I’ve had the job of managing a handful of data migrations from Google Workspace, Google’s business email/storage/etc. platform, into Microsoft 365. It’s a straightforward process at its core, but after looking into doing it for my own personal domain, there is a lot more room for nuance if you’ve deeply embedded yourself in their products. A few things that I’ve discovered include:
- If you’ve ever used the ‘Sign in with Google’ button to sign into a third-party website, the accounts on those third-party websites will be lost. I did find an admin page for viewing Google account connections, so at least I know what will need to be recreated.
- I have my Google Fi subscription tied to my Google Workspace account and moving it to a free gmail account will result in the deletion of all text messages. They can be backed up or exported using third-party tools, but that isn’t ideal. They also force you to pay off any financed phones before the Fi account can be transferred.
- This ties into my first point, but my Google Workspace account is currently set as the primary on my Pixel phone. I expect removing it to open a can of worms related to sign-ins for apps. So, I’ll probably be forced to sign into everything again, or create new sign-ins for apps that I signed into using my Google Workspace account that will no longer exist.
I haven’t found much recourse for these issues outside of addressing them individually, and I have accepted that decoupling myself from the service is going to cause some problems in the short term. My current weening strategy is to create new sign-ins for apps/services that need them, then set my @gmail.com account as the primary on my phone. If things are fine after a month, I’ll proceed with moving Google Fi out of Google Workspace, remove licenses from accounts, and then maintain the Google Workspace account for 3-6 months in case I need to re-activate for whatever reason.
It’s also worth noting that I’d consider this a fringe scenario. Most business accounts aren’t going to be tied into someone’s identity this heavily, and most individuals are using free Google accounts for their personal data. The best advice I can give here is that if you find yourself in a funny mood after $1 Mystery Beer Night with friends seven years ago, have yourself a glass of water before you decide to buy that cosmetic domain and use it to create your new email address on Google’s premium platform.