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Email Google to terminate free G Suite users with domain email hosting

Discussion in 'Domains, DNS, Email & SSL Certificates' started by deltahf, Jan 26, 2022.

  1. eva2000

    eva2000 Administrator Staff Member

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    I have 2x definite Google GSuite Legacy accounts that need upgrading to the paid Google Workspace Business Starter plan at US$6/month. And 3-4x Google GSuite Legacy accounts which need data/emails migrated to alternative providers like Zoho or MXRoute before switching. And then rest of my domains can switch without data migration as they are unimportant domain/email accounts.

    Upgraded my 1st definite Google GSuite Legacy free email account domain - have to use Google Admin Console to upgrade instead of via GSuite Legacy email interface as I need to switch to Australian country to be able enter a non-US billing address and Australian currency.


    admin-console-upgrade-workspace-business-01.png

    After upgrading

    admin-console-upgrade-workspace-business-02.png
    admin-console-upgrade-workspace-business-03.png

    Upgraded disk quota from 15GB to 30GB - had 2GB bonus = 32GB.
    admin-console-upgrade-workspace-business-04.png
     
  2. deltahf

    deltahf Premium Member Premium Member

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    I have a lot (around 15 I think) of email addresses that I have set up for my domain over the years for various purposes. I'm going to have to dig into all those accounts and see how many I can eliminate before making the upgrade.

    Ugh.
     
  3. eva2000

    eva2000 Administrator Staff Member

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    Yeah quite a bit of leg work on my end for the same.

    Also sharing latest Zoho Mail pricing comparison for their plans Zoho Workplace - Comparison of pricing plans which might be an option for some folks but pricing is in Australian dollars AUD$1 = US$0.745 right now.

    On my Zoho upgrade page. Compared to Google Workspace Business Starter plan at AUD$8.40/user/month.

    free-plan-grandfathered-pricing-03.png
     
  4. eva2000

    eva2000 Administrator Staff Member

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    hmm Google to Zoho Mail migration will be tricky due to Google mail labels treated as folders so you'd have duplicate emails = increase disk quota usage Migration from Google Workspace to Zoho Mail. So if you're only trying to save a few $$$ moving from Google Workspace Business starter to Zoho Mail, you may end up paying the same or more as your disk storage quota requirements might blow out with such migration due to multiple Google mail labels being seen as individual folders.

     
    Last edited: Apr 11, 2022
  5. eva2000

    eva2000 Administrator Staff Member

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    Came across an interesting discussion with tips for Google to MXRoute IMAP email migration via imapsync tool at Anyone Actually Migrated Gmail from Google Workspace to Mxroute?

    Specifically, comment post at Anyone Actually Migrated Gmail from Google Workspace to Mxroute?. Part in bold about backing up IMAP account first.
    I started a discussion thread for using Outlook app export/re-import as a way of migrating IMAP emails at https://community.centminmod.com/th...gration-via-outlook-export-to-pst-file.22622/. If you have used this method, please share your experience in that thread :)
     
    Last edited: Apr 11, 2022
  6. cloud9

    cloud9 Premium Member Premium Member

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    Love the quote :D

     
  7. eva2000

    eva2000 Administrator Staff Member

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    In screenshot you can see my free period is for 6 months from April to October 2022. But looks like Google shorten the free 6 month time period to 4 months now. They start billing now in September 2022 for August 2022 charges! Instead of October 2022

    Upgrade from G Suite legacy free edition - Google Workspace Admin Help

     
  8. buik

    buik “The best traveler is one without a camera.”

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    Nice, the first months discount. To nival the transition from free to paid a bit.
    In my opinion, paying after so many years of using a previously free service is not the biggest problem. They're trying to cram a full package into you. Rather the problem of paying for a complete suite. While you or I only use the mail.

    I don't need Google- Drive, Meet, Calender, Chat, Jamboard, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Keep, Sites and Forms. If you weigh all the/your subscriptions against each other you might even have 80 percent overlap in services. For example Windows users with active Office subscriptions. With the same services.
    And that, I think, is the biggest problem.

    You're going to have all of these abbreviations in a moment. Because paying once no longer exists. Where you have all overlap in services and 80% overpay (you pay the competitor for similar service) or do not use it like the services above as example.
     
    Last edited: Apr 22, 2022
  9. eva2000

    eva2000 Administrator Staff Member

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    Yeah there's overlap. Not sure about others, but where there's overlap for me, I actually use both services and like the segregation as I use them for different things - mainly the Google Drive vs OneDrive etc.
     
  10. buik

    buik “The best traveler is one without a camera.”

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    I am just trying to avoid those as much as possible. :)

    Largely because of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that applies in Flanders. Where I live. I only put non-critical files on US affiliated web host companies. For example, a campaign for charity. By site or forum for example.
     
  11. eva2000

    eva2000 Administrator Staff Member

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    My first Google Workspace upgraded billing invoice! :D

    google-workspace-first-invoice-01.png
     
  12. deltahf

    deltahf Premium Member Premium Member

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    I finally caved in and set up my paid Google Workspace account. It was a process but I managed to get 16 user accounts down to just two.

    Most of them were from employees or volunteers who I just gave email addresses out to over the years but most are no longer working with me, and others were email addresses I had just created because I was using the address in some capacity. Looking back, I'm not sure why I thought I actually needed to have full email accounts set up for these addresses (like the email address my XenForo forum sends email from) when an alias will clearly work just fine.

    I will also admit it is pretty cool to have access to 4TB of Google Drive space now. Google Drive is extremely fast for me and I can upload/download files from it at almost the full speed of my gigabit fiber connection, so it's something we are definitely going to use.

    Anyway, everything went pretty well but I ultimately caused one big problem that's worth documenting here...

    For XenForo's Bounced Email Handling, you must have a dedicated email address that bounced messages can go to. XenForo then logs into that address and processes the messages it finds in there to run its automated account deactivation features. For my bounced email address I had obviously just set up a "bounce@mydomain.com" account to handle that and everything worked fine.

    As part of this transition I decided to just set up a dedicated free Gmail account to handle these bounces. I got that set up and thought everything was working until I found out that my forum was not sending out emails any more!

    My Postfix logs lead me to the problem, Amazon SES was rejecting messages with "554 Message rejected: Email address is not verified." even though the address I was sending from had not changed...

    It turns out, every email address, or "identity" as SES calls it, must be verified with them. Because my original bounce handling email address was already @mydomain.com, it did not need its own verification. To fix it, I just verified the new dedicated Gmail address in my SES account and forum emails started working immediately again. An easy fix but it took me over 12 hours before I realized there was a problem so we lost a ton of notification emails.

    Something to keep in mind if you are using XF bounced email handling!

    **ALSO!**

    You guys may already know about this, but during my journey I discovered Google Workspace Email Routing. It's a super-powerful email routing and filtering system built right into Workspace and could definitely come in handy.
     
  13. eva2000

    eva2000 Administrator Staff Member

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    Thanks for the reminder, still have a few domains I need to manage for this!

    Indeed. Added storage space plus me having 250-900Mbps download and 30-40Mbps upload speeds now means it's more useful to backup stuff!

    Yup had the same issue, I setup a separate domain for my bounce emails via MXRoute https://community.centminmod.com/threads/using-mxroute-com-for-yourdomain-emails.22409/ :)

    One thing I haven't looked at. I'm just using Google Alias usernames and Alias domains right now.
     
  14. deltahf

    deltahf Premium Member Premium Member

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  15. eva2000

    eva2000 Administrator Staff Member

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    I welcome further delays :D
     
  16. eva2000

    eva2000 Administrator Staff Member

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    Hmm seems Google changed their minds again Upgrade from G Suite legacy free edition - Google Workspace Admin Help personal use can continue to use Gmail with custom domains! If I read that correctly

     
  17. deltahf

    deltahf Premium Member Premium Member

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    Anyone else still getting emails from Google after upgrading to Workspace?

    They're telling me I need to add payment information, warning about the implications, but I already did. I'm sure it'll be fine as everything is there in the account, but still a bit annoying.
     
  18. eva2000

    eva2000 Administrator Staff Member

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    Only one domain upgraded to Workspace ages ago, but not getting new add payment emails for that. This weekend I'm going to deal with 2 unimportant domains on legacy Gsuite - though with the new change for personal usage, going to read up about that. These domains don't need any emails migrated. The big effort will be for some domains that I was planning to move but needed emails/IMAP migrated. But if the new personal email policy is real, then might not need to!
     
  19. deltahf

    deltahf Premium Member Premium Member

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    I probably started bragging a little too soon about getting my email addresses down to two...

    I typically interact with users using a more "public" webmaster@example.com address which I had connected to my site's contact form. Email comes from the form to my private Gmail address, then using Gmail's "Send Mail As" feature, I could just hit reply and they would only ever see my "public" address.

    It worked great but now I realize that since deleting that webmaster@example.com account in my Google Workspace, it will of course no longer let me use that user to login with SMTP via the Send Mail As feature to send mail from that address. I tried signing in with SMTP using my other accounts on the domain but then the resulting email is shown as coming from that other address.

    Bummer. :(
     
  20. eva2000

    eva2000 Administrator Staff Member

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    Just setup webmaster@ user as a user alias to one of 2 remaining users then and you can use send as from again. That is pretty much how I use Gsuite/Workspaces