When consulting the Microsoft help pages, it can seem like a lengthy process to migrate from G Suite to Office 365, especially if you wish to migrate all your data. In order to help you with the transition form Google to Microsoft, we’ve created this tried-and-tested guide. Simply follow the steps described in this tutorial and your migration to Office 365 will be a fast and smooth process!
And best of all: When following this tutorial, you do not need to worry about Google’s data migration limits, making this approach one of the fastest methods to migrate your emails from G Suite to Office 365!
Steps to follow to migrate from Google Workspace to Office 365:
What You Need to Know
Before you Migrate from G Suite to Office 365
When following this tutorial, you’ll migrate all data that can be migrated to Office 365.
What can be migrated to Office 365:
- complete inbox including emails, folders, labels, drafts & sent objects all contacts
- all calendars and calendar notifications
- Google category flags
- all Google Drive files
What cannot be migrated to Office 365:
Unfortunately, there is some data that can not be migrated as it is not compatible with Office 365:
- calendar reminders and some calendar colors chat message & calendar attachments
- tasks
- chats and chat history
- Google Groups
- some email attachments (when linked to Google Drive)
➡️ As you see, most of your data can be migrated to Office 365. The migration itself consists of three parts: Setup, data migration and finishing the migration. To start to migrate from Google Workspace to Office 365, simply continue reading!
Step 01:
Setup your Accounts
Before starting to migrate from G Suite to Office 365, you need to prepare both accounts for the data migration.
The setup consists of three easy steps:
- Preparing your Office 365 tenant
- Adding new email accounts to your Microsoft account
- Creating an app password for your Google account
Prepare your Office 365 tenant
ℹ️ This step is only necessary if you use a custom domain (e.g. mydomain.com).
1. Login to the Microsoft Admin Center (https://admin.microsoft.com)
2. In the left sidebar, click on Show all. Now click on Settings and select Domains.
3. Click on Add domain and enter your domain name.
4. Click on Use this domain
5. Keep the default option Add a TXT record to the domain’s DNS records and click on Continue
6. Add the displayed values as TXT record to your domain’s DNS settings. Set the TTL to the lowest possible value (e.g. 300)
7. Wait some time until your new DNS record propagated. Then click on Verify.
⚠️ Now stop the verification until you migrated all your emails to Microsoft. The Microsoft admin center will tell you that the domain setup is incomplete. However, do not proceed until you finished the migration. Otherwise, you won’t be able to migrate or even receive emails anymore!
Add Email Accounts to your Microsoft Account
For every email address you wish to migrate to Office 365, follow these steps:
1. Sign in to Microsoft Admin Center (https://admin.microsoft.com)
2. On the left, click on Users and Active users
3. Click on Add a user
4. Fill out the form and disable the option Require this user to change their password when they first sign in
5. Click on Next
6. Select the location and assign a license to the user. Optionally, set roles or simply continue by clicking on Next
7. Confirm the settings by clicking on Finish adding and copy the password.
⚠️ Don’t forget to copy the password that is shown to you. You’ll need it in a few seconds to start your migration to Office 365!
Prepare your Gmail Account
As a last step before the data migration, create an app password for every Google mailbox you are planning to move to Office 365:
1. Login to your Gmail account at https://gmail.com
2. Select your profile picture and click on Manage your Google Account
3. In the left sidebar, click on Security and scroll down to How you sign in to Google.
4. Make sure that 2-Step Verification is active. If not, activate 2-step verification.
5. Now click on 2-Step Verification (or the arrow right from the 2-step verification status).
6. On the 2-step verification page, scroll down to App passwords and click on App passwords.
➡️ In case the link app passwords is not visible, click on this link: https://myaccount.google.com/apppasswords
7. Enter MailJerry in the field App name and click on Create.
8. Gmail will now show your app password. ⚠️ Copy your app password ⚠️ You’ll need it in a few minutes to migrate from G Suite to Office 365.
➡️ After completing these steps, you should have a password for every Office account and an app password for every Gmail account that is involved in the data migration. So let’s start to move your data where it belongs!
Step 02:
Migrate your Data
Prepare your Gmail Account
Now that everything is setup correctly, it’s time to start the email migration. To migrate your emails, we’ll use MailJerry, our reliable and easy-to-use email migration tool:
1. Download MailJerry or open the WebApp
2. Enter your email address or license key (if available) and click on New Migration
3. In the section “Existing Address”, select Gmail as account type
4. Enter your email address in the field username and your app password
5. Activate the option Ignore Google Bandwidth Limits.
➡️ This enhances the speed of your data migration significantly, allowing a much faster data rate from Google to Microsoft
6. In the section “New Address”, select Microsoft / Office 365 as account type and enter your Microsoft email address as username
7. Click on Connect with Microsoft Account and in the popup, enter your password and confirm.
8. After signing in to your Microsoft account, click on Check Settings.
➡️ Your mailboxes are now being validated to ensure that your accounts are ready for the migration to Office 365. Depending on the size of your mailbox, this process may take some time.
9. After the mailbox check finished, you’ll be forwarded to the Summary. Activate the Auto Sync by enabling Synchronize Emails for 10 Days.
➡️ The auto-sync prevents data loss, as emails received in your old account after the migration will automatically be forwarded to your Microsoft account.
10. Now start your email migration by clicking on Start Your Migration.
ℹ️ To migrate multiple mailboxes, click on New Migration and repeat the process starting with step 3. In the overview, you can track the progress of each email migration.
Migrate your Contacts from G Suite to Office 365
While your emails are being migrated to Office 365, you can start the migration of your contacts:
Export your Google Workspace / G Suite Contacts:
1. Sign in to your Google account and open your contacts at https://www.google.com/contacts/
2. Point with your mouse on the profile picture of your first contact until it transforms into a checkbox
3. Click on the checkbox to select the first contact
4. In the option bar on the top left (below the headline “Contacts”), click on the Dropdown Arrow and click on All
5. At the top right, click on the More Actions icon (three dots) and select Export
6. An overlay appears. In the section Export as, select Outlook CSV and click on Export.
➡️ A CSV file containing all your contacts will automatically download to your computer. Now, you only need to import this file into your Office account.
Import your Contacts to Office 365:
1. Open Outlook at https://outlook.office.com and click on the contacts icon (“People”)
2. On the top right corner, click on Manage contacts and select Import contacts
3. Click on Browse to select the contacts.csv file you exported from your Google Workspace and click on Import
✅ That’s it! Your contacts are now imported into your Office account!
Migrate your Calendar(s) from Google Workspace to Office 365
Let’s proceed by migrating your calendar(s). Here’s how it works:
Export your Google Workspace Calendar(s):
1. Login to your Gmail account and open your calendar at https://calendar.google.com
2. Click on the Gear icon on the top right and select Settings
3. Open the tab Import & export in the sidebar on the left
4. Click on Export
➡️ You’ll receive a ZIP-File containing every calendar as a separate ICS file. These files can easily be imported into your Office 365 account.
Import your Calendar(s) to Office 365:
1. Sign in to your Outlook account at https://outlook.office.com
2. Open the calendar by clicking on the Calendar icon in the sidebar
3. Click on Add calendar
4. In the overlay, select Upload from file in the left sidebar
5. Click on Browse to select the ICS file your exported from Google Workspace
6. Select the Calendar you wish to import the data into and click on Import
✅ Repeat step 4 to 6 for every ICS file you wish to import until you successfully migrated all your calendars from G Suite to Office 365!
Export / Migrate your Google Docs to OneDrive
Let’s proceed by migrating your calendar(s). Here’s how it works:
Export Google Docs:
1. Go to your Google Takeout at https://takeout.google.com
2. Click on Deselect all to prevent the export of data you do not need
ℹ️ We do not recommend to export your calendars and contacts via Google Takeout, as Google Takeout does not allow you to control the export settings, making it more difficult to import your data into your Office account.
3. Scroll down to Drive and select it. Now click on Next step
3. Scroll down to Drive and select it. Now click on Next step
4. Keep the default option Send download link via email and set the File size to the desired value.
5. Click on Create export and wait until you received an email with your download link.
6. In the email, click on Download your files and wait until the file download finished
➡️ Double click on the ZIP file to unpack your files into a new folder. This folder contains all your files. Store your files on your computer or import them into OneDrive.
Import Multiple Files into OneDrive:
1. Open OneDrive https://onedrive.microsoft.com and click on Upload
2. Choose Folder and select the Drive folder you downloaded from G Suite
3. Click on Upload and wait until the upload finished.
After the Migration:
What to do after you finished to migrate from G Suite to Office 365
After you finished the data migration from G Suite to Office 365, don’t forget to complete your domain configuration (in case you use a custom domain name).
Complete the Microsoft 365 Domain Configuration:
1. Open Microsoft Admin panel at https://admin.microsoft.com and sign in.
2. Click on Settings > Domains and click on your domain name.
3. On the details page, click on Start Setup and follow the steps as described on the screen until the domain status changes to “Healthy”.
🎉 Congratulations! You successfully managed to migrate all your data from G Suite / Google Workspace to Microsoft Office 365. Now, you can start working in your new environment without interruptions or having to worry about missing data! 🎉
