With the corporate world widely embracing a cloud-driven business environment, migrating Exchange server emails to Gmail has become common. Organizations willing to enhance flexibility, improve collaboration, and reduce operating costs prefer adopting this method. Moreover, Gmail is a widely used email platform to offer unparalleled portability, accessibility, and numerous other advantages. Not surprisingly, this cloud-based email service acts as a suitable alternative to its Exchange counterpart.
The crux lies in the successful migration, as admins need proper planning and execution of all the steps. During the process, maintaining data integrity and minimal downtime must remain the utmost priority. Professionals perform this Exchange server recovery task through manual or automated methods. We will discuss both of them in detail.
Several reasons may prompt you to migrate Exchange email to Gmail (or Google Workspace). Here are some crucial ones:
- Suitable for all: Unlike Exchange Server, which is suitable for businesses only, Gmail is ideal for individuals for personal or professional communication.
- Seamless integration: Google Workspace integrates with Google Docs, Drive, Calendar, and Google Meet to boost team productivity.
- User-friendly: Gmail is easy to use for both technical and non-technical individuals.
- Affordable: Maintenance charges for a large-scale email server such as Microsoft Exchange server are high, while Gmail is available free or offers affordable cloud-based email services.
- Secure: In terms of data security, Gmail scores higher than MS Exchange, as its advanced spam detection feature protects your inbox from malware, phishing, etc., and minimizes downtime risks.
- No Maintenance: Freedom from maintaining local Exchange servers mitigates IT overhead appreciably.
Migrating Exchange Email to Gmail – The process in brief
MS Exchange allows exporting emails from Exchange Server to a local system in a PST file. Several Exchange applications, such as Exchange Admin Center, PowerShell, or Exchange Management Console, can perform this task. To perform the job, you need to export Exchange Server email to the local system, followed by its migration to Gmail through manual or automated methods.
Manual migration of Exchange emails to Gmail
Migration of Exchange email to Gmail requires you to enable IMAP on your Gmail account, which is now active by default. Gmail has automatically activated IMAP for personal accounts from January 2025. This has eliminated the need to configure it manually from the Forwarding and POP/IMAP settings. Here are the subsequent steps:
- Launch Outlook
- Click File > Info > Account Settings
- In the resulting Account Settings dialog box, click New tab
- Add New E-mail Account screen will appear.
- Tick the checkbox next to Manually Configure Server Setting or additional server type option at the bottom
- Click Next to get the Internet E-mail settings screen
- Provide the requisite email account credentials, including Server Information and Logon Information
- Click More Settings > Outgoing Server tab
- Click the checkbox next to Outlook Server (SMTP) requires authentication option.
- Next, click Advanced tab and provide the necessary information
- Click Next > Next > Finish
- Go to the Outlook inbox, and right-click it to create a new folder
- Export the Exchange emails to the newly created folder
- After transferring mails into the folder, move the folder into the Gmail email address visible in Outlook
These steps will transfer your Exchange mailbox and the included emails to Gmail.
Migration Using GWMME
Administrators can migrate mailboxes from Exchange Server to Gmail by using Google Workspace Migration for Microsoft Exchange (GWMME), a free Google tool. It allows you to migrate data, including emails, to your Google Workspace with the help of Google Workspace Migrate. You can set up Google Workspace Migrate on a group of MS Windows systems and run it on-premises or over the cloud. To migrate emails, contact data, calendar, or other items from Exchange Server to Gmail through GWMME, you must be a super admin. Here are the steps:
1. Know your workspace: Be familiar with Google Workspace before using it for your cause.
2. Add Users: Add user accounts to your Google Workspace. For limited users, you can add them manually. In case of adding bulk users, you can use a CSV file
3. Exchange Server setup: To get email to your Google Workspace, you need to set up your Exchange server. Setting a dual delivery would be suitable, as it will deliver each incoming mail to Exchange Server. After processing the message, the server will forward the email copy to Google Workspace.
4. Migrate email and other items to Google Workspace: Use the following tools depending on the number of user accounts (emails, contacts, etc.) you want to migrate from Exchange Server 2010,2013, 2016, or 2019
- Google Workspace Migrate to migrate more than 10001 users
- GWMME to migrate 101-1000 users
- Data migration service or GWMME to migrate 1-100 users (for Exchange 2010, 2013, or 2016
5. Configure the environment for Google Workspace
It will need you to recreate several Exchange functions in Google Workspace. For this, you can set up Google Workspace Sync for Microsoft Outlook (GWSMO). It will allow users to access Google Workspace from Outlook.
6. Train the users: To make a successful switch to Google Workspace and migrate your emails to Gmail, train your users properly.
This Google Workspace Admin Help page will assist you with the entire migration process from Exchange to Google Workspace.
Conclusion
Organizations seeking flexibility, collaboration and cost-competitiveness prefer migrating Exchange server emails to Gmail. Administrators can perform this migration task with the help of Outlook or Google Workspace Migration for Microsoft Exchange (GWMME).
Despite being effective, these manual methods are slow and prone to errors. In case of migration of a corrupt mailbox, your emails may become inaccessible.