What actually moves across from Google Workspace?

Mail, calendars and contacts migrate reliably. Drive files copy across, with Google-native formats converting to Office formats. What does not travel: Google Apps Script automations, Drive sharing links you have published, third-party apps that authenticate through Google identity, and version history in most migration paths.

Will links to Google Docs still work after the move?

Only while the Workspace tenancy is alive. Every published Drive link, every document embedded in a website, and every link pasted into a contract keeps pointing at Google. Inventory the shared links before you migrate and decide which need to be reissued - this is the single most common post-migration surprise.

How do we avoid losing email during the switch?

Migrate in two passes and change DNS in the right order. Do a full copy first while Google still receives mail, then change the MX record, then run a delta sync to collect everything that arrived in between. Keep Google able to receive but not authoritative for a week afterwards as a safety net.

How long does it take for a team of fifteen?

Typically two to three weeks including preparation, with the cutover on a weekend. Mailbox volume drives the background sync time; Drive volume drives the file phase, which can run for days without anyone being blocked as long as you have agreed a freeze date for the old location.

What happens to shared drives and permissions?

They do not map one-to-one, and pretending they do is how permissions get lost. Google shared drives become SharePoint document libraries, and the permission model is different enough that the right approach is to redesign around Microsoft 365 groups rather than replicate the old structure literally.

How to move from Google Workspace to Microsoft 365 without losing an email

What moves across, and what doesn't

The supported path for mail, calendars and contacts is documented by Microsoft^[1], and Google's own admin-level export documents what is and is not included on their side^[2].

A move from Google Workspace to Microsoft 365 covers three things: your email, your calendars and contacts, and the files in Google Drive. Email, calendars and contacts travel together. Drive is a job on its own, and it helps to know that before you start so nothing catches you out halfway through.

Here is what comes across, and what needs handling separately:

What moves across, and what needs handling separately

Gmail mailboxes

Where it lands in Microsoft 365: Exchange Online mailboxes
What to know: Copied, not moved. The originals stay in Google until you decide otherwise.

Contacts and calendars

Where it lands in Microsoft 365: Outlook contacts and calendars
What to know: Travel with the mailbox on the built-in path; email-only methods need a separate export.

Shared addresses and aliases

Where it lands in Microsoft 365: Shared mailboxes and aliases
What to know: Mapped by hand, and easy to forget, so we list them first.

Google Drive and shared drives

Where it lands in Microsoft 365: OneDrive and SharePoint
What to know: A separate migration with its own structure and permissions.

Gmail labels

Where it lands in Microsoft 365: Outlook folders
What to know: A message can hold five labels but lives in one folder: you accept either duplicates or a flattened view.

Gmail filters, Apps Script, Sites, Forms, Keep

Where it lands in Microsoft 365: No direct equivalent
What to know: Rules are rebuilt in Outlook, automations in Power Automate; export the rest before closing the account.

Table mapping six categories of Google Workspace data to their Microsoft 365 destination, and what to know about each.
What you have in Google	Where it lands in Microsoft 365	What to know
Gmail mailboxes	Exchange Online mailboxes	Copied, not moved. The originals stay in Google until you decide otherwise.
Contacts and calendars	Outlook contacts and calendars	Travel with the mailbox on the built-in path; email-only methods need a separate export.
Shared addresses and aliases	Shared mailboxes and aliases	Mapped by hand, and easy to forget, so we list them first.
Google Drive and shared drives	OneDrive and SharePoint	A separate migration with its own structure and permissions.
Gmail labels	Outlook folders	A message can hold five labels but lives in one folder: you accept either duplicates or a flattened view.
Gmail filters, Apps Script, Sites, Forms, Keep	No direct equivalent	Rules are rebuilt in Outlook, automations in Power Automate; export the rest before closing the account.

Mail, calendar and contact behaviour follows Microsoft's documented migration path; the fidelity limits are the ones migration vendors publish themselves.

Source: Microsoft Learn, Migrate Google Workspace mailboxes to Microsoft 365 (2026)

What does not survive the move perfectly

Every migration vendor's own fidelity documentation says the same thing, and it is better to hear it now than in week three. BitTitan and SkyKick both publish per-object fidelity matrices for Google-to-Microsoft moves showing which attributes convert, which approximate and which are dropped^[3]^[4]. The ones that matter for a small team:

Gmail labels become Outlook folders. This is the big one. A Gmail message can carry five labels at once; an Outlook message lives in exactly one folder. The migration picks one and copies the message into each labelled folder, so you either lose the multi-label view or gain duplicate copies. Neither is wrong - it is a structural difference between the two systems, and no tool fixes it.
Gmail filters and rules do not migrate. They have to be rebuilt as Outlook rules. Budget 20 minutes per heavy user.
Google Docs, Sheets and Slides are converted, not moved. Conversion to Word/Excel/PowerPoint is good but not perfect: complex formulas, apps-script automations, add-ons and pixel-level formatting need checking. Anything running Apps Script needs rebuilding in Power Automate.
Shared drive permissions approximate. Google's sharing model and SharePoint's do not map one-to-one. We rebuild the permission structure deliberately rather than pretending it transfers.
Google Sites, Forms, Keep and Chat history have no destination. Export what matters before you close the account.

The reassuring part is that your mail is copied, not moved. Nothing is deleted from Google while the move is happening.

The two ways small businesses migrate

For a team of 5 to 50 people, two paths are worth weighing up.

The built-in path (Simplified Gmail Migration). Microsoft built this tool for small businesses, and it moves mail, contacts and calendars together. It handles up to 1,000 mailboxes, far more headroom than a small business will ever use. For most companies, this is the one to pick.

Email-only (IMAP migration). This copies the inbox and folders, but leaves contacts and calendars behind unless you export them yourself. It fits very small, simple setups under about 150 users where email is the only thing that matters.

Once you add a lot of shared mailboxes, aliases, or a large Drive, the move is better run as a managed project than clicked through live.

The order that keeps mail from going missing

The sequence matters more than the tool. Follow it and nothing falls through the cracks:

Set up the Microsoft 365 tenant and verify your domain.
Create every user and give each one a licence, so a mailbox is waiting before anything is copied into it.
Run the mailbox migration in the background. Mail still arrives in Google as normal while this happens, and the team carries on unaware.
Switch the MX record after hours. That is the moment new mail starts arriving in Microsoft 365, and it takes minutes.
Leave the Google account running for 30 days, so everyone can confirm their mail, contacts and calendars made it across.

Where email actually gets lost

Almost every horror story traces back to one of these:

The Google account was deleted too early, before the final sync had finished.
The MX record was switched before the mailboxes had copied across.
An email-only method was used, and contacts and calendars were forgotten.
A shared mailbox or alias was missed, and a customer kept writing to it.
Two-step verification on the Google side blocked the migration because no app password had been set.

None of these are hard to sidestep. They come down to a checklist and someone paying attention on the day.

What about your Google Drive files?

Drive sits outside the mail move. Your files go to OneDrive and SharePoint in a second migration, with its own plan for structure and permissions. Getting that plan right is what stops the files scattering all over again once they land. Our guide on where files should live in Microsoft 365 covers the destination in detail.

How long it takes, and what downtime to expect

For a team of ten, expect two to three weeks of background work and one after-hours switch at the end. Email never stops. People work in Google right up to the switch and in Outlook straight after, and on the day itself there is very little for anyone to notice.

Questions we get asked

Sources

Every figure in this article traces back to a named source. Where we quote our own numbers, they come from work we have done with small businesses in Israel and across Europe, and we say so.

Figures last checked 28 July 2026