement-only SharePoint licence.
Does the native migration preserve permissions?
Yes, for principals that appear in the identity map you upload to the target tenant. Every user, security group, Microsoft 365 Group and guest that holds a permission must be pre-created in the target and mapped one-to-one. Anyone missing from the map loses access, and the failure is silent rather than reported.
Does version history survive?
Yes. Microsoft's published migration detail tables list ownership history and previous versions as content that migrates. The catch is scale: versions count toward the one-million-item ceiling per site, so a library with heavy version retention can push a site over the limit even though its file count looks small.
What happens to sensitivity and retention labels?
Neither survives usefully. Sensitivity labels may not display correctly after a cross-tenant move and any protection or policy attached to the original label is not present, so Microsoft recommends removing labels before migration and reapplying afterwards. Retention settings from labels travel with content only within a tenant, so the label taxonomy and policies must be rebuilt in the target.
Can I run an incremental or delta pass?
No. Cross-tenant moves are a one-and-done activity — content is moved from source to target and a redirect is left behind. Incremental and delta migration passes cannot be performed. If your business needs a long pre-seed and a short final cutover, that requirement alone points to a third-party tool.
How many sites can I migrate at once?
Up to 4,000 accounts can be queued at a time, and that queue is shared between the OneDrive and SharePoint migrations. As migrations complete you can schedule more, with 4,000 pending as the maximum at any moment. In multi-geo environments each source instance carries that same limit regardless of how many target instances you are feeding.
Do users lose access to their files during the move?
Only briefly. Source SharePoint sites are set to read-only while the migration is in progress, and Microsoft describes OneDrive moves as needing only a few minutes of read-only time. The larger user impact comes afterwards: every OneDrive user must sign in to the sync client with their new identity before files start re-syncing to the device.
Does ShareGate's page compare against the native path?
No. The ShareGate tenant-to-tenant page compares ShareGate with BitTitan and Quest and does not mention Microsoft's native cross-tenant SharePoint or OneDrive migration anywhere. That is a structural consequence of being a tool vendor, not a defect in the tool — ShareGate is capable, and the honest comparison is on capability boundaries such as merge, delta and Teams structure rather than on price.
What is the most common silent failure?
The 400-character path limit. It is measured on the full source file path combined with the new target site or user URL, so shortening target site and user names is the cheapest fix available. Files that exceed it do not arrive, and the migration can still report as broadly successful.
Sources and verification
- Microsoft Learn — Cross-tenant SharePoint migration
- Microsoft Learn — Cross-tenant OneDrive migration
- Microsoft Learn — Cross-tenant SharePoint migration: Step 4, precreating users and groups
- Microsoft Learn — Cross-tenant migration: Step 5, identity mapping and compatibility check
- Microsoft Learn — Cross-tenant SharePoint migration: Step 7, post-migration steps
- Microsoft Learn — Cross-tenant OneDrive migration: Step 7, post-migration steps
- Microsoft Learn — Cross-tenant SharePoint migration FAQs
- Microsoft Learn — An overview of tenant-to-tenant migration with orchestrator in Microsoft 365
- Microsoft Learn — Plan a Microsoft 365 tenant-to-tenant migration
- Microsoft Learn — FastTrack cross-tenant migration (what migrates / what doesn't tables)
- Microsoft Learn — Service encryption with Microsoft Purview Customer Key
- Microsoft Learn — Enable sensitivity labels for files in SharePoint and OneDrive
- Microsoft Learn — Learn about retention policies and retention labels
- Microsoft Learn — Manage site redirects
- Microsoft Learn — SPMT-supported features
- Microsoft Learn — Frequently asked questions: SharePoint Migration Tool (SPMT) (InfoPath and master page limitations)
- Microsoft Learn — SPMT supported SharePoint web parts
- Microsoft Learn — Disable OneDrive creation for some users
- Microsoft Learn — SharePoint limits
- ShareGate — Tenant-to-tenant migration (competitor page under review; pricing and comparison claims as published, July 2026)