How to Copy (Migrate) Emails From a Personal @Gmail.com Mailbox to Google Workspace

Quick and easy-to-follow guide for Google Workspace administrators

How to migrate from Gmail to Google Workspace: meet the Data migration service

Google Workspace’s Data migration service can copy email messages along with their folders from a personal @gmail.com account to Google Workspace.

How the email data migration works

The migration doesn’t remove messages from your @gmail.com mailbox; it just creates exact copies in a Google Workspace mailbox.

Before you start an email migration from Gmail

Before you start transferring emails, make sure that you have already created Google Workspace users for the migration.

How long does email data migration to Google Workspace take?

It’s tough to tell how long a migration will take because it depends on the number of messages in the mailbox.
Generally speaking, mailboxes with less than 1000 emails shouldn’t take longer than 15-30 minutes to complete.
More significant migrations can go on for days.

How to transfer emails from Gmail to Google Workspace step-by-step with images

Step 1

Go to the Admin console https://admin.google.com and click Data migration.

Step 2

Click SET DATA MIGRATION UP.

Step 3

Click Select a Migration Source and pick Gmail, then click the blue START button at the bottom.

Step 4

Next, adjust your migration preferences.

First, set the Migration Start Date. This feature transfers only emails starting from the date you select.

Below, you can choose whether or not to transfer deleted emails, spam or exclude some folders from the transfer.

Click SELECT USERS.

Step 5

Click Add user.

Step 6

Type the full @gmail.com email address under Source Email.

Step 7

Click AUTHORIZE below.

Step 8

A new tab opens. Sign in with the @gmail.com account to authorize the migration. First, type your email and click Next.

Step 9

Type your password and click Next.

Step 10

Click Allow to authorize the data migration service to copy over emails to Google Workspace.

Step 11

Copy this code by clicking the icon to the right of it.

Step 12

Back on the Google Workspace migration page, paste the copied code under Authorization Code. Next, type the Google Workspace email you want to migrate messages to and click START.

Step 13

That’s it, now you’ll see that the migration is Initializing under the Status column.

You can check the box to the left of the migration info to pause the migration, resume it or stop it completely. Stopping the migration doesn’t remove any emails that have already been migrated.

Step 14

The Status column will update when you refresh the page, starting with Estimating the number of items in the source mailbox. It may take some time, especially if there are lots of messages.

Step 15

When it finishes, the Status will change to Complete.

You can hover over it to see the number of migrated and failed emails. However, it won’t show you which emails have not migrated and why.

Please note that it can take up to a few hours after the migration completes for the emails to become visible in the new mailbox.

You can always restart the migration from scratch to migrate over any emails that failed to migrate the first time. You won’t generate any duplicates in the Google Workspace mailbox. You can repeat the process as many times as you need to, although it rarely takes more than one go.