Microsoft 365 to Google Workspace Migration Watchpoints

Drive

SharePoint Site Level Permissions

Behavior

Site-level permissions are not migrated to Google Shared Drive. Explicit file and folder permissions will be migrated.

Recommendations

Manual application of Site-level membership is advised prior to cutover migration.

Document Creation Date

Behavior

The document creation date at the destination will be the date the file is migrated.

Recommendation

You may want to advise users of this in advance.

Pinned/Favorite files and folders

Behavior

Pinned or favorited files and folders from your source account will not be replicated in your destination account. Flags are migrated to Google Workspace as stars.

Recommendations

Advise end users that they will have to pin/star files and folders post migration.

Linked files/images

Behavior

Hyperlinks to other Microsoft 365 files may no longer work after migration, as the files will be assigned new URLs during the process.

Please note the following impacts:

  • Embedded links, files, charts, and similar references will break, as they will still point to the original file location on the source domain. You'll need to manually update these links to direct them to the newly migrated files on the destination domain.
  • Microsoft Forms will lose their connection to response sheets.
  • External links, such as browser bookmarks, will continue to lead to the original Microsoft document location, not the migrated version.

Recommendations

Advise users that they will need to update these links within the documents on their new accounts. Consider using Document Mappings to produce a report that maps the original source document URL/ID to the migrated document URL/ID.

Version History

Behavior

Version history of a file will not be migrated. The migrated users will not be able to revert any changes that have been made prior to the go-live date of their new account.

Recommendations

Any important information in the version history should be copied as this is not migrated.

Shared drive limits

Behavior

All Shared Drive limits are detailed in the below documentation from Google.

Shared drive limits in Google Drive

Recommendations

Ensure you are aware of the above limitations when planning your migration to Google Shared Drives. If you suspect you may reach the 750GB daily upload limit for a user, we recommend specifying additional "Shared drive default managers" in the destination settings. You can find more detail on that option here.

Externally owned data

Behavior

Migrate is unable to migrate any document owned externally as we don't have access to external instances. Therefore, any documents owned by external users to the Microsoft 365 tenant will need to be re-shared back to migrating users post migration.

Recommendations

Any documents owned by external users will need to be re-shared back to the migrating users after Go-Live.

Externally shared data

Behavior

Any external sharing will NOT be migrated for internal documents shared externally. External sharing will need to be re-established post migration.

Recommendations

Any documents owned internally and shared to external parties will also need to be re-shared after Go-Live.

Trash/Deleted Items

Behavior

Drive items in your "Trash" or "Deleted items" will not be migrated.

Recommendations

If a user requires items in their deleted items to be migrated, these should be restored prior to the migration.

OneDrive to My Drive migration behavior

Behavior

Any documents in My Files are placed in a folder in the root of the destination users My Drive named "Documents". This is expected behavior because in the backend each users OneDrive is a SharePoint document library named "Documents".

Recommendations

Provide communication to users in advance to explain this expected behavior.


Sites

SharePoint sites cannot be migrated to Google sites.


Email

Junk Email folder

Behavior

The junk email folder is not migrated.

Recommendations

Advise end users of this expected behavior if required.

Folders

Behavior

Mail folders in Microsoft 365 will be migrated to labels in Google workspace. Sub-folders will become sub-labels. Additionally, if a folder contains a forward slash (/), it will be split into 2 labels (the second label being a sub-label).

Recommendation

Advise end users of this expected behavior if required.

Email Settings

Behavior

Canned responses, filters and customisations of mailboxes will not be migrated.

Recommendation

Advise users to re-apply these settings post migration.

Google Workspace Inbox size limitations

Behavior

Google Workspace mailbox size limitations can be found here: https://support.google.com/a/answer/175121

Recommendations

If a users source mailbox is over the size supported by the destination mailbox, consider the following.

  • Limit the amount of items being migrated (e.g. migrate the past 3 years of email only).
  • Archive emails beyond the limits.

Calendar

Meetings with Teams Meeting links

Behavior

Meeting links will be migrated. However, they will still link to the existing meeting and a Google Meet link will not be created in their place.

Recommendations

For internal meetings, you may want to advise end users to create new meetings with Google Meet links.

Secondary calendars

Behavior

Secondary calendars will be migrated only if the original owner can be identified during the migration. If the user has old calendars that were hidden before the migration, they will appear again at the destination. 

Recommendations

Advise users of the behavior regarding hidden calendars and review calendar sharing carefully to ensure it is shared out appropriately, particularly with external contacts. 

Calendar sharing notifications

Behavior

Users will receive emails indicating that a calendar has been shared with them during a migration.

Recommendations

Make users aware of this and advise that it is part of the migration process. No action is required.

Using calendar between Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace during a phased migration

Behavior

Users will experience difficulty managing their calendar invites cross platform.

Recommendations

It is advised that an admin/technical resource sets up Calendar Interop. This is detailed in the below Google article.

About Calendar Interop


Contacts

My Contacts vs Other Contacts

Behavior

The default migration behavior will mean that users "Other Contacts" will be migrated into their "My Contacts" section. This is to help ensure the user email addresses are prompted when composing emails.

Recommendations

Advise end users of this behavior.


OneNote

OneNote is not migrated.

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