My apologies if this question is too far off topic, but I’m considering migrating from Google Workspace. I am one of the folks that used Google’s free tier for a custom domain for a long time, but I’ve been paying the monthly fee.
However, it does feel a bit wasteful given that I have other options like iCloud or another server to host my email.
The questions I am wrestling with are 1. is iCloud a solid solution for handling my emails and … the things I’m less confident about, 2. What happens to my Google Drive files if I cancel my workplace subscription.
Number one more on topic here but number 2 is what gives me a bit more heartburn. Assuming my storage is less than 15GB, would I have uninterrupted access to those files and be able to continue to use drive as normal? I thought perhaps someone here had experience with this. It would be painful to lose all of that data.
If what you have in Google Drive are regular files, you could use Google Drive Desktop with iCloud Drive to move them to iCloud just by dragging and dropping (caveat emptor, it can take some time and you need to make sure your Google Drive files are fully synced before attempting this). It’s more complicated if you have Google native file formats (Docs, Sheets, Slides…)
Of course, you can technically use free Google Drive storage. But there’s a catch - Google Workspace accounts can not be migrated and converted into regular Google accounts (unless something has changed since all the similar reports out there, but I had a similar situation with closing down a Workspace account about two years ago – I migrated everything to M365 and with Microsoft’s tools this was a pretty straightforward and a surprisingly hassle-free process).
This means, once you stop paying for Google Workspace, you should consider that account to be essentially dead (or you close it yourself). Google will delete files over quota and make the account read-only before they start deleting excess files (they used to have a generous policy, with some reports being that they will not start deleting any files until two years have passed).
Your best course of action is probably to use Google Takeout to export everything from Drive on Google Workspace, and reupload everything to a standard Google account. You can use Google Takeout to export Gmail messages as well, as it will let you download MBOX files which you can then reupload to iCloud using Apple Mail.
I regularly export all my Google Workspace data as a backup using takeout.google.com
In addition Google and Apple offer ways to transfer photos directly from one provider to the other. However if had less than 15 GB of data I probably would just use Google takeout for everything.
What I did was migrate my Google account to Google Cloud Identity Free. I still have access to Drive, YouTube etc with the same account name (email at my domain) but use iCloud+ for Mail, Calendar etc. I moved my email from Gmail to iCloud by drag and drop in Mail.app before changing the domain MX records. Everything else was seamless.
I upgraded to Google Workspace before the cancellation. I thought $12/month for GW, which comes with 2TB of storage, was reasonable. Especially when Apple, Dropbox and others charge $10/month for 2TB of storage only.
I’m the only Mac user in my family so I need to stay cross platform. And GW makes using an iPad as my main computer easier. YMMV.
I’m glad it works for you. I find Google very slow to support Apple platforms and they lose interest in their own products to the point where I think I would be foolish to rely on them again.
True. Google does do a lot of their research in public (see killedbygoogle.com). I still miss Google Reader. But I understood when they dropped the legacy free edition of G Suite. They had been hosting my domains for free most of the 15 years it existed. It was time I paid up.
But Google Workspace is a commercial product that is continuing to evolve. When Airbus switched to GW a few years ago the CEO said he wanted their employees to be able to work with “Any device, anytime, anywhere”.
That’s what I can do with my iPhone, iPad, and Mac. And possibly any other internet connected device I might acquire.