Google Workspace to Microsoft 365 migration without a lost week.
Mail, calendars, contacts and Drive move with first-party Microsoft tooling. Google stays live until Outlook and OneDrive pass your checks.
- Exchange Online batch migration, named and run
- Migration Manager for Drive and Shared Drives
- MX switch rehearsed, with a written rollback
- Legacy auth and OAuth apps reviewed before go-live
Gmail to Exchange Online · Calendar · Contacts · Drive to OneDrive · Shared Drives to SharePoint · Chat to Teams · Identity · Intune
Sorami migrates Google Workspace tenants to Microsoft 365 using the Exchange Online automated batch migration for mail, calendar and contacts, and Migration Manager for Drive and Shared Drives. We build the routing subdomains and service account and pre-stage data while Gmail stays live. A pilot group moves first. Then MX records switch in a quiet window.
What migrates from Google Workspace to Microsoft 365?
Microsoft documents the gaps. We put them in the plan so nobody finds them on Monday.
The Exchange Online batch migration copies mail, calendar events, contacts and rules. Labels become folders: a message with three labels is copied into three folders, starred mail becomes flagged and unlabelled mail lands in Archive. Rules arrive disabled. Messages over 35 MB are skipped unless the limit is raised to 150 MB before the batch runs.
Several things do not move at all. Vacation responders and room bookings stay behind. So do shared calendars, event colours, contact tags and signatures. Mailbox delegation and permissions are rebuilt by hand in Exchange. Google Vault retention does not become Purview retention; we write the equivalent policies and holds before cutover.
Drive files move through Migration Manager. Docs, Sheets and Slides are exported to Word, Excel and PowerPoint on the way. Folder permissions move by default; file-level permissions only if enabled. Shared Drive roles collapse: Manager, Content Manager and Contributor all become Can edit in SharePoint, so sensitive libraries need a permission review after the copy. Scripts and formulas inside Sheets are covered on the scripts and formulas page.
How does mail keep flowing during the move?
Microsoft's method needs two routing subdomains. One points at Microsoft 365, one points back at Google. Every migrating user needs a mail user in Exchange with an external address on the Google routing domain, so mail that arrives at the new tenant early is forwarded back to Gmail. Exchange outbound spam policy, remote domain settings and mail flow rules can each silently block that forwarding; we test all three with a pilot mailbox before the first batch.
Authorisation runs through a Google Cloud service account with domain-wide delegation and four OAuth scopes. The scopes must be entered exactly, and propagation takes between fifteen minutes and a day. A wrong scope fails the batch later, not at setup, which is why we verify with a one-user batch first.
Google throttles mail at about 2 GB per mailbox per day. Pre-staging a 40 GB mailbox takes three weeks of background copying, so the inventory step sizes the largest mailboxes early and the plan starts them first.
What happens on cutover weekend?
- MX and related TTLs lowered to 300 seconds at least a day ahead.
- Microsoft SPF include and both DKIM selectors published before the MX change.
- DMARC held at monitoring during the window, enforcement restored at close.
- MX switched in a quiet window, usually Friday evening.
- Final delta batch catches mail that arrived during the switch.
- Printers and line-of-business apps repointed to SMTP client submission or a connector.
- Old Google tenant kept live for at least 72 hours as the rollback.
- Monday: devices enrol in Intune, Outlook profiles set up, help channel open.
Rollback is the MX record. While Google is live and the routing subdomain still forwards, mail can be sent back to Gmail within one TTL. We only switch when the pilot group has signed off.
How do sign-in, MFA and devices change?
Entra ID becomes the identity source. Users are created or synchronised before any data moves, because both Exchange batches and Migration Manager need the destination account to exist and OneDrive to be provisioned. MFA is re-enrolled on the new tenant, legacy IMAP and POP are turned off at Google, and app passwords are retired. Conditional Access blocks legacy authentication from day one.
Devices move from Google endpoint management to Intune. Compliance policies, Windows Hello or passkeys, and application control baselines are set to the Essential Eight Maturity Level 2 controls your organisation has chosen. That reset is part of the migration security review, which also inventories the OAuth apps that had access to Google data and decides which get an equivalent in Entra.
What about Google Chat, Meet, Sites and Groups?
Chat history has no first-party path into Teams. We export it for retention and start Teams fresh with a channel structure agreed in design. Meet links in recurring calendar events are rewritten to Teams during the calendar copy or by a script afterwards. Google Sites cannot be copied; they are rebuilt as SharePoint pages, and a third-party tool such as BitTitan MigrationWiz can move the content with permission and formatting loss we list in advance. Google Groups collaborative inboxes map to Microsoft 365 shared mailboxes, with history only where conversation history was switched on.
How much does a Google Workspace to Microsoft 365 migration cost?
Pricing is quoted per user after a 20 minute scoping call. Sorami holds no partner tier with Microsoft or Google and takes no reseller margin, so licences are bought on your account at list price.
Microsoft FastTrack offers data migration assistance to tenants with 150 or more eligible licences. If you qualify, we say so and plan around it. FastTrack copies the data. Sorami owns the design, the cutover, identity and the security review. Below that threshold we run the tools ourselves. See the migration services hub for the four quote parts, or the reverse direction on the Microsoft 365 to Google Workspace page.
Practical answers.
Does Gmail history move to Outlook with folders intact?
Labels become folders. A message with several labels is copied into each matching folder, starred mail becomes flagged and mail with no label lands in Archive. Rules are copied but arrive disabled. We tell staff this before cutover and provide a one-page Outlook guide.
Will recurring calendar events survive?
Mostly. Google caps a recurring series at 365 recurrences, a series whose first instance falls on a different weekday loses that instance for Outlook users, and 31st-of-month events behave differently. Room bookings and shared calendars do not migrate and are rebuilt. We report affected series from the inventory.
Do we need to buy a migration tool?
Not for mail, calendar, contacts or Drive. The Exchange Online batch migration and Migration Manager are included with Microsoft 365 licences. A third-party tool is quoted only for Google Sites, Google Groups or Chat exports, at the vendor list price on your account.
How long will the move take?
Google throttles mail at about 2 GB per mailbox per day, so pre-staging is sized by the largest mailbox. A tenant under 50 users with ordinary mailboxes typically takes two to four weeks including a pilot and a hypercare week. The cutover itself is a weekend.
Is Sorami in the Microsoft Partner programme?
No. Sorami holds no partner tier with Microsoft and takes no reseller margin. Licences are bought on your account at list price. Pricing is quoted per user after a 20 minute scoping call.
Moving from Google Workspace to Microsoft 365?
Send the user count, the largest mailboxes and any deadline. We reply within one business day with a scoping call time.
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