G Suite Legacy Free Edition Discontinued – What to Do Now?
Its official folks! G Suite Legacy free edition ends on July 1, 2022,. It’s not the first time and it definitely won’t be the last that Google abruptly ends the free usage of one of its services. Last year, it was the end of unlimited Google Photos storage, and now it’s the complete free G Suite service.
Actually, G Suite legacy is closed on May 1, 2022. It’s just that Google automatically upgraded your account to Google Workspace and you can use it till July 1, 2022, without paying any cost. After that, you will end up losing access to your crucial data.
In 2020, Google rebranded G Suite as Google Workspace to “tailor their services to better fit their customer needs”, and now it is forcing all G Suite Legacy Free Edition users to upgrade to paid Google Workspace or risk losing their account indefinitely.
Check out this email message screenshot regarding G Suite free edition:
What Google Suggests You to Do?
You will need to setup the billing information before July 2022 to prevent Google from suspending your account. After that, you only have 60 days to upgrade before Google completely prevents you from accessing all the core services like Gmail, calendar, and meet.
Of Course, it is advisable to upgrade before May 2022 to avoid any disruption to your services. Google may automatically upgrade your account to a subscription based on what you use and how much you use it. You can find more information on the Google support page.
Nope, Google is not offering any way to migrate your data to a standard Gmail account for now. But, we are hopeful that it will provide some reliable method before the conclusive date. Although considering its previous track record, it is better not to be over-optimistic.
Your Options After the Expiry of G Suite Legacy Free Edition [Alternatives]
Now that it’s clear Google is shutting down its free G Suite edition, you are left with a few choices. You can either pay and use the paid Google Workspace or simply move to an alternative service (of course you will need to migrate your data).
Pro Tip: Backup G Suite Legacy Free Edition Before Suspension
We advise you to backup all your G Suite data as soon as possible. With backup, you will always have your emails, contacts, calendars and drive documents with you that you can migrate to other alternatives in the future. You can also use Google Takeout to backup data.
Most G Suite Free legacy users primarily focus on the email service. With a proper backup of all the emails, you can later access this data in a standard Gmail account and other free email services. The brief process is here.
#1 Upgrade to Paid Google Workspace
You can do exactly what Google wants – pay to keep using Google services without any disruptions. The paid plans start at $6 per user per month that comes with 30 GB storage, custom domain email account, and standard services.
You can get more services with better plans ($12 & $18).
#2 Switch to G Suite Legacy Free Edition Alternatives
If you are done with Google, you can always switch to Google Workspace alternatives.
Zoho
For a free experience, the best service is Zoho. You will get a single domain hosting for free that comes with 5 GB/user storage and a 25 MB attachment limitation. The free service is similar to Gmail – Only for Mail. Of course, if you want a complete suite like G Suite, the plans start with $4 each month.
Microsoft
For a little less than Google, i.e., $5, you can start using Microsoft Office service with 50 GB Inbox, custom domain name, and 1TB OneDrive storage. You also get the benefits of using the Web, desktop and mobile versions of the applications.
Rackspace
It is a US-based firm having services similar to Google Workspace. The basic plans of Rackspace start with $2.99 per user per month for emails. With #3.99, you can get 30 GB storage plus mobile sync and Office compatible apps.
#3 Backup Before Suspension
You can always back up your data and migrate it to other services like standard Gmail, Yahoo, or Outlook.com.
Here, we will define the step-by-step method that will help you in using the email service without any cost for a lifetime.
- Backup emails using Google Takeout
- Use Google takeout to backup mail data. All the emails will be present in an MBOX file.
- Install Mozilla Thunderbird email client.
- Import MBOX file in Thunderbird
- Import the files in Local folders section of Thunderbird.
- Use free method to add Gmail to Thunderbird.
- Copy/Move the imported MBOX emails to this Gmail account.
- The MBOX emails are under the Local Folders section.
- Select all the email messages, then right-click and choose Copy to 🡪 Gmail Account Inbox.
Wait till all the emails get copied. It will take time.
Now, you can either continue using Gmail from within Thunderbird or simply uninstall Thunderbird and keep using Gmail webmail from the browser. The old G Suite legacy free edition emails are already here in a free Gmail account.
Further Clarity About G Suite Legacy Free Edition Upgrade
Q. What if I don’t want to upgrade to Google Workspace from G Suite legacy free edition? How can I transfer my data to another client?
A. Google has not provided any option or tool to transfer your crucial data to some other free email service as of now. However, you can use our secure IMAP to IMAP Migrator to migrate your data to any other email service of your choice.
Q. What will happen if I don’t upgrade to the paid subscription and my G Suite legacy free edition account gets suspended?
A. As Google already mentioned that they will be providing free access to their upgraded Google Workspace account till July 1, 2022. After that, the account will be suspended and only the admin will have access to either export your data or upgrade the license. Thus, we will recommend you to either upgrade your subscription at the earliest or switch your email client before the suspension.
Q. What will be my Google Workspace subscription if I don’t take any action?
A. Your subscription will be based upon the features that you are currently using in the G Suite legacy free edition.
Final Thoughts
People are going mad on social platforms for a good reason. Google abruptly deciding to push the “either pay or go away” option on all the free G Suite legacy users is going to affect a lot of individuals and small businesses. Plus, the fact that Google is not providing any means to migrate the data over to the standard Gmail service is also a big NO.
Well, we have tried to provide you with some alternatives if you decide to move away from Google. We have also given a brief overview of how backup can help you in accessing and continue work with your data in a standard Gmail account.
