IMAP to Google Workspace Migration: Which Tool You Need

If your business email sits on a web hosting account, the tool that moves it into Google Workspace is called the data import tool. It is included in your subscription from Business Starter upwards, and it lives in the Admin console under Data, then Data import & export, then Data import. Google announced it under that name on 22 April 2026. If you have been hunting for a Data migration menu, the short answer is that Google uses both names, and the console uses this one.

Two limits decide whether that free tool is the right answer for you. It takes up to 100 mailboxes in one import. And from a hosting mailbox it carries mail only: your messages, your folders, your read and unread marks, and nothing else. IMAP, the way mail apps read messages off a mail server, is what the tool connects to, and Google’s list of what arrives from an IMAP account has no contacts and no calendar on it.

The third thing is not a limit. It is a job. For this tool, somebody has to put every staff member’s mailbox password into a spreadsheet, because Google asks for one per mailbox and offers no administrator shortcut for an IMAP source.

One rule to settle before anyone starts. Google requires that a super administrator sets up and runs the import, which is the most powerful kind of admin account in Google Workspace. Google is also direct about who cannot do it for you: “Resellers can’t import data for their customer accounts.” We resell Google Workspace, so that rule covers us. This guide is written for your own administrator to run.

Prices checked on Google’s Singapore pricing page on 28 August 2026. Google’s admin help pages were checked on 27 August 2026. Prices are in Singapore dollars, per user per month, on Google’s one-year commitment. That pricing page states no GST position against its Singapore dollar rates, so confirm the tax treatment on your own invoice.

Which Google tool you need, and why it is nearly always the same one

Google publishes a table that picks the tool for you, by where your mail is now and how many people you have. For mail on an IMAP server, which is what a hosting mailbox is, the table offers two answers and only two.

Almost every business reading this is on the first row, so the answer is data import and the rest of this guide is about it. Google’s own footnote sets the two side by side, and it is worth quoting exactly, because it uses the tool’s other name to do it: “The new data migration service offers a self-guided transfer process using the Google Admin console. If you need more control over your migration, GWMME lets you move your data from almost any type of mail server.”

GWMME is the fallback, and it is a Windows program. The full name is Google Workspace Migration for Microsoft Exchange, and despite the name it takes IMAP servers too. The only operating systems in Google’s system requirements for the machine that runs it are Windows and Windows Server. If your office runs on Macs, that is the end of that option unless somebody borrows a Windows machine. Google also asks you to run it on a machine that is not your mail server, and reckons on 20 to 50 users at a time per machine.

GWMMO is a different tool from GWMME, and it is not the one you want. Google Workspace Migration for Microsoft Outlook has a confusingly similar name and does a different job. Google’s page describes it as moving “mail, calendar events, and personal contacts from a Microsoft Exchange account or a local PST file”. A PST file is Outlook’s own mail archive file on a Windows PC. In Google’s table of administrator tools, GWMMO appears once, on the row for PST files, for 1 to 20 users. It is not offered for mail on a hosting server at any size.

Google Workspace Migrate is not on the IMAP row at all. It has rows of its own elsewhere in that table, for Exchange servers, SharePoint and file shares, but not for mail on an IMAP server at any size. It is Google’s tool for very large moves, “designed for large customer migrations of 1,001 users or more”, and Google warns in the same footnote that customers “might find it challenging to use”.

Why this tool has two names

The name you have probably been searching for is the Google Workspace data migration service. It is worth a minute on why that is not what the console says.

Google announced this tool on 22 April 2026 in these words: “Today, we are excited to announce the general availability of our new Google Workspace data migration tool for enterprises: Data import.” Its help pages are now titled “About the data import tool” and “Import email from an IMAP account”.

Both names are live at once, on the same pages, which is the part that catches people out. The clearest example is Google’s own overview page. Its title is “About the data import tool”, it is filed in a Help Centre section called Data migration, and its web address ends in about-the-new-data-migration-service. One page, both names. Google’s troubleshooting index goes further and files its section as Data migration (New).

What matters is the menu inside your own Admin console, and there the path is Data, then Data import & export, then Data import.

What comes across from a hosting mailbox, and what does not

Google publishes the list, and it is shorter than most people expect. For an import from an IMAP server you get your email messages, including drafts and sent mail, your read and unread status, and your “Folders and subfolders”. That last one is the one worth checking, because a mailbox filed into client folders over ten years is mostly filing.

Attachments come across with a ceiling on them. Google’s wording: “Most attachments, unless the message plus attachment is larger than 25 MB, or when Gmail blocks certain types of file attachments, such as executable files.” So a 30 MB design file attached to an old email does not arrive, and neither does anything Gmail refuses on principle, such as a program file.

Contacts and calendars do not come across, and neither of the two tools Google offers for an IMAP source will bring them. They are not on Google’s imported list for an IMAP account at all. The fallback tool has the same gap, and Google’s footnote is blunt about it: “When migrating from IMAP, Gmail, or Google Workspace, GWMME copies only email and label data. The migration doesn’t include calendar events, calendar resources, contacts, Google Drive files, Google Sites, or any other non-email content.”

Plan for those separately, and the routes are manual. Google’s own table points end users at importing a calendar from an .ics file through the Calendar web page, and contacts from a vCard or CSV file, a plain spreadsheet export, through the Contacts web page. In our experience that is a smaller job than it sounds, because most teams turn out to need one address book and two shared calendars rather than everything. It is still a nasty surprise on cutover day if nobody has thought about it.

The tool does not create the accounts either. In Google’s words: “The data import tool imports data only to accounts of existing users. It doesn’t create user accounts from the data it imports.” So every person has to exist in Google Workspace, with Gmail switched on and a licence assigned, before the import has anywhere to put their mail.

Somebody has to collect every mailbox password

This is the real work in a hosting migration, and it is worth knowing about before you schedule anything.

Google’s requirement is plain: “You need to provide each user’s IMAP password and their IMAP and Workspace email addresses.” With 20 mailboxes or fewer you type them into the Admin console one at a time. Above 20 you upload a spreadsheet, and the second column of that spreadsheet has the heading Source ImapPassword.

The fallback tool is worth a paragraph here, because Google’s own two pages read differently and the answer depends on which mail server you are leaving. GWMME’s IMAP walkthrough says flatly that when you build its list of users, “You don’t need to add passwords to the file.” The page it sends you to for the details then breaks the format down by server type, and the breakdown does not say the same thing.

Migrating from an Exchange server, no passwords: “authentication occurs through your Exchange server administrator account.” Leaving Google Workspace, or a Cyrus or Mirapoint server, no passwords either. But for an IMAP server that is none of those, which is what a hosting mailbox usually is, Google’s documented format is Source user#Source user password,Target user, under the line “When you’re using an IMAP server other than Google Workspace, Cyrus, Mirapoint, or Exchange”. A second Exchange route on the same page, for Exchange over IMAP, takes one administrator password rather than one per person.

So the honest position is this. For the data import tool, the tool this guide recommends, the per-mailbox password is required and Google says so in one sentence. For GWMME, it depends on your server and Google’s pages disagree at first glance, so if you go that way, run one pilot mailbox and find out before you plan the day around it.

Either way, on shared hosting you should expect to be handling passwords. Our advice to our own clients is to make that harmless rather than to pretend it away:

• Reset every mailbox password to a throwaway value, from wherever your host lets you manage mailboxes, on the morning of the import, and tell people you are doing it.
• Run the import with those throwaway passwords.
• Reset them again after cutover, or retire the old mailboxes entirely, so the spreadsheet you typed is worth nothing to anyone.
• Delete the spreadsheet. Not later. Then.

One extra step catches some hosts out. Google notes that “Some IMAP servers require the user to create an application specific password (ASP).” That is a separate password issued for one program rather than the one a person types at a login screen. Google does not define the term and sends you to your own server’s documentation for it, so if your host works this way, check what it wants before the day.

There is a second permission worth knowing about before you press the button. Starting the import “also grants domain-wide delegation and creates a client ID for Data Import in the target account”, in Google’s words. Domain-wide delegation is the mechanism that lets an approved piece of software act across your Workspace accounts without each person granting it access. Google removes it again when you exit the finished import, and that is a good reason to actually exit the import rather than leaving it sitting in the console.

The import, step by step

The whole thing runs in a browser, and Google’s own description is that “the import process takes place in the cloud”, which is the difference between this tool and GWMME: there is no machine in your office doing the work.

One setting worth checking a day early. Smart features and personalisation is a Google Workspace setting that changes how deeply Gmail indexes your mail. Google raises it on the pages for its other two migration tools, GWMME and GWMMO, telling admins to turn it on “if you want users to be able to filter and sort migrated email messages or search for attachments”, and to do that “at least 24 hours before starting a migration to allow any changes to take effect”.

Google describes what survives with the setting off, rather than what breaks: Gmail “still performs basic indexing”, and “Your users can use keywords to search the email body and subject line content”. Read the two together and the setting is what buys filtering, sorting and attachment search on the mail you are about to move. Our own reading is that it is worth turning on the day before whichever tool you use, because it costs nothing and the alternative is finding out afterwards.

1. Create the people first. Every user needs a Google Workspace account, Gmail turned on, and a licence assigned. The import fills mailboxes, it does not make them.
2. Turn IMAP on at both ends. Google asks you to check it is enabled on the old mail server and in Google Workspace, and to “Ensure that your server connects to Google IP address ranges”. That is a question for your hosting company, and it is worth asking before the day rather than during it.
3. Connect to the old server. In the Admin console go to Data, then Data import & export, then Data import, sign in as a super administrator, and next to IMAP click Import. Google gives you a list of common providers to pick your server from, or you type the server name yourself. Its list includes Bluehost, DreamHost, HostGator, Hostinger, Namecheap, one.com, OVHcloud, Fastmail, Titan and Zoho, and for HostGator it even tells you where to find the name in your cPanel, the control panel most web hosts give you for managing the account. Click Test connection and wait for the Connected notice before going further.
4. Map the mailboxes. Twenty or fewer, and you enter each old address, its password and the new Workspace address in the console. More than twenty, and you upload a spreadsheet with three columns headed Source ImapUser, Source ImapPassword and TargetGUser. Google caps a single run at 100 mailboxes and the file at 128 MB, and you cannot fan one old mailbox out to several new ones.
5. Choose how much history to bring. This is where the storage decision below gets made. There is a start date field, and Google imports “messages from the selected date to the date that you start the import”. You can also tick boxes to include deleted mail and spam, and name folders to leave behind.
6. Start it and watch the counters. The console updates live with how many messages were discovered, imported, skipped and failed, and how many users are done. Google emails you the statistics when it finishes.
7. Run a delta import after cutover. A delta import is a second, smaller run that picks up whatever arrived in the old mailboxes after the first one started. It is what makes a staged cutover possible: move the bulk first, switch the mail over later, and sweep up what arrived in between.
8. Exit the import when you are done. Google will not let you start another one until you do, and exiting is what removes that domain-wide delegation. Export the report first, because once you exit, “you can no longer access its configuration data or reports”.

Addresses like info@ and sales@ need their own thought here, because on a hosting account these are often forwarders, or catch-alls that sweep up anything addressed to your domain, rather than real mailboxes. Neither holds mail of its own for the tool to move. Our guide to shared inboxes and Gmail delegation in Google Workspace covers how to rebuild them on the other side.

What goes wrong, in roughly the order it goes wrong

Two of these are on Google’s troubleshooting page for IMAP imports. The third is in its setup guide, which is a different page and the reason people miss it.

Your old server refuses the connection because everyone is already signed in. In our experience this is the one that stops the first attempt, because the same mailbox is usually open on somebody’s phone and laptop already. Google’s wording: “If a user has existing IMAP connections, the IMAP server might reach its connection limit, and the data import tool won’t be able to connect.” Google’s fix is to “remove the other IMAP connections for the user and try again”, which in practice means asking that person to close their mail app while their mailbox runs.

The connection itself is blocked. Google asks you to “Ensure that the IMAP server is hosted on port 993 and connects to the Google IP address ranges”, and to verify that the server uses IMAP over SSL. Google lists this as its first check and the credentials as its second, which is a useful order to work in, because the two can look alike from the console.

You import the same mail twice. Google Workspace offers its own import during initial account setup, on a page Google titles “Import data during setup (beta)”, and running the full tool over the same mail afterwards is an expensive mistake. Its setup page says so plainly: “Using the data import tool on data that you imported during Workspace setup creates duplicate data.” Pick one route and stay on it, because there is no undo button and clearing duplicates out of a mailbox is hand work.

The same page carries a warning about stopping a setup-time import: once you stop one, “You can’t restart an import.” That is about resuming a run you halted, not about running the tool again later, which the IMAP instructions expressly allow.

Do you have to move ten years of mail?

No, and it is the question worth settling first, because it is the one that sets your bill. We sell Workspace seats and we do not sell a per-mailbox migration tool, so we have no reason to talk you into moving more mail than you need.

The tool itself is free. Google’s launch post says it plainly: there is “No additional tool cost to use”, and it is included from Business Starter up. What the old mail costs you is storage, and storage is what decides your plan.

Because the allowance is pooled, a team of five on Business Starter shares 150 GB between them, and it does not matter that one person uses most of it. Our piece on how pooled storage works and what happens when you hit the limit goes through the admin side of that.

So the decision is this. Add up what your old mailboxes actually hold, and compare it with 30 GB times your headcount. If the archive is what tips you past that line, you are not choosing between importing and not importing. You are choosing between S$9.40 a head and S$18.80 a head, and across five people that gap is S$564 a year, every year, for mail nobody opens.

Three honest options, and we have recommended all three to different clients:

• Bring everything and pay for the room. Right when the mail is the business: legal, property, anything where a five-year-old thread settles an argument.
• Bring a start date and keep the old host alive for a while. Set the import to the last two years, keep the hosting mailbox running read-only until nobody has opened it for six months, then close it. Google’s start date field is what makes this practical, and it is the option we suggest most often.
• Bring nothing and start clean. Rare, but right for a business whose email is all short-lived. It is also the only option with no import to schedule and nothing to go wrong on the day.

Whichever you pick, decide it before the import rather than after. There is no button that reverses an import, so bringing too much means deleting mail out of live mailboxes by hand.

When a paid migration tool is worth it

Google’s free tool covers the ordinary case, and if you are under 100 mailboxes, moving mail only, and happy to run it yourself, it is the whole answer. Our resources page carries a free IMAP to Gmail migration checklist that walks your administrator through the run in order.

Download: Moving email off shared hosting, onto Google Workspace
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There are also specialist migration tools sold by other companies, and they are the reason a done-for-you service exists at all. Four we would consider for a job like this are BitTitan MigrationWiz, AvePoint Migration, Cloudiway and Movebot. Each of them names IMAP among the sources it accepts.

Be careful about what a paid tool gets you from a hosting mailbox specifically. These products are built to move whole platforms, and BitTitan, Cloudiway and Movebot all describe carrying email, contacts and calendars together. That is a fair description of sources that hold all three, such as Microsoft 365 or an Exchange server. A hosting mailbox is not one of those.

Cloudiway is worth reading closely here, because it publishes a grid of what it carries from each type of source, and in its IMAP column it ticks two rows, emails and folder structure, and puts a dash against contacts, calendars, shared mailboxes, archives and inbox rules. That is the same scope as Google’s free tool. Before you buy any of these on the strength of a feature summary, ask the vendor what it carries from an IMAP source specifically.

What a paid tool buys you is the running of the job, which is where our hours actually go:

• More than 100 mailboxes in one project, which Google’s free tool will not do in one run.
• Repeat syncs that pick up what arrived since the last pass, so the cutover can happen when your business is closed. Cloudiway and Movebot both describe delta syncs of this kind.
• Something to hand a client or a board as evidence of what moved. AvePoint offers to “Generate detailed reports on migrated volumes, item counts, and trends”, Movebot describes “Detailed reporting at all stages”, and Cloudiway offers a dashboard to “Monitor progress, view statistics, and manage issues”.
• Ways of handling credentials that do not put every password in a spreadsheet. Cloudiway is explicit that it authenticates with OAuth 2.0 and stores no passwords.

Cloudiway licenses per mailbox and says so. The other three do not publish that model on these pages: BitTitan sells named bundles, Movebot refers to data rates, and AvePoint prices nothing publicly at all. So treat per-mailbox as the question to ask rather than the answer to expect.

None of these is a one-button job in our experience: they want configuring, a pilot mailbox tested, and somebody watching the run. That is the work we do.

If you would rather not run this yourself, xSquare will do the migration for you on a licensed tool, from the inventory of what you have now through to the MX cutover and the checks afterwards. MX is the setting in your domain that tells the world where to deliver your mail, and switching it is the moment the move becomes real. Tell us how many mailboxes and which host, and we will quote it.

Common questions

Is the Google Workspace data migration service free? Yes, and on Google’s current pages it is called something else. The tool is data import, it is included in Google Workspace from Business Starter upwards, and Google’s launch post describes “No additional tool cost to use”. What you pay for is the Workspace seats and the storage the old mail occupies.

Will my folders survive the move? Yes. “Folders and subfolders” is on Google’s list of what an IMAP import carries. Labels and stars are on the list only when you are moving from another Google account, which is a different job.

Can I move more than 100 mailboxes? Not in one import. Google’s limit is that “You can import up to 100 IMAP users at a time”, and above that its own table sends you to GWMME, the Windows program. You can also run several imports one after another, exiting each before starting the next.

Can my IT provider run this for me? Not the free tool, if that provider is also who you buy Workspace from. Google’s rule is “Resellers can’t import data for their customer accounts”, and the import has to be set up and run by a super administrator on your own account. Google words the same rule on its overview page as “Resellers can’t use this service to import data for their customers”, and we read that as a rule about Google’s own service rather than about migrations in general, which is why the paid-tool route described above exists. Read it the other way and the answer is that your provider sits beside your administrator instead.

What happens to mail that arrives during the migration? It stays in the old mailbox until you run a delta import, which is a follow-up run that collects everything added since the first one. Do the bulk move first, switch your MX records, then run the delta to sweep up.

There is no Data migration menu in my Admin console. Am I in the wrong place? Probably not. Google’s current instructions put the tool at Data, then Data import & export, then Data import, and Google says “You must be signed in as a super administrator for this task”. Data migration is Google’s other name for the same thing. It is in the web address of the overview page and in the Help Centre section these pages sit in, which is why it keeps turning up in search results.

Where to start

Count your mailboxes and look at your storage. Under 100 mailboxes, mail only, and somebody in-house who is comfortable in the Admin console: run it yourself with the free tool, and take our migration checklist with you. Decide the start date before you begin, because that choice is what sets your bill for the next few years.

If you are past 100 mailboxes, if the cutover has to happen out of hours, or if nobody wants to own this on a Saturday, that is the paid route and it is what we do. Contacts and calendars are a separate rebuild whichever route you take, and we will tell you the same thing when you ask. Our Google Workspace services page explains how we work, and Google Workspace pricing in Singapore is the other page to read before you commit.