With the advent of cloud services by Microsoft, many organizations have decided to move their mailbox to Office 365 cloud. It provides better storage facilities and applications as compared to G Suite applications. Many users migrate Google Apps to Exchange Online after facing frequent issues with the G Suite account. Companies find that there are better features and services provided by Microsoft with fewer bugs and outages. This post describes all the steps involved in G Suite to Exchange Online migration.

You can useto migrate emails, contacts, calendars, and documents from Google Apps mailbox to Exchange Online.

Important Points for Google Apps to Exchange Online Migration

Company must have Office 365 subscription plan for its domain

Need to keep Office 365 administrative credentials handy.

Create an App password for all G suite mailboxes to connect G Suite to Office 365.

The manual process moves only emails.

Contacts and Calendar items have to be moved separately.

Method to Migrate Google Apps Mail to Exchange Online

Following are the steps to migrate emails from Google Apps Gmail to Exchange Online mailbox:

#1 Verify Connection between G Suite and Exchange Online

First, Sign in to Office 365 account by using the link https://login.microsoftonline.com

account by using the link https://login.microsoftonline.com Then, go to the Setup Wizard and select Go to Setup

and select Go to Next, enter the company domain name to migrate from Google Apps to Exchange Online

name to migrate from Google Apps to Exchange Online After that, add a TXT or MX record that verifies ownership of the domain.

that verifies ownership of the domain. Add all the users that need a mailbox in Office 365

that need a mailbox in Office 365 Shorten the DNS server Time-to live setting on the MX record.

#2 Create Mailbox

Create Exchange Online mailbox for each.

Subscribe an appropriate plan for each Office 365 user.

for each Office 365 user. Generate a username and password for each new Office 365 mailbox.

#3 Enlist Users

First, create a temporary password for each Office 365 mailbox.

In Excel , create a file with three header Email address, Username, and Password .

, create a file with three header . Then, sign in to G Suite admin console using your administrator credentials.

using your administrator credentials. Next, go to users and copy data of each user to Username and password column.

column. Then, sign in to Office 365 Admin Center and go to Users >> Active users .

and go to . Copy the corresponding Exchange online account ID under the Email address header.

header. Now, enter all the user details under the Excel sheet headings.

headings. Then, save this file as CSV (comma delimited) (*.csv).

#4 Connect Google Apps with Exchange Online

First, go to the Exchange Admin Centre.

In the EAC , go to Recipients >> Migration >> More >> Migration endpoints.

, go to endpoints. Then, click on New + to create a new Endpoint.

to create a new Endpoint. From the Select the migration endpoint type page, select IMAP .

page, select . From the IMAP migration configuration page, set IMAP server to imap.gmail.com and keep rest of the settings same.

page, set server to imap.gmail.com and keep rest of the settings same. Then, click Next to start the connection between Gmail and Exchange Online.

to start the connection between Gmail and Exchange Online. From the Enter general information page, set a name for the migration and click New.

#5 Start to Migrate Google Apps Mail to Exchange Online

From the Office 365 admin center , go to Admin centers >> Exchange .

, go to . From the Exchange admin center , go to Recipients >> Migration .

, go to . Then, go to New+ >> Migrate to Exchange Online .

. Next, select IMAP migration >> Next to migrate from Google Apps to Exchange Online.

to migrate from Google Apps to Exchange Online. From the ‘ Select the users ’ page, click Browse to the folder location where the CSV migration file is saved.

’ page, click to the folder location where the CSV migration file is saved. Make sure it is not empty, contains three columns and contains not more than 50,000 values.

After the validation of the migration file, click Next .

. From the ‘ Set the migration endpoint ’ page, select the new migration point and click Next .

’ page, select the new migration point and click . From the IMAP migration configuration page, confirm the default values and click Next .

page, confirm the default values and click . From the Move configuration page, set a name for the migration batch.

page, set a name for the migration batch. From here, one can click on + icon to Add folders that need to be excluded from migration.

icon to folders that need to be excluded from migration. Then, click on Next button to move mail from G Suite to Exchange Online.

button to move mail from G Suite to Exchange Online. From the ‘ Start the batch ’ page, select Automatically start the batch >> new to start the migration.

’ page, select to start the migration. From the Exchange admin center, go to Recipients >> Migration to verify successful sync between Google Apps Mail and Office 365 account.

#6 Update DNS Records

Update DNS to point to Office 365 mailbox.

Now, this will route any incoming email directly to Exchange Online cloud server.

From the Exchange admin center , go to Recipients >> Migration .

, go to . From the migration dashboard, select the batch and click Delete.

Limitations of Manual Method

Limited to Emails: The manual approach is only to convert emails from G Suite to Exchange Online mailbox. Contacts and calendar items have to be moved separately for each user.

The manual approach is only to convert emails from G Suite to Exchange Online mailbox. Contacts and calendar items have to be moved separately for each user. Time-Consuming: This is a very tiring and lengthy process that can take days or even months to complete the migration process.

Also Read: How to Backup Google Apps Data to Local Drive?

Using an Automated Solution

Microsoft has provided easy steps to migrate Google Apps to Exchange Online account. However, many users try to look for workarounds in professional tools. These are third-party software that can help administrators migrate data easily.

One such tool is the “SysTools G Suite to Office 365 Migration Tool”. It is very easy-to-use and can even move calendar and contacts from G Suite to Exchange Online easily. Users can also apply various filters to perform selective migration.

Free Download Purchase Now

Steps to Perform Migration from Google Apps to Exchange Online

Download and run the tool for mailbox migration.

Select the source as G Suite, destination as Office 365 and choose the data category for migration

Go to Source Window, input and validate admin id, application id and certificate file path of G Suite.

Go to Destination Window, input and validate Office 365 Id and application id.

Choose to import the user list from the CSV file or fetch users in the User Mapping window.

Finally, validate users and click Start Migration button to start migrating G Suite (Google Apps) to Exchange Online.

Few Key Features

Migrate multiple user accounts from G Suite to Exchange Online at once

Move emails, contacts, calendars, docs as per requirement

Provides date-range filters for all data categories

Use Delta Migration to migrate the new and updated data without any duplication issue

Prioritize certain users and get detailed report regarding the complete migration

Concluding Lines

There are two methods by which a user can transfer the data from Google Apps to Exchange Online in Office 365. The manual method takes advantage of the IMAP protocol to synchronize the data between the two cloud productivity suites. While the automated solution provides a straightforward way to carry out email migration. With the software, one can also migrate contacts, calendars, and documents along with emails from G Suite to Exchange Online.