AEM Content Transfer Tool: A Simplified Guide

What is the Content Transfer Tool?

The Content Transfer Tool (CTT) is Adobe's official tool for migrating content from AEM 6.3+ or Adobe Managed Services (AMS) to AEM as a Cloud Service. It handles the heavy lifting of moving your content repository—pages, assets, users, and more—to the cloud.

The tool works in two phases:

1. Extraction — Pull content from your source AEM instance into a migration set
2. Ingestion — Push that content into your AEM Cloud environment

How Content Transfer Tool Works

Here's the simplified flow:

Inclusion Sets: What to Migrate

An Inclusion Set defines which content paths should be included in your migration. Only content under these paths will be extracted.

Common Inclusion Paths

Path	What It Contains
/content/mysite	Your site's pages and content
/content/dam/myassets	Digital assets (images, PDFs, videos)
/content/experience-fragments	Experience Fragments
/content/cq:tags	Tag definitions
/home/users	User accounts
/home/groups	User groups

Example Inclusion Set

/content/we-retail
/content/dam/we-retail
/content/experience-fragments/we-retail
/content/cq:tags/we-retail

Exclusion Sets: What to Skip

An Exclusion Set defines paths that should NOT be migrated, even if they fall under an inclusion path. This is useful for filtering out unwanted content.

Common Exclusion Paths

Path	Why Exclude It
/content/dam/temp	Temporary upload files
/content/dam/projects	In-progress project files
/content/mysite/test	Test pages not needed in production
/var/audit	Audit logs (regenerated in cloud)
/etc/packages	Content packages (deployed via code)

Example Exclusion Set

/content/dam/we-retail/temp
/content/dam/we-retail/archive
/content/we-retail/test-pages
/content/we-retail/sandbox

Step-by-Step: Running a Migration

Prerequisites

• AEM source instance: 6.3 SP3+, 6.4 SP2+, 6.5, or AMS
• AEM Cloud environment provisioned in Cloud Manager
• Admin access to both source and target
• Sufficient disk space for extraction (1.5x your content size)

Step 1: Install the Content Transfer Tool

1. Download CTT from the Software Distribution Portal
2. Install the package on your source AEM Author instance
3. Navigate to Tools → Cloud Services → Content Transfer

Step 2: Create a Migration Set

1. Click "Create Migration Set"
2. Enter a name (e.g., "we-retail-migration")
3. Add your inclusion paths
4. Add any exclusion paths
5. Save the configuration

# Example Migration Set Configuration
Name: we-retail-production
Source: AEM 6.5.12

Inclusion Paths:
  - /content/we-retail
  - /content/dam/we-retail
  - /content/experience-fragments/we-retail
  
Exclusion Paths:
  - /content/dam/we-retail/temp
  - /content/we-retail/sandbox

Step 3: Run Extraction

1. Select your migration set
2. Click "Check Size" to estimate extraction time
3. Click "Extract"
4. Choose "Overwrite" (first time) or "Top-Up" (incremental)
5. Wait for extraction to complete (monitor progress in the UI)

Step 4: Run Ingestion

1. Go to Cloud Manager → Environments
2. Select your target environment (Dev, Stage, or Prod)
3. Click "Content Transfer"
4. Select your migration set
5. Choose "Ingest"
6. Select "Wipe" (replace all) or "Non-Wipe" (merge)

Step 5: Validate

1. Access your AEM Cloud Author instance
2. Verify content is present in Sites and Assets consoles
3. Check that references and links are intact
4. Test Experience Fragments and Content Fragments
5. Validate user permissions if users were migrated

Top-Up Extraction: Incremental Updates

After your initial extraction, you can run Top-Up extractions to capture only the content that changed since the last extraction. This is useful for:

• Keeping migration sets current during a long migration window
• Capturing last-minute content changes before go-live
• Reducing extraction time for subsequent runs

Top-Up only extracts content modified after the previous extraction timestamp, making it significantly faster than a full extraction.

Best Practices

Before Migration

• Clean up your source — Delete unused assets, old versions, and test content
• Run the Best Practices Analyzer — Identify compatibility issues before migrating
• Document your content structure — Know exactly what paths contain what
• Test with a subset first — Run a small migration to validate the process

During Migration

• Freeze content authoring — Prevent changes to source during extraction
• Monitor extraction progress — CTT provides real-time status updates
• Use Top-Up for final sync — Capture any last-minute changes
• Plan for downtime — Ingestion may require author instance restart

After Migration

• Validate thoroughly — Spot-check content across different templates
• Check broken references — Use the Link Checker to find issues
• Republish content — Content may need republishing to Publish tier
• Update external integrations — CDN, search indexes, third-party tools

Common Issues & Troubleshooting

Issue	Solution
Extraction fails at XX%	Check disk space on source. CTT needs 1.5x content size free.
Ingestion timeout	Large migrations may need Adobe support to extend timeouts.
Missing assets after ingestion	Verify inclusion paths. Check that /content/dam subpaths were included.
Broken references	Ensure all referenced paths are included in the migration set.
User migration issues	Users may need re-mapping if using different identity providers in cloud.
Slow extraction	Reduce migration scope. Exclude large archives or unused assets.