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Is HostEurope’s Microsoft 365 Migration Really Over, or Should You Still Switch Providers?
HostEurope Halts Microsoft 365 Email Migration: What It Means for You
HostEurope officially paused its forced email migration to Microsoft 365 on February 19, 2026 — a reversal driven by customer backlash, rising cancellations, and unresolved technical and data protection concerns. If your mailbox has not yet been moved, it stays on the Classic Hosting platform for now, with no action required on your end.
What Happened in 2025
Early in 2025, HostEurope — a GoDaddy subsidiary and one of Germany’s largest hosting providers — announced it would migrate all customer email accounts to Microsoft Exchange Online, i.e., the Microsoft cloud. This followed a nearly identical move by sister brand DomainFactory, which had already pushed customers onto Microsoft 365 infrastructure.
The migration created serious friction for customers. Accounts were moved without genuine active consent, login procedures changed entirely, data protection frameworks shifted, and costs increased. For customers operating under EU regulations, GDPR compliance became an immediate concern — because moving mailboxes to Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure raised legitimate questions about where their data was stored and who could access it.
The February 2026 Reversal
On February 19, 2026, HostEurope sent affected customers an email titled “Important: Update on Hosting and Email Migrations”. The company acknowledged making progress throughout 2025 but admitted that certain customer environments required more consideration than anticipated. Here is what the pause means in concrete terms:
- All products not yet migrated remain on the Classic Hosting platform — no customer action needed
- Products pending migration are currently not scheduled for migration
- The previously announced platform shutdown date of April 30, 2026 is cancelled
Reading between the lines, this reversal signals that HostEurope likely experienced a significant wave of cancellations — a direct consequence of forcing customers into a cloud migration without adequate consent or transition support.
Why This Is Not a Permanent Fix
The official language HostEurope used is telling: they are “temporarily” halting migrations while “evaluating next steps”. This wording strongly suggests the migration plan remains intact — it has simply been delayed, not withdrawn. Customers who stayed because of this announcement should treat it as borrowed time rather than a resolution.
The experience of DomainFactory customers already on Microsoft 365 serves as a practical warning: higher costs, technical disruptions, and GDPR exposure do not disappear because the rollout slows down. If you run a business that depends on reliable email delivery and data sovereignty, a temporary pause does not eliminate the underlying risk.
What You Should Do Now
As an advisor, here is a clear-eyed recommendation based on what has unfolded:
- Do not wait for a second migration notice. Use this pause as a window to evaluate alternative hosting providers with dedicated, non-cloud email infrastructure
- Audit your GDPR exposure. If any of your mailboxes were already migrated to Microsoft 365, confirm with a legal or compliance advisor where your data resides and whether your privacy policy reflects that
- Review your contract with HostEurope. Customers who cancelled because of the migration announcement may have grounds to reverse that cancellation — HostEurope’s February email does mention the option to withdraw cancellations for Classic Hosting contracts
- Treat this as a signal, not a resolution. The phrase “evaluating next steps” means a revised migration plan is in development — plan your exit on your own schedule, not theirs
The Bigger Picture
HostEurope’s situation reflects a wider industry trend of European hosting providers moving away from self-managed email infrastructure and toward hyperscaler platforms like Microsoft 365. The cost savings for the provider are real, but the trade-off for customers — reduced data control, higher subscription costs, and dependency on a single US-based platform — carries meaningful risk, particularly for businesses with GDPR obligations.
Choosing a hosting provider that maintains its own email servers in EU-based data centers is now a strategic decision, not merely a technical preference. The HostEurope episode makes that distinction concrete.