Google Workspace to Microsoft 365, without a bad week
The mail moves cleanly. It is everything attached to the mail that causes the trouble — calendar invitations for meetings that already exist, shared drives with permissions nobody documented, and the forms and scripts somebody built in 2019.
What moves easily
- Mail, including folders and read status
- Contacts
- Calendars, including recurring meetings
- My Drive files, into OneDrive
What needs a decision first
- Shared Drives. SharePoint is not a drive letter and pretending it is produces a mess. The structure should be decided before the files move, not after.
- Google Forms, Apps Script, Sites. These have no direct equivalent. Some become Microsoft Forms or Power Automate; some should simply be retired.
- Anything with a @gmail or @googlemail login attached. Third-party services signed up with “Sign in with Google” need re-pointing or they strand on the day you switch.
How long it takes
For a team of twenty with tidy drives, a fortnight end to end, with the cutover on a weekend and both systems reachable for a week either side. Larger or messier, longer. Nobody loses access to their mail at any point.
Should you move at all?
Sometimes not. If your team lives in Google Docs and nothing you do needs Office compatibility, moving costs money and goodwill for very little. We will say so. We support Google Workspace too, and a free audit covers whichever you are on.