Microsoft 365 to Google Workspace Migration: What Moves

Google Workspace data migration is the job of copying a business’s email, calendars, contacts and files into Google Workspace. For a Microsoft 365 to Google Workspace migration, Google’s own tool does that job at no extra cost. The tool is called data import. It sits in the Google Admin console, the website where you manage your Google Workspace account.

Data import copies email, calendars and contacts from Exchange Online, which is Microsoft’s email service. It copies each person’s OneDrive files into their own Google Drive. OneDrive is each person’s own file space in Microsoft 365. And it copies your SharePoint sites, Microsoft’s shared team folders, into shared drives, which are team folders in Google Drive.

It copies. Nothing in Microsoft 365 is deleted or changed by the import.

A few things do not come across cleanly. Old versions of files stay behind. So do SharePoint lists and pages, and any file a person outside your company created or last edited. Outlook rules, the settings that sort your mail for you, only move with the extra setup described below. Staff will also see their email filed differently on the first morning.

The order of the migration is simple. You create everyone’s Google account and copy the data across. Then you switch your domain’s MX records, so new mail arrives in Gmail. Last, you run a catch-up copy for anything that landed in between. Your domain is the ending of your email addresses, such as yourcompany.com.sg. An MX record is the setting on your domain that tells the world’s mail servers where to deliver your email.

This page is correct as of 12 October 2026. If you are still choosing between the two suites, start with our Singapore comparison of Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 instead.

What moves, and where it lands

Here is each part of a small business’s Microsoft 365 account, where data import puts it, and what to watch for. Some rows name the default or the advanced method. Those are the tool’s two ways of copying from Exchange Online, and the next section explains them.

Two jobs come before any of that. The tool copies into Google accounts that already exist, and it does not create them. So every person needs a Google Workspace account and a licence before the copy starts. Your extra addresses, such as sales@, and any mailing list are also yours to set up in the Admin console before the switch.

Email, calendars and contacts: default or advanced?

Data import has two ways to copy from Exchange Online: the default method and the advanced method. For a business of 5 to 50 staff, the choice turns on a few features, not on size.

The default method needs no extra setup on Microsoft’s side. You connect to Microsoft 365 from the Google Admin console. You sign in with your Microsoft administrator account and pick your people. It handles up to 1,000 Exchange Online users at a time, far more than a small business needs.

It leaves out four things: Outlook rules, Microsoft 365 Group mailboxes, attachments on calendar events, and calendar sharing, meaning who can see whose calendar. It also skips In-Place Archives, the extra archive mailbox some Microsoft 365 users have.

The advanced method copies those, but needs an Azure application. That is a small registration you create in the Azure portal, Microsoft’s website for this kind of setup. It gives Google’s tool permission to read your mailboxes. Google’s help has a page that walks through it. It is one more job for whoever runs the migration. It is also the price of keeping rules and calendar sharing.

Our advice to our own clients: list what your staff actually rely on before you choose. If nobody depends on Outlook rules or on seeing a colleague’s calendar, the default method is the simpler path.

Shared mailboxes

A shared mailbox is one inbox that several people read, such as info@ or accounts@. It has to land somewhere in Google, and you choose where. In the tool this is called mapping: you pick where each mailbox goes.

Map it to a Google Group, and it arrives as a Collaborative Inbox, a shared inbox several people can work from. The read and unread marks do not come across. Map it to a Gmail account instead, and that account’s owner can give others access once the copy is done. Our guide to the five ways to share an address like info@ in Google Workspace compares the options and what each costs.

Meeting rooms

Room calendars only move if you tell the tool where each one goes. With the default method, you list each room against a Google Calendar resource in the upload file the tool asks for. That file is a CSV, a simple spreadsheet saved as text. Leave a room out, and its bookings stay behind.

OneDrive and SharePoint files, and who can open them

Files move in the format they are in. A PDF stays a PDF, and a Word file stays a Word file. Nothing is turned into a Google Doc on the way.

OneDrive goes to each person’s own My Drive. The default method handles up to 500 OneDrive users at a time. OneNote notebooks, Microsoft’s digital notebooks, arrive as folders.

SharePoint goes to shared drives. A shared drive is a Google Drive space for a team’s files. The files stay when a member of the team leaves. Each SharePoint site becomes a shared drive, and its document libraries become folders inside it.

Sharing mostly comes across too. People who could edit a file in OneDrive or SharePoint become Editors in Google Drive. People who could only read it become Viewers. A SharePoint site has three usual groups of people, and each becomes a shared drive role: Visitors become Viewers, Members become Contributors, and Owners become Content Managers. Those are Google’s names for the levels of access in a shared drive.

Sharing links come across as the nearest Google link. An “Anyone” link becomes “Anyone with the link”. A link for people in your organisation becomes a link for your domain. A file in Google Drive can carry only one shareable link, though. Where a file had several, Google keeps the most restrictive one, the link that lets the fewest people in.

Some files are left behind. Know which before the migration starts:

• Earlier versions of a file. Only the latest version moves.
• Any file or folder created by, or last edited by, someone outside your company. If a client edited your proposal last, check that it arrived.
• SharePoint lists, which are tables of data kept on a site, and site pages.
• Personal Vault files (OneDrive’s extra-locked folder), Favorites, folder colours and shortcuts.
• With the default method, a file or folder inside a shared folder, when it is shared with fewer people than the folder above it.

Files you had shared with people outside your company stay shared with the same people. Google sends those people an email telling them a file has been shared with them. Warn your main clients before the files move. Then the emails will not look like phishing, the fake emails that try to steal logins.

Is Google’s free tool enough, or do you need a paid one?

For a business under 100 staff, Google points to its own free tool. Google publishes a migration product matrix, a table that matches each source of data to a Google tool. It names data import for Exchange Online, OneDrive and SharePoint Online at 1 to 100 users.

Google Workspace Migrate, a name you may see in other guides, is for a different size of business. Google says it is designed for migrations of 1,001 users or more, and that customers might find it hard to install and set up. The matrix also lists GWMME for Exchange Online. GWMME is short for Google Workspace Migration for Microsoft Exchange. It is a program you install on a Windows computer, and Google names it for Exchange servers a business runs on its own machines.

The free tool works on Business Starter. Business Starter, Business Standard and Business Plus are Google Workspace editions, Google’s word for its plans. Google lists all three among the editions that get data import for Exchange Online, OneDrive and SharePoint Online. So choosing Business Starter does not shut you out of the migration.

One limit on Starter is worth knowing if your SharePoint sites become shared drives. When Google opened shared drives to Business Starter in 2024, it said some admin-level and security controls, such as controlling access to the items in a shared drive, are not part of the Starter version.

Paid migration tools do exist. Before you pay for one, check the table at the top of this page against how your business works. If what your staff rely on sits in the parts that move, Google’s tool covers it.

Can your reseller run the import for you?

Not as your reseller. Google’s rule says no. Its page for the OneDrive import puts it this way: “Resellers can’t import data for their customer accounts.” Its page for the Exchange Online import says the same. We resell Google Workspace, so that rule covers us too.

The import is run from your own Google Admin console, by a super administrator. That is the admin account that can do every task in the Admin console. On the Microsoft side, the person connecting the tool signs in with a Global Administrator account, one of Microsoft 365’s admin roles. So whoever does the work needs both of those logins from you.

If you would rather not run it yourself, our Google Workspace setup and migration service covers a migration off Microsoft 365, with the changeover planned. The import still runs from your own Admin console, under a super administrator account, because that is what Google requires.

The order of the migration

This is the order we recommend for a small business.

1. Create a Google Workspace account and assign a licence for every person you are moving. Add your extra addresses and mailing lists too. Google says to do this before you change the MX records, so no email bounces.
2. Verify your domain in the Admin console, which proves to Google that you own it. The Exchange Online import needs a verified domain.
3. If you want, run a short pilot first. A few people try Gmail while everyone else carries on as normal. Google says a pilot does not interrupt anyone’s mail, and the MX records do not change for it.
4. Run the first import: email, calendars and contacts, then OneDrive and SharePoint. The import copies, so staff keep working in Microsoft 365 while it runs.
5. Tell your key contacts the date and time of the switch, and pick a time when little email arrives, such as an evening or a weekend.
6. Switch your MX records to Google. Also add the SPF record Google recommends. SPF is a record that tells other mail servers your email is genuine. It can take up to 48 hours for the new records to take effect. Until then, some email still arrives at Microsoft 365.
7. Run a delta import. That is a catch-up copy of anything new or changed since the first import, so the mail that reached Microsoft 365 during the switch comes across too.
8. Check that everyone’s mail, calendars and files are there, then close the import in the Admin console. Once it is closed, you can no longer run catch-up copies or see its reports, so save the reports first.

If mail from your new Gmail starts landing in spam after the switch, our guide to why business email lands in spam, and the SPF, DKIM and DMARC records to check takes you through each record.

Keep your Microsoft 365 subscription running until the last step is done and your staff have checked their own mail. That is our advice, not Google’s rule. The import never deletes anything in Microsoft 365, so the originals stay within reach while you check.

What staff will notice on the first morning

These are the changes worth putting in your note to staff before the first morning. People take them better when they know in advance.

Folders are now labels. Gmail files email under labels, and each Outlook folder becomes a label with the same name. An email that sat in two Outlook folders arrives once, under one of the two labels. Searching All Mail, the Gmail view that holds every message, finds it.

The unread count may jump. Gmail counts email differently from Outlook. Unread messages that Outlook had tucked into archive folders now count as unread. And when a new reply arrives in a conversation, Gmail marks the whole conversation unread.

Outlook rules are gone, unless you used the advanced method. Anyone who relied on rules to sort their inbox will need to set up Gmail filters.

Calendars look plainer. Calendar colours and settings do not come across. Event descriptions arrive as plain text, without formatting. Meetings set up in Teams, Microsoft’s meeting and chat app, keep their Teams links. They are not turned into Google Meet calls, Google’s own video calls, so those meetings still run on Teams. With the default method, people also need to share their calendars again.

Files are in their old formats, at their latest version. Earlier versions stay in OneDrive and SharePoint.

Starred contacts are not favourites. Contacts that were starred in Outlook do not arrive marked as favourites in Google Contacts.

One personal data check before you start

Your mailboxes and files hold personal data: your clients’ names, emails and phone numbers, and your staff’s records. Moving them is a transfer of personal data to a new vendor.

Singapore’s Personal Data Protection Commission (PDPC) says that if your organisation transfers personal data overseas, including to a vendor, you must make sure the recipient protects it to a standard comparable to Singapore’s Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA). The PDPC calls this the Transfer Limitation Obligation. It lists contract terms with the recipient as one of the ways to meet it.

So before the import starts, find out where your Google Workspace data will be stored. Then check that Google’s terms for your subscription cover the protection the PDPC describes. The PDPC’s guide to cross-border data transfers sets out the options. This is general guidance, not legal advice. If personal data is central to your business, ask a lawyer.

How long does a Microsoft 365 to Google Workspace migration take, and when do I switch the MX records?

The copying time depends on how much mail and how many files your business has. For Exchange Online, Google’s Migration Planner gives timeline estimates for your own users and sorts them into batches. The default method takes up to 1,000 Exchange Online users and up to 500 OneDrive users at a time, so a business of 5 to 50 staff fits in one go.

Switch the MX records after the first import is done, at a quiet time such as an evening or a weekend. New MX records can take up to 48 hours to take effect. So run the catch-up copy once those 48 hours have passed, and it brings across the mail that reached Microsoft 365 in between.

Can Teams chats move to Google Workspace?

Google’s migration product matrix lists Microsoft Teams as a source for its data import tool at 1 to 100 users. Check Google’s page on what it imports for chats before you promise your staff their chat history.

Our old email is not on Microsoft 365. Does this still apply?

Not all of it. If your mail sits with a web host, Google’s data import tool can also copy email from an IMAP account. IMAP is the standard way many web hosts let you read email, and that kind of migration has its own limits. Our guide to IMAP to Google Workspace migration covers which tool to use and what it leaves behind.

Before your staff sign in

Once your Google Workspace data migration is done and the MX records point to Google, your new Google Workspace account is where your business email lives. Lock it down before your staff sign in on the first morning, not after. Our Google Workspace security checklist for a small business takes you through the admin and sign-in settings to set first.