Google Workspace - primary domain

[Hollievoice]

Hi,

I'm looking for some information.

I have a Google Workspace set up in an old domain which is elements–VA. I also own the domain elements – OBM. I added elements OBM to the Google Workspace and have been operating an email from here  for a couple of months however today I wanted to change elements-OBM to be the primary email within Google workspace. When I went to do this, I had a notification saying I was unable to do this because I purchased elements-VA at the point of signing up for Google Workspace and brought the domain through Google. I need elements-OBM to be my main domain for all operations. Is there a way to remove the elements-OBM email address from the workspace without losing all my emails? Could I then set up a new workspace in elements-OBM? Would I also then be able to transfer all the documents from the old workspace to the new workspace? 

Any help would be much appreciated, Thank you in advance

[MattDV]

Hi @Hollievoice ,

Hope you're doing great! This scenario that you mention is described on Change your primary domain for Google Workspace 

• You cannot change your primary domain if: You purchased your domain when you signed up for Google Workspace.

You can however add a Secondary Domain, the effort is not so big by not making your “preferred domain” primary. You can still rename all of your user accounts to use the preferred domain.

NOTE: The main thing you lose is that when creating new users, you’ll need to manually select the secondary domain instead of taking the default.

Here is an example with simple steps:

• Add your secondary domain

• Rename any user from VA to OBM

• Verify that the Shared Drives are still accessible. 

Regards

[Hollievoice]

Hi @MattDV - thank you for responding! I'm still a little bit confused so my users currently on elements VA I want to leave there I just want to make the primary domain elements OBM I'm just not sure if this is possible because of 'You cannot change your primary domain if: You purchased your domain when you signed up for Google Workspace.' 

I guess the question is how do I make elements OBM the main domain and primary account for my Google workspace without losing any existing previous email ? 

' 

[MattDV]

Thanks @Hollievoice for the additional information. In this article called Remove a domain from your managed Google Account

Reuse your domain's name
To use the domain name with a new managed Google Account, you might need to wait up to 48 hours. Learn more

Please let me know if this information works

Regards

[nkcrissinger]

I am doing this now. My question is if I make a secondary and change all the users do I have to pay for the original domain purchased through google annually to keep the workspace account or can I let it expire and the new one will take over?

[JRosenhave]

Also interested in this as it won't let me remove the one I signed up with.

[MattDV]

Hi @JRosenhave ,

What is the specific error message that you're getting?

For additional information, Remove a domain from your managed Google Account 

Regards

[MattDV]

Hey @nkcrissinger 

Hope you're doing well. First of all sorry for the delay in my response.

If you plan to migrate/move all users to the newly promoted domain (secondary to primary), after that, you can remove the old-primary domain

On the article ,it says:

Step 5: Use or remove the old primary domain

• Get email at your old domain and new domain
  Use your old domain as a domain alias. Then you can send and receive email at your new primary domain and old domain at no additional cost.
• Keep your old domain as a secondary domain (default) 
  You can add a separate set of users to the secondary domain. Users have their own email address at the secondary domain, and you pay for each account.
• Remove the old domain
  If you don’t want to use the original primary domain, remove the domain.

Regards

[KAM]

If you follow the instructions here (https://support.google.com/a/answer/7009324?hl=en) where you go up to Step 5 to delete the old domain, you don't need the old domain anymore. -KAM