Legacy (free) into Paid Workspace

[Rpiedade]

Hi,

I am a long time free Legacy user. It's been used primarily as a family account so that members can have a custom email address.

Recently I was notified that this product is going away and I will have to migrate to one of the Workspaces.

So I have 2 comments.

1 - The price is fair for a bussiness account, but for a family account it isn't affordable.  I will be keeping my user, but the majority (10) accounts will need to be deleted.  This causes an issue with them no longer having access to their photos for example.  If instead I had decided to not upgrade, then these same users would still have access to photos.  But having to upgrade and delete them, actually puts them at a disadvantage.  I would like to suggest another option instead of delete.  Maybe a flag to disable, but still allow them access to photos (and their android phones, etc.).

2 - Office360 offers a similar product, but with a discounted price tier for families.  It's $99.99/yr for 6 users.  So I want to suggest that Google look into a similar offering for non bussiness accounts.

[kim_nilsson]

Not really.

Your accounts will remain, accessible for Login with Google services. And incoming emails can be routed to anywhere you want.

Without paying for any accounts.

You just can't send and receive emails from those accounts.

To and from the addresses, however, is very much possible. 

[Ironghat]

My point is that for better or for worse, we have been using our custom emails "firstname@lastname.org" as our Google IDs which anyone can do once your domain is hosted by Google as part of Google Apps / G suite / Workspaces. My family logs into YouTube, YouTube TV etc. using our custom emails, and not Gmails. We sign into many sites using "Sign-in with Google" using our custom emails. We have setup a Google Voice numbers using our custom emails.

Once we move our domain off Google Apps / G suite / Workspaces - we will no longer be able to use our custom emails as Google IDs - and that is going to be a very painful extraction, at least for us. 

Is there is a way to have a custom email not hosted by Google be my Google ID? That is not so farfetched as it sounds - e.g. Apple allows you to use custom emails as your Apple IDs - you don't have to use "@icloud.com". The very same "firstname@lastname.org" are also our Apple IDs.

[kim_nilsson]

@Ironghat - you have misunderstood one part of this upcoming change.

You do not lose access to your old Google IDs, since you can choose to keep your converted Legacy-to-Workspace accounts with Cloud Identity Free licences (or whatever Google will call them in the future). That has been said since day one.

You will lose Gmail & Calendar and a bunch of other services, but the actual Google IDs will be possible to keep.

Now, I totally understand that this will still not be what you want, as it isn't for me either, but it's important to know what you will actually lose on 1 July, unless you start paying.

You will lose Gmail/GCal, not your Google IDs.

[Ironghat]

Ah Ok - that's good to know. 

[teshera]

For me the question is where to get free or extremely inexpensive email/calendar hosting for my custom domain.

[WGBeckmann]

Fo r me the main problem is not the mail or calendar function. I can find a solution. But all things I bought with my Google account will be lost if I go away from Google. 

[AdrianHudson]

According to the FAQs you won't lose paid for products - if you don't upgrade to paid your account will go into suspension - but:

quote: "In account suspension, you won't lose access to other Google services, including YouTube, Google Photos, and Google Play, nor paid content, including YouTube and Play Store purchases.

You'll also be able to sign in to your Google apps (such as YouTube) and third-party sites with your G Suite legacy edition email address. You won’t be able to receive or send email, including authenticating password resets via email. Without access to Gmail in the suspended state, we recommend you use a different email provider to send and receive email messages, including changing logins and authenticating new passwords."

[kim_nilsson]

Exactly, nobody will lose anything.

But I seriously don't want to use anything else but Gmail and Google Calendar. I just don't. 

[wrldtvlr]

I'm getting less and less confident that Google is going to offer a reasonable solution for family legacy accounts, so I've started the process of moving to another provider. The more Google has moved away from "don't be evil" the less comfortable I've become with access they have to my personal details so this is probably a good thing. If anyone else is interested in the process, here's where I am:

Background: I have a personal domain registered with another registrar (Namecheap). Google's spam filtering is excellent, so I had created what is now referred to as a Legacy Workspace account with Google (admin@mydomain.com), along with a handful of family accounts for myself and a few others. The primary functionality used has been email, contacts and calendar. Namecheap DNS MX records (email) point to Google. The email addresses have been used as usernames for numerous other accounts, both within Google and for many other third parties.

Namecheap offers inexpensive email hosting which includes spam filtering, calendar and contact support, so I've created shadow accounts for each family member as well as a catchall address. For the time being, these accounts will be send only as I haven't changed the domain MX records. Once I'm comfortable everything is working correctly, I'll switch delivery over to Namecheap and reconfigure all the family email clients.

Family impact should be minimal. Any third party accounts that use the personal domain email address as a username will continue to do so with no change. Fortunately, none of the family members use Google Drive, Google Photos or other Google products, so no data transfers required.

The workspace accounts will remain with no billing activated. As I read the Google FAQ, these accounts will remain for Google product identification purposes. Even if Google does offer a reasonable family option at the last minute, I don't think I'll take it.

[kim_nilsson]

I'm going to keep waiting. Not going to waste time or money with other services until it's absolutely necessary. Nothing I've seen "recommended" over the last few months are even close to the experience I am used to with Gmail and Google Calendar.

[webstream]

Your are right thinking user and google have to keep what you explain. As per my view google must have to decrease some amount for legacy users.

[wrldtvlr]

Less than 30 days until Google starts involuntary migration to Google Workspace subscription accounts, with no indication that Google plans a discounted family tier.

[kim_nilsson]

Yeah, I would have preferred if we had already had some news.

@Willie_Turney this is one of the most "popular" topics, and there is also loads of traffic in the posts about the same topics over on reddit, but apart from the Form we've all submitted long ago, there's dead silence from all official channels.

@stevelarsen @dominik @icrew either of you heard or seen any updates? 

[stevelarsen]

so popular a new subreddit r/gsuitelegacymigration/  was made for it and has 1.2k members already (~10% of r/gsuite). no updates from my end. jsoltero had the pr team from nectar communications that handles google workspace reach out to us (workspace recap podcast) but unfortunately we didn't get much other than what is published already. 

[icrew]

No, I haven't heard anything--I'm in the same boat as many of you. I agree with your advice @kim_nilsson : I'm just going to keep waiting until the last and see what happens.

[keithjnewman]

My recollection is that the deadline to pitch that you are a noncommercial user was 1st April, so it will be interesting to see what if anything comes out of Google in the next week?

I'm holding out for the time being from the date they forcibly upgrade you to a paid plan we will have two months to move before suspension, for me that's plenty of time to move.

[ScubaSteve]

Frankly (and sadly), I expect to see very little.   

Google's motivation to address the issue was directly proportional to the level of associated negative coverage they were getting from the tech media...and like most things in the media, the coverage on this issue fell off as soon as the next shiny thing appeared.  Sure, early on, they repackaged an existing service as an "option" and also rolled out that lame survey, but I suspect both actions were just intended to buy time until the media stopped paying attention.  And that's where we are now.

My best guess - even if there are 10,000 people impacted and willing to jump on board to a new family plan service, it wouldn't be worth Google's trouble.  At $100 annually per family, that's only one million dollars in gross revenue.  Fully loaded with salary, benefits, and other costs, that likely doesn't even cover 3 Google employees...hardly worth the cost of developing a new service product, rolling it out, managing it on the backed, and dealing with headaches from that many people, who would likely expect support because they are paying.  I'm sure Google is fine with MS taking that business.

And frankly, with a market cap of nearly 2 trillion dollars, they are probably willing to roll the dice on pissing of some segment of "influencers" who are put off by what Google likely views as a minor expense.  I get it, it's not a minor expense for folks who are hosting 2 dozen family members, but the Google option is actually less expensive than the MS option for an individual...and only marginally more expensive for two people.  No doubt, it gets worse after that, but again, I just don't think they care.  They kill products and services people find useful All. The. Time.  Hell, this is a company whose motto used to be "Don't Be Evil"...and they dropped it.  You can't make this stuff up.

I hope I am wrong...and I am still holding off on deciding what to do in case I am, but I am also a realist.

[simmons777]

I may have a potential work around that I think will work for me. I've been holing off implementing it completely because Google has hinted at a possible option but haven't revealed that option yet. I too am an original legacy gSuite user, exclusively for family purposes. Luckily for a while now I've been leveraging a personal gmail account because it always seemed like a lot of feature didn't find there way the gSuite accounts. As for the work around, I transferred my domain name from gSuite/GoDaddy to Google Domains, making sure to copy all of the DNS entries, that piece is functioning properly. I then setup forwarding from my gSuite email to my personal email and I set up my gSuite address as an alias in my personal account, so I can email using my personal gSuite address. The final piece is that Google Domains has an EMail Forwarding option, so I can completely decouple the email address from gSuite and do the forwarding from Google Domains. Now this only handles the email, so how effective it is as a solution will depend on how many other services you are using. Things like contacts, photos, calendar and docs can easily be transferred to the personal account but there may be things I'm not thinking of. 

[kim_nilsson]

Google has now updated the support page about Legacy, and it's complete garbage.

No-cost option is no user management and no Gmail. Useless. Nobody wants that.

No low-cost option for families or non-business.
In fact the entire section which talked about Legacy for non-business has been removed from the page. No references at all that even existed.

Very very very very disappointed. Extremely.

[DaryleTilroe]

I mean we can debate about what would be the best package, number of users, storage, etc. but this is *nothing*.... I think it's clear Google knows we need/want them more then they need/want us... 'Do no evil' indeed... It was obviously the drug dealer model for us early adopters:  Give it away for free and get them hooked.   

[KAM]

@DaryleTilroe I think the drug dealer model is a bit harsh.  Literally a decade free on the system.  But yeah, I think they are overwhelmed.  Still trying to get my Business Legacy converted to Enterprise Standard let alone deal with the free tiers. -KAM

[Ironghat]

Isn't the no-cost option identical to the Google Workspace Essentials Starter Edition? Seems they said a lot of words to describe something that already exists.

[kim_nilsson]

But, is that free?

Anyway. Any Workspace edition without Gmail and Calendar is useless. 

[stevelarsen]

It's also a ridiculous update because there IS an no-cost option that allows you to manage users that has no access to Gmail, Calendar or Chat. This is Cloud Identity Free and they just flat out fail to mention this as an option.

[keithjnewman]

Has anyone who filled out the form to declare their status as a family user actually had any communication pointing them towards the updated support page?

[kim_nilsson]

Nope. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. 

[Stubloke]

No.

[tad_hawkins1]

So I have a legacy domain, but have never received notice regarding the upcoming change. Should I be concerned, I really would rather not poke the bear in case it's an oversite.

[kim_nilsson]

When you are logged in as your superadmin, you can go to Billing in the admin console.

It should tell you that you need to upgrade, but you can still wait.

The information is here, which you get to if you click on the Learn more link.

Nothing will happen before 2022-06-01.

There used to be a reference to 2022-05-01, but that is not there anymore.

[tad_hawkins1]

Thanks Kim, I was expecting an email or at the least an alert. 

[kim_nilsson]

Yes, the primary admin should have received an email.

I got mine 31 January.

[SteveD]

This article gives me hope:

https://9to5google.com/2022/04/05/g-suite-legacy-delay/ 

It suggests that they are delaying the decision dates and more importantly introducing a waiting list for those who want to transfer to a free option.

Sounds like they haven't decided the details yet so are going to offer a waiting list so peoples accounts are not automatically transfered to a paid option. Will probaly loose custom domain but at least paid content, etc might be transfered to a free gmail account.

[kim_nilsson]

Not until we see new updates on the support page will I regain any hope.

They removed any reference to a no-cost or low-cost option with Gmail for families (non-business). I'm not interested in anything without Gmail, neither are most others.

No-cost option without Gmail was offered on day one. Now we just have one more such option.

There is no more reference to a transfer-content-to-other-account option, which they also said would be possible.

[icrew]

I just got the following email on my Legacy Free domain. It includes a few new (to me, at least) details:

Hi there, Discontinued in 2012, the G Suite legacy free edition has provided access to premium Google Apps features for over 10 years. On June 1, 2022, Google will begin upgrading G Suite legacy free edition accounts to Google Workspace. Don’t wait: Upgrade today and save. When upgrading to a Google Workspacepaid subscription, you’ll unlock new premium collaboration and security features, while continuing to have access to all the ones you already love like using Gmail with your custom domain (ex. your-name@example.com) and the ability to manage multiple users. As a valued customer, you can get started now with Google Workspace Business Starter. Billing will not start until at least August 1, 2022,and you’ll also get a discount of at least 50% for 12 months after that date.* Note: If you no longer want to use Gmail with your custom domain or the ability to manage multiple users, you’ll be able to join a waitlist in the Google WorkspaceAdmin Console for a no-cost option in the coming weeks. In addition to all the features you already rely on, let’s take a look at several new capabilities Business Starter gives you:

Double the storage Increase your cloud storage capacity to 30 GB per user. And pooled storage lets users who aren’t using their full storage allowance to share it with other team members.

Increased security Help protect devices and data with fundamental endpoint management. Features include passcode enforcement and device management, endpoint verification, device reports, and more.

Access to add-ons Deep integration between Google Workspace and other productivity applications can allow work to happen across platforms, all from inside Google Workspace.

To get started, visit your Google WorkspaceAdmin Console. Learn more about making the transition to Google Workspace or compare the service editions.

If you do not take action by June 1, 2022, Google will begin transitioning your organization to a new Google Workspacesubscription. To complete the transition and avoid account suspension, enter your billing details in your Admin Console before August 1, 2022.

In the future, if you choose the no-cost optionor if your subscription is in a suspended state, you won’t lose access to additional Google services, including YouTube, Google Photos,and Google Play – or to paid content, including your YouTube and Google Play purchases.

[kim_nilsson]

Yeah, that's the same as on the support/migration page.

The end date for the discount is pushed, as is the forced start (they give Business Starter as the likely Workspace edition to migrate to), and the added waitlist for the almost-Essentials no-cost version without Gmail.

Most importantly it's no missing transfer-your-content and the hoped-for low-cost option for non-business with Gmail.

[natoobr]

Last one to leave, turn off the light

[wrldtvlr]

Which is probably Google's intention. At the scale Google works with, the few thousand in this sub don't even show up on the radar.

[timtucker]

The biggest things that are missing for our family:

- Ability to sign up for family plans for things like YouTube or app sharing

- Ability to new new services as they're released with no issues (a longstanding problem for workspace accounts)

I have no issues with the idea of paying for a custom domain, by why should we pay for a worse experience than what "personal" accounts get for free?

[kim_nilsson]

Yes, that services aren't fully available for Workspace accounts is insane.

It should be my (the admin's) decision what services can be used with our accounts.

We would have had YouTube (Music) Premium Family from day one if that was possible.

Instead everyone has Spofity Family, and Google get zero money.

[PRDGS]

I just read the email and come here looking for any additional information.

As it is, it looks like most of us, who use the legacy solution for our families to have email with custom domain names, will have to find alternatives... Sad...