How Do I Change from G Suite to Office 365?

“I have about 35 users currently on the G Suite Business plan. At least half of them have Office installed as well. I was thinking about migrating from Google Workspace to Office 365 to save some money due to paying for Office apps, but was wondering if anybody here has any experience with the issue and how smoothly the process should work.”

Google Workspace (formerly known as G Suite) is a collection of applications, launched by Google, that help users work together and be more productive. Google Workspace includes all of Google's popular tools, like Gmail, Calendar, Sheets, Docs, and so on. While Office 365 brings together Microsoft's various applications and productivity tools to give businesses the resources they need to get work done.

Although Google Workspace and Microsoft Office 365, both hosted in the cloud, have some equal or exclusive features, some users want to transfer files such as emails, data in Drive, contacts, etc. from Google Workspace Migrate to Office 365 for some reasons. In the following section, we will provide two ways to migrate Google Workspace to Office 365 and guide you through the migration process.

How to Make Data Migrate from Google Workspace to Office 365

The two different methods of data migration are traditional data export migration and using a professional third-party data migration tool. Although the traditional migration method is feasible, it has disadvantages, such as it has a complicated and long migration process and it can easily lead to lost files.

Taking advantage of a third-party data migration tool makes the data migration process much easier. This kind of tool allows you to set up data migration tasks with simple clicks and even create automatic data migrations easily. Besides, you can perform Office 365 cloud backup to protect your data from loss if necessary.

Traditional Way: Migrate Google Workspace to Office 365 Manually

The traditional way of manually migrating Google Workspace to Office 365 involves using the Admin Center feature of both platforms. The migration process consists of multiple steps and requires sufficient skills to perform, and minor errors may cause the migration to fail. Due to the complexity and long duration of this migration operation, please follow the steps below to perform this task.

Step 1. Confirm Domain Ownership

This step is to check and verify that you own the Microsoft 365 account used for migration from G Suite.

Step 2. Adding Users to Office 365

Prior to migrating G Suite to Office 365, each user should have an inbox. And, when migrating data, users make sure to have a mailbox on the Exchange online to save the incoming data.

Step 3. Create a List of Mailboxes for Migration in CSV File

You can create a migration file that contains a list of all Gmail mailboxes. The G Suite to Office 365 migration limitation on the number of mailboxes is 50,000. And, the maximum file size is 10 MB. Using Excel 2013 or 2017 to generate a migration file is easily accessible with the guide below:

1. Log in to the G Suite admin panel, and select Users after signing in.

2. Go to the Microsoft 365 admin center, click Users > Active users.

3. Create an excel for transferred data to list Email Address, Username, and Password in the sheet, and then, enter the information of each mailbox.

4. Save the file as a CSV when you close this excel.

Step 4. Connect Office 365 to Gmail

1. Navigate to Exchange admin Center, choose Recipients > Migration > Migration endpoint.

2. Click on the + position to select New, pick IMAP on the Select Migration Endpoint Type screen.

3. Then, in the IMAP migration setup window, select the IMAP server to imap.gmail.com. Then, tap Next.

4. Specify for the migration endpoint and click New.

Step 5. Create Migration Batch and Move Mailboxes

1. Head to Office 365 administrator center, select Exchange in Admin centers.

2. Tap on Recipients > Migration, click the + icon, and select Migrate to Exchange Online.

3. Pick for IMAP migration and click Next.

4. Then, browse and offer the migration file in step 3 and allow Microsoft 365 to validate it on the Select Users page.

5. After verification, Click Next, select migration endpoint, confirm settings on the IMAP migration setup.

6. Populate the name of the migration batch, and pick Automatic batch to begin > New to start the migration.

Step 6. Updating DNS records

DNS records, called MX records, are used to deliver emails. So, when all your email transfers are complete, please send this MX record to MS Office 365.

Step 7. End the Sync of Google Workspace

Finally, check if all your mailboxes are sent to Office 365. If it is successful, you can disable Gmail syncing with Office 365 and delete the migration batch.

If this method fails, or you think these steps are too complicated to do, let's move on to the next easier method.

Easiest Way: Switch Google Workspace to Office 365 via a third-party tool

The easiest way to migrate Google Workspace to Office 365 is with the help of a third-party Google Workspace migration tool.

CBackup is a professional cloud migration service designed for Windows PCs. CBackup supports free migration of all file types on your computer from Google Drive to OneDrive. With a streamlined and user-friendly interface, you can effortlessly transfer all Google Workspace files (including emails, Google Photos, etc.) stored in Google Drive to Office 365.

Powerful features of CBackup for data migration:

◆Auto data migration: CBackup provides you to set up automatic migration of data between different cloud servers on a customized schedule with its cloud-to-cloud backup feature.

◆No restriction on data migration speed: CBackup has no limitations on your file transfer speed. It only depends on your internet speed.

◆Free 2,000GB data traffic: CBackup offers 2,000GB for you to migrate files between cloud storage at no cost.

◆High security for data: CBackup applies 256-bit AES encryption in data transfer and it is compliant with GDPR & Privacy.

You can get your emails migrated from Google Workspace to Office 365 with the following instructions:

Step 1. Log in to CBackup

Sign up for CBackup, download and install the CBackup desktop, and log in to the CBackup app.

Step 2. Connect Google Drive and OneDrive to CBackup

1. After login, select Storage from the left side menu, pick Google Drive and tap Authorize Now. After that, you can grant CBackup to connect your Google Drive files.

2. Link your OneDrive to CBackup in the same way.

Step 3. Migrate Google Drive to OneDrive

1. In the Backup tab, tap Backup Public Cloud to Public Cloud.

2. Rename the Task Name. Select Google Drive or specific Google Drive files/folders as the backup source. And choose OneDrive as the backup destination. Finally, hit Start Backup to migrate data from Google Workspace to Office 365.

The bottom line

If you are thinking about migrating from Google Workspace to Office 365, the two methods in this article will help you. But it is important to note that if you don't have any expertise in computers and want to make sure the migration can be done smoothly, we recommend going with the second method to use a professional cloud migration tool like CBackup to get the job done.