Legacy G Suite users - what are you going to do?

This looks worth a look for an alternative as it looks like you could stay on a free tier with Google and then integrate with this if you don't have full DNS controls on your domain to do the email forwarding.

https://improvmx.com/
 
I'm currently paying some £9.20/month for Gsuite Business, I'm about to pull the trigger on a switch to 365 Business though, half the price and does everything I will need it to. It's a pity you can't easily use your own domain with 365 Personal though.
 
thenewoc said:
Although you appear to only be using the equivalent of one paid Google G Suite user account, you'd still be better off switching to Microsoft even without their offer of 60% off for the first year. Link to that is in my earlier post. If you are more driven by the custom domain name email requirement than desktop apps then the entry level tier from MS (Microsoft 365 Business Basic) would do you. It also includes 1TB of storage. The entry level tier from Google is Business Starter at £4.14 per month and only includes 30GB storage.
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Thanks. However I guess I am more stuck in the Google ecosystem than I first admitted. I've been using their stuff for 20 years without thinking. Use Sheets a fair amount now with my partner (we just bought a house together and are using it to track finances/renovations etc). I use Keep really heavily and I like Google Photos as my generic phone backup. And obviously I've been using Google Calendar for that length of time, and like being able to refer back to it for historical stuff (e.g. date of previous surgery, appoints, anything really). And I do like Gmail, never having to delete email etc.

Mattus said:
Think I will have to pay too :( I only have one user account. It's not clear there is a better / cheaper option elsewhere, and TBH I set the G Suite account up 10 or 15 years ago, don't really remember how it all works "under the hood" and can't be bothered to unpick it all and re-establish it with another provider.
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Same boat. This sucks ass. Every time my Google Home's decide not to play ball (probably once a day right now), it just adds to the list of how terrible Google is getting with everything. They just don't care anymore.

Anyhoo, does anyone know if you migrate to a paid Google Workplace account that Google Keep integration with Google Home will actually work properly? Because it never has for custom domains... I'm not paying them £4-8/month if I still can't ask my Home to add something to my Keep shopping list ffs! :rolleyes:

Secondly, I see a lot of chat about being able to set-up forwarding/reply-to your custom domain on a bog standard Gmail account. How does one do that, and would there be any cost? I could be happy with that setup but I'd have to migrate ALL of my Gsuite data (emails, contacts, calendars, sheets, drive etc. ??) to my personal/basic Gmail account. Google don't seem to be offering up any solutions for that sort of migration either do they? :confused:

Headache..

EDIT: Or actually if they actually announce the no-cost option could you pick that and then use SMTP/MX/whatever to forward emails from your domain and be able to reply-from your domain - in your regular Gmail account?

Feek said:
Is there a no-cost option if I don’t want to upgrade?
A no-cost option will be available for all customers who do not want to use Gmail with their custom domain (for example, [email protected]), or the ability to manage multiple users. Customers who choose this option will retain access to the no-cost version of Google Workspace services such as Google Drive and Google Meet, and additional Google services such as Google Search, Google Maps, and YouTube. You will also retain access to paid content such as movies purchased in the Google Play Store.
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@Scam I don't believe a paid Workplace account would make any difference to 'features' or oddities when it comes to Google Home.
 
Azza said:
@Scam I don't believe a paid Workplace account would make any difference to 'features' or oddities when it comes to Google Home.
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I suspect not :( Would be nice for them to confirm but given the rest of this ****show that’ll be next to impossible I’m sure..
 
Just a little update..

I managed to boil down 7 accounts to 1 in terms of email migration using the steps in post #34. Once the email migration is done it gets easier as deleting users is provided for in the admin console and that process is much simpler as it offers the option to transfer Google Drive, Calendar and a few other bits.

Before you delete users you should also export your contacts.

For my other domain I started the ball rolling yesterday with MS using the link in post #2 of my earlier posts in this thread. It takes you through eventually to a chat room to speak with a MS representative and you have to confirm your domain name, company name if applicable, how many users you want to have set up and which 365 package you want. The offer applies to their packages that have the Exchange service included so at the cheapest end it could be Microsoft 365 Business Basic or the next qualifying one is the MS 365 Business Standard. They gave me the option to actually call me to run through things so with screen sharing went through the process starting with placing the order and getting the promo code to get the reduction. We then went through the necessary change to my DNS records to perform domain verification. I wasn't ready to transfer emails over just yet so that was as far as we got and a little tour of the admin console. I wasn't expecting the assistance to start getting things set up as I thought that was reserved for US customers. Once I've sorted out my email accounts on Google and backed up Google Drive to my local machine I can log back into my MS account and request assistance to continue the process of transferring the emails over. They recommended doing that over the weekend so it will be either this weekend or next, whenever I've done the tidying up on the Google end. I went for the Business Standard package which works out at £4.51 per person inclusive of tax.
 
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It looks like this 'could' be the tool they'll provide to migrate from Legacy to standard 'Consumer' Google account which you then add GMail too.

https://www.reddit.com/r/gsuitelega...le_has_a_system_to_move_managed_to_unmanaged/

Hopefully it's refined to use an existing GMail ) Google account? I have a very old @googlemail.com account which I'd be happy to use if I could move all my services data to that and then just use custom domain email elsewhere.
 
I have just moved one of my domains, that wasn't used much from g suite, I set up a purelymail account, cost £8.00 set up 4 email addresses for the family, then set up Gmail accounts for the 4 and used my domain name as an alias on Google, to log into google services. As a trial to see how it goes.

Looking at purely mail, you can set up multiple domains as well, in the end all I really used Google for is Gmail and google photos taken with my phone and google drive
 
I have a number of domains on too, for family. Like most people, just for gmail. Some for gmail, photos and other services.

I was thinking of consolidating the people that use all the services to one domain and just paying that. Not happy about it, but if they are using gmail, photos, calendar, notes and have had it 10 years+, it feels that it might be best option.

For those that were only using it for gmail, I was thinking of getting them to open a new @gmail.com address and import there existing mail into that. Then find a cheap but good service that would just host the MX records for the domain and allow me to set forward on those to the new gmail accounts. Anyone else doing that? Feels a decent way for those just wanting to keep [email protected] and stick with gmail?

Anyone have a good recommendation on a service for this. It would need to be something secure and reliable and all email (important ones too) will flow though this?!

As for the new 'No Cost' option. It says there is no option for using [email protected] on that, but it's not very clear what happens to exiting email when you switch. I'm struggling to think they just delete it! I'd like to think it reverted to some non mydomain.com email to a @gmail.com or something needs more details on the full process for that ASAP!!

What really should have happened though it google should have offered a low cost family migration for these, as a large proportion of users on this are not business, but families. It's just not fairly priced for that group.
 
@moppy5

I don't think consolidating to one domain will work. That would involve migrating their content from one account to another rather than moving each actual account.

I wouldn't do anything yet except ensure your admin user on each domain hasn't set up payment details or confirmed that you want to upgrade to a business plan. Once you accept you want to migrate to a paid plan you can't go back so will then not have the option of staying on the free but more gimped than ever plan.

There is a questionnaire somewhere for the domain admin to confirm they are interested in the staying on as a free service option.

We are waiting on the process to actually stay on the free service but without the custom domain use. In fact I think their plan is that they will provide a migration tool to shift email to a consumer Gmail account. At which point I think you'll still keep your existing custom domain logins but they won't have access to the Google App Suite / Workspace version of Gmail. Therefore assets made and / or purchased in the existing accounts will still be accessible and possibly addable to within whatever limits they'll have on this free tier.

In addition, what I would do now is look for a domain host that provides full DNS management and offers SMTP server access. Once you know you're going some other free email route you'll also want the ability to send email as per your custom domain as well as it being forwarded from that domain.
 
thenewoc said:
@moppy5

I don't think consolidating to one domain will work. That would involve migrating their content from one account to another rather than moving each actual account.

I wouldn't do anything yet except ensure your admin user on each domain hasn't set up payment details or confirmed that you want to upgrade to a business plan. Once you accept you want to migrate to a paid plan you can't go back so will then not have the option of staying on the free but more gimped than ever plan.

There is a questionnaire somewhere for the domain admin to confirm they are interested in the staying on as a free service option.

We are waiting on the process to actually stay on the free service but without the custom domain use. In fact I think their plan is that they will provide a migration tool to shift email to a consumer Gmail account. At which point I think you'll still keep your existing custom domain logins but they won't have access to the Google App Suite / Workspace version of Gmail. Therefore assets made and / or purchased in the existing accounts will still be accessible and possibly addable to within whatever limits they'll have on this free tier.

In addition, what I would do now is look for a domain host that provides full DNS management and offers SMTP server access. Once you know you're going some other free email route you'll also want the ability to send email as per your custom domain as well as it being forwarded from that domain.
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Most people I know are only really bothered about email content so I think consolidation would be fine for them, I think there are tools to import all email from one account to another.

You can already send email from a normal @gmail.com account so it's send from @mydomain.com, I already use that feature. My freeparking domain hosting already had DNS management of MX, if you don't use the MX part, all domain mail gets to a single email forward by default, but I think I can pay a minimal fee to redirect more. I am tempted to find a bigger more secure player for handling the MX records and doing the mail forward. Google did feel pretty secure for important emails going from bank to my account with 2FA. I'm a big more wary of sending all my emails through some other forwarder handling the domain MX to end up in my new gmail. I'd like to know that fowarder was as secure as I feel gmail is.... hmm.

I think you are right about holding off for now and doing nothing. Really need to see what the details are for the "no cost" version and what happens with email. Once we know that we can decide. Just nice to have a few options in the pipeline becuase it can get a little awkward
 
Fantastic! I wonder if they'll actually make Google Home work properly for Workplace users in the end? It does my head in that I'm in the Google Home ecosystem yet I cant connect my Keep lists properly!

Also this line;
Your G Suite account(s) must be strictly for non-business use.
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Are they going to read all of your emails to check? :p My domain points to my photography site on which you can buy prints, but I wouldnt call it a business. Are they going to check up on that ...? Would they even class my domain as their business anyway?
 
All done.

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Why didn't they just do this at the start, would have so much less faff.
 
I don't know why they've got in for small businesses so much over the use of a custom domain that costs them nothing but instead alienates those small businesses from buying other services from them. The bloke in charge at Google is obviously a real money grabbing piece of work.
 
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