Move primary mailbox only to Exchange Online fails

The user has a primary mailbox and an archive mailbox. You only want to move the primary mailbox to Exchange Online and keep the archive mailbox on-premises. However, when you create the move, an error shows: Cannot execute this move. It will result in the primary mailbox being in datacenter and the archive mailbox being outside the datacenter (on premise). This is not a supported configuration. Why is this happening, and is there a solution?

Check primary mailbox and archive mailbox location

To check the primary mailbox location, follow these steps:

• Sign in to on-premises Exchange admin center
• Click on Recipients > mailboxes
• Select the user

Our example is the user mailbox Hannah Duncan, and the mailbox is hosted on-premises.

To check the archive mailbox location, follow these steps:

• Click on the user
• Click on View details under In-Place Archive in the right pane

The archive mailbox is on-premises because it shows Local archive created.

Move primary mailbox only to Exchange Online

Move the primary mailbox to Exchange Online and keep the archive mailbox on-premises. Let’s run the command in Exchange Online PowerShell taken from the article move mailbox to Exchange Online with PowerShell.

PS C:\> New-MoveRequest -Identity "Hannah.Duncan@exoip.com" -Remote -RemoteHostName "mail.exoip.com" -PrimaryOnly -TargetDeliveryDomain "exoip365.mail.onmicrosoft.com" -RemoteCredential (Get-Credential exoip\administrator)

Cannot execute this move

The following PowerShell console output appears.

Cannot execute this move. It will result in the primary mailbox being in datacenter and the archive mailbox being
outside the datacenter (on premise). This is not a supported configuration.
    + CategoryInfo          : NotSpecified: (:) [New-MoveRequest], CannotHavePrima...manentException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : [Server=PAXP190MB1743,RequestId=1eb593bd-f0cd-4801-b96d-646798a6701a,TimeStamp=6/5/2022
   11:15:06 AM] [FailureCategory=Cmdlet-CannotHavePrimaryInDatacenterAndArchiveOnPremisePermanentException] A0C7A0F1,
  Microsoft.Exchange.Management.Migration.MailboxReplication.MoveRequest.NewModernMoveRequest
    + PSComputerName        : outlook.office365.com

Cannot execute this move. It will result in the primary mailbox being in datacenter and the archive mailbox being outside the datacenter (on premise). This is not a supported configuration.

Why do you get this error?

Exchange Hybrid supported mailbox configuration

It’s not possible to have the primary mailbox in Exchange Online and the archive mailbox on-premises. Microsoft does not support this.

The following configurations are possible and supported:

1. Both primary and archive mailbox on-premises
2. Both primary and archive mailbox in Exchange Online
3. Primary on-premises and archive mailbox in Exchange Online

Conclusion

You learned why moving the primary mailbox only to Exchange Online and keeping the archive mailbox on-premises fails. The error appears: Cannot execute this move. It will result in the primary mailbox being in datacenter and the archive mailbox being outside the datacenter (on premise). This is not a supported configuration. That’s because it’s not possible to move the primary mailbox while keeping the archive mailbox on-premises.

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