Migrating from Google Workspace to Microsoft 365 without

Google Workspace → Microsoft 365 migrations come up often: an SMB started historically on Google Apps for Your Domain (Workspace’s ancestor), grew, now integrates Microsoft tools (Teams, SharePoint, Power Platform, or simply the native Office suite for finance and legal teams), and eventually asks the full-switch question. Here is the method we apply when the decision is taken.

The prior question: do you really need to migrate?

Before migrating, take time to ask the question. Google Workspace is an excellent product, particularly for collaborative teams and web-native workflows. Migrating to Microsoft 365 makes sense in several cases: need for the full Office suite as a thick client (Excel for finance is incomparable to Sheets), integration with Microsoft business tools (Dynamics 365, Power BI, Power Platform), compliance requirements (Purview for data classification, Sensitivity Labels), or simply a strategic choice aligned with the group’s tech stack.

If none of these criteria applies strongly, staying on Workspace and investing in its tooling is often the better decision. Migration is not an end in itself.

The realistic schedule

For a 50-user SMB, a complete Workspace → M365 migration takes 6 to 10 weeks with us. The breakdown:

Weeks 1-2 — audit + prep. User inventory, Drive shares, calendars, Gmail labels, third-party integrations. M365 tenant creation, domain configured in pre-coexistence (MX stays on Google during migration), security policies set up (MFA, Conditional Access, DLP), M365 accounts created.
Weeks 3-4 — data migration. Email cut-over by waves (groups of 10-15 users), Drive migrated to OneDrive and SharePoint preserving folder hierarchy, calendars and contacts switched.
Weeks 5-6 — MX cut-over + finalization. DNS cut-over (mail now arrives in M365), Workspace cleanup, user training on Outlook + Teams + OneDrive.
Weeks 7-10 (depending on complexity) — decommission. Extended coexistence period to catch the rare emails that arrive late on Google, final Workspace license deactivation, archiving of required data (accounting, HR obligations).

The tools we use

Three tool families depending on complexity:

BitTitan MigrationWiz — the reference for large migrations, per-user pricing, supports all data types (mail, drive, contacts, calendars, target SharePoint sites). Industrial reliability.
SkyKick Migration Suites — well-integrated alternative for Microsoft partners, more SMB-focused, more accessible interface.
Native Microsoft tools — Microsoft Migration Manager for Drive → OneDrive/SharePoint, IMAP migration built into Exchange Online for mail. Sufficient for small migrations (<20 users) where you accept limitations (no Gmail labels mapped to Outlook folders, etc.).

Our default for 30-150 user migrations: BitTitan, which justifies its cost through predictability.

Recurring traps

Shared Drives. On Google Workspace, a shared folder can belong to a user (and disappear when they leave) or to a team Shared Drive. The two cases migrate differently to SharePoint. Mapping carefully before migration prevents nasty surprises a week after cut-over.

Google Apps Script automations. Many organizations have accumulated scripts that automate tasks in Sheets or Forms. None migrate automatically. You decide which to rebuild in Power Automate or Office Scripts, and which to drop.

Third-party integrations. Slack, Asana, Notion, Zoom: nearly all these tools have a Google SSO integration and a Microsoft SSO integration, but each connector must be manually reconnected after cut-over. Plan a re-authentication wave in the 48 hours post cut-over.

Google Groups. groups@example.com must become Microsoft 365 Groups or Exchange distribution lists. The mapping is non-trivial depending on the use case (mailing list vs collaboration vs folder permissions).

Security: the moment to raise the bar

A migration is the chance to bring the security baseline back to standard. On every Workspace → M365 project we systematically enable: mandatory MFA for all accounts (with Authenticator + passkeys for admins), Conditional Access based on device compliance (coupling Intune or Kandji MDM), Microsoft Defender for Office 365 for email protection, audit logs enabled and supervised, and Purview Sensitivity Labels for sensitive data.

It is also the time to remove the dormant accounts accumulated in Workspace (typically 10 to 20% of accounts in a mature SMB) and to revisit groups.

The MX cut-over day

The most stressful moment is the DNS cut-over — modifying the MX records so inbound mail now goes to M365 instead of Google. A few rules: do the cut-over on a Thursday evening (never a Friday — keep a full business day to react), drop DNS TTL to 5 minutes 24 hours before to ease rollback, warn users they may receive a few late emails on Google for 24-48 hours after the switch, actively monitor the M365 send queue.

If you are considering a near-term cloud migration, an initial IT audit at Macinwork sizes the project and identifies traps specific to your context. The form at the bottom of the home is built for that.