Migrate email from a Gmail account

If your users are migrating from a consumer Gmail account (@gmail.com), you can migrate their email data to Google Workspace using the new data migration service. Except where indicated, perform the following steps in the Google Admin console of your target Google Workspace account (the account you're migrating to).

Before you begin

• Complete the requirements in Get ready to migrate.
• Make sure a super administrator sets up and runs the migration. Resellers can't migrate data for their customer accounts. 
• If a user is enrolled in the Advanced Protection Program, they must turn off the program before their migration is set up and while the migration is in progress. For details, refer users to How do I turn off Advanced Protection?

Step 1: Request authorization

You must be signed in as a super administrator for this task.

1. Sign in to your Google Admin console.

   Sign in using an account with super administrator privileges (does not end in @gmail.com).

2. In the Admin console, go to Menu  DataData import & exportData migration (New).
3. At the top, click Go to Data Migration (New).
4. For Gmail, click Migrate.
5. For Source email address, enter the address of the Gmail account and click Request authorization.

   An authorization request is sent in an email to the account holder. To proceed, the account holder must authorize the request and agree to the Terms of Service.

6. To check if the request has been approved, click Verify authorization. You can get the following messages:
   • The Gmail account owner has not yet authorized your access–The request hasn't been approved. Wait for the account owner to approve the request, then retry the step.
   • Connected–The request has been approved.
   • Authorization denied–The request has been denied. You must exit the connection before you send another authorization request.
7. (Optional) If the account owner has not given their approval, click Resend email to resend the authorization request. You must wait 24 hours after your previous request before resending the email.

Step 2: Specify the target user

1. For Target account, enter the email address of the Google Workspace account you want to migrate data to.

   The user on the target account must have a Google Workspace license and have the Gmail service turned on. For details, go to Get ready to migrate.

2. Click Save.

Step 3: Select the migration settings

1. Click Start date and enter the date that you want messages migrated from.

   The new data migration service migrates messages from the selected date to the date that you start the migration.

2. (Optional) To migrate email messages that have been deleted, check the Migrate deleted emails box.
3. (Optional) To migrate email messages with the Spam label, check the Migrate spam emails box.
4. (Optional) If you don't want to migrate messages that have specific labels, check the Exclude specific labels from migration box, and enter the label names, separated by a comma.

   For details, go to How to exclude labels from migration (later on this page).

5. Click Save.

How to exclude labels from migration

• Specify each label or sublabel separately.
• When you add a sublabel, use the full path and separate the parent label from the sublabel with a forward slash (/).

  Example: You want to exclude the label Travel and its child label, Asia. To do so, you enter Travel,Travel/Asia.

• If you add All Mail, the new data migration service doesn't migrate any email messages.

Step 4: Start & view the progress of the migration

1. Click Start migration.

   This action also grants domain-wide delegation and creates a client ID for Data Migration (New) in the target account. For more information, go to Control API access with domain-wide delegation.

2. The status changes to In progress and the following information is updated in real time:
   • Discovered tasks—Total number of items (messages, labels, and other tasks) that were migrated, skipped, or failed
   • Warning—Number of items that were migrated, but failed to complete as expected
   • Failed—Number of items that failed to migrate, due to an error
   • Skipped—Number of items that were skipped
   • Successful—Number of items that were migrated successfully
   • Emails discovered—Number of email messages that were migrated, skipped, or failed
   • Emails migrated—Number of email messages that were migrated
   • Emails skipped—Number of email messages that were skipped
   • Emails failed–Number of email messages that didn't migrate
3. To export and interpret the report, go to Understand email migration service reports.

Step 5: Run a delta migration

To move data that has been added to the source account since the primary migration, start a delta migration. For details, go to Run a delta migration.

Exit a completed migration

Important: Once you exit a migration, you can no longer access its configuration data or reports.

The Admin console displays information about a completed migration until you exit the migration. You can't start a new migration until you exit a completed migration:

1. (Optional) Download the migration report.
2. Click Exit migrationExit and delete migration.

When you exit, the system deletes the client ID and removes Data Migration (New) as a client in the domain-wide delegation setting in the target account. It also removes OAuth access in the source account.

Related topics

• Monitoring points for migrations
• Check events for the new data migration service