How to ensure I'm able to migrate from Gmail for my private domain
October 5, 2011 12:36 PM Subscribe
How to use google apps to run my email but still be able to migrate to something else later? What steps do I need to take to make sure that someday if my business needs to I can migrate away from having google backend my email of my owned domain?
Hi I am currently using a test domain to see how gmail handles email and am using multiple email clients( outlook 2007 and outlook express )with said test domain.
I have worked through a number of issues including :
(1) how to have a catch all email forward example: I only have one email address with xyz@mydomain.com and what happens if someone sends to info@mydomain.com or rsvp@mydomain.com. I have set it up and it works correctly. Was harder than it should have been to set up. Should have been a default not an option.
(2) how to have hierarchical labels example: I have a clients label and then sub labels for each individual client. I even have sub labels for each client for each particular matter / project. This is fairly awesome and exactly as I wanted.
(3) how to import all existing emails, contacts, calendars, tasks etc into the google business apps cloud. It wasn't too complicated but got me thinking.
Migration to google got me thinking how will I be able to migrate away from using gmail someday should they hike up the price or something change like my business decides to utilize in house mail servers for one reason or another? If I have a client download new emails once a day to make a local backup could I then use that presumably later on with a different company than google handling the backend? Would that other company or in house server have to be IMAP to keep the labeling/ folders?
What steps do I need to take to make sure that someday if my business needs to I can migrate away from having google backend my email of my owned domain?
Hi I am currently using a test domain to see how gmail handles email and am using multiple email clients( outlook 2007 and outlook express )with said test domain.
I have worked through a number of issues including :
(1) how to have a catch all email forward example: I only have one email address with xyz@mydomain.com and what happens if someone sends to info@mydomain.com or rsvp@mydomain.com. I have set it up and it works correctly. Was harder than it should have been to set up. Should have been a default not an option.
(2) how to have hierarchical labels example: I have a clients label and then sub labels for each individual client. I even have sub labels for each client for each particular matter / project. This is fairly awesome and exactly as I wanted.
(3) how to import all existing emails, contacts, calendars, tasks etc into the google business apps cloud. It wasn't too complicated but got me thinking.
Migration to google got me thinking how will I be able to migrate away from using gmail someday should they hike up the price or something change like my business decides to utilize in house mail servers for one reason or another? If I have a client download new emails once a day to make a local backup could I then use that presumably later on with a different company than google handling the backend? Would that other company or in house server have to be IMAP to keep the labeling/ folders?
What steps do I need to take to make sure that someday if my business needs to I can migrate away from having google backend my email of my owned domain?
Would that other company or in house server have to be IMAP
I cannot think of any reason you'd want to move TO any solution in 2011+ that DIDN'T support IMAP.
The issue you might have moving off GMail is the same reason I've never moved my personal stuff to it - it's not really "proper" folders and the like via IMAP, it's tagged and thus you can have the same message in two (or two hundred) not-folders. So migrating off it I can imagine you could end up with a fairly crazed/duplicated arrangement, depending on how your users tag things. Your description above certainly sounds like such a potential bite in the ass - you could end up with the same message in multiple places.
However if the emphasis is on retention first and organization/structure second then I don't think you need to be worried about getting locked out. If you're concerned with it you can use one of the several IMAP migration/copy tools out there to periodically create your own saved dump.
posted by phearlez at 1:55 PM on October 5, 2011
I cannot think of any reason you'd want to move TO any solution in 2011+ that DIDN'T support IMAP.
The issue you might have moving off GMail is the same reason I've never moved my personal stuff to it - it's not really "proper" folders and the like via IMAP, it's tagged and thus you can have the same message in two (or two hundred) not-folders. So migrating off it I can imagine you could end up with a fairly crazed/duplicated arrangement, depending on how your users tag things. Your description above certainly sounds like such a potential bite in the ass - you could end up with the same message in multiple places.
However if the emphasis is on retention first and organization/structure second then I don't think you need to be worried about getting locked out. If you're concerned with it you can use one of the several IMAP migration/copy tools out there to periodically create your own saved dump.
posted by phearlez at 1:55 PM on October 5, 2011
Google has e-mail migration tools and APIs. You might have to hire someone to do it for you, but I wouldn't worry about it.
posted by wongcorgi at 4:37 PM on October 5, 2011
posted by wongcorgi at 4:37 PM on October 5, 2011
Response by poster: @wongcorgi - uhm the distinct impression I get is that the migration tools are intended as ways to migrate to google apps and not away from them. I could be wrong.
posted by Twinedog at 2:29 PM on October 6, 2011
posted by Twinedog at 2:29 PM on October 6, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Twinedog at 12:37 PM on October 5, 2011