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Google Lets Personal Users Stay On 'No-Cost Legacy G Suite' With Custom Gmail Domain (9to5google.com) 43

Posted by BeauHD from the change-of-plans dept.
Back in April, Google delayed when G Suite legacy free-edition users had to start paying for Workspace. The company will now let you stay on a "Free Legacy Edition of G Suite for personal use" as the "no-cost" alternative in a rather notable policy change. 9to5Google reports: This "no-cost" option is for people that aren't interested in paying for Workspace but want to retain access to their data and not just export via Google Takeout. For the past few months, people have been waiting to join a waitlist for this alternative. In a change of plans, there's no longer a waiting list, and these old users can sign-up for no-cost Legacy G Suite now. Head to your account's Google Admin Console as there are many reports of it going live this afternoon. You have until June 27 to pick a transition path.

Most notably, you can "continue using your custom domain with Gmail." [...] Besides the custom Gmail domain, you will "retain access to no-cost Google services" and "keep your purchases and data." [...] However, you must confirm to Google that your usage is for non-commercial personal use: "Google may remove business functionality from this offering and transition businesses to Google Workspace. Additionally, this option will not include support."
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Google Lets Personal Users Stay On 'No-Cost Legacy G Suite' With Custom Gmail Domain More

Google Lets Personal Users Stay On 'No-Cost Legacy G Suite' With Custom Gmail Domain

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  • Too little too late (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Piranhaa ( 672441 ) on Monday May 16, 2022 @09:13PM (#62540990)

    I was affected by this migration. Yes, it was really nice to have access to Google GSuite for all these years without having to pay anything, but I was still not happy with the way Google handled this. All I used Google for was standard Gmail services with a custom domain, which I don't think is much to ask for. But when they tried to start charging $6/month for the services that I could get for free with Gmail, I bailed.

    This was a wake-up call for me that I don't need to have all my mail/calendar/files with Google anymore. I'm now paying a little more for that (still far less than what Google was going to charge), but in the grand scheme of things it's a small price to pay for some additional privacy. I think Google really shot themselves in the foot with this situation.

    • Where did you migrate to?

      • ProtonMail. I've been quite happy with the mail and calendar apps so far as well, and they're always improving. The thing I miss most once in a while is Google's mail search. I've grown accustomed to Google's search over the years, so it's a bit of an adjustment for me. It's a small price to pay, and it's not a deal breaker by any means.

      • This was too late for me. I migrated to fastmail.com. There are some negative reviews online, but it seems fine to me. I do the email for 6 family users, and protonmail's pricing just didn't work - once you have more than 5 users you have to go to a higher plan. I also have a bunch of domains that the family use. Not sure why they restrict that, is it much more costly for them if I have 10 domains than 3? The migration process to fastmail was very easy - my 80 year old mum managed it. I looked at some othe

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by kybosch ( 250319 )

        I had been hearing from fellow Mac User Group members about how they were happy FastMail customers, and I had also been hearing my favorite podcasters talking about their satisfaction with Fast Mail as well, so I finally took the plunge this weekend.

        I was increasingly unhappy with Google's unclear responses about what was going to happen with free legacy accounts. The idea of getting on a waiting list to qualify for a reduced amount of free services that were not supposed to be tied to a commercial business

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by socz ( 1057222 )
        logged in to say I went with MX Route

        https://accounts.mxroute.com/i... [mxroute.com]

        $175 "lifetime" account with 10GB storage. Unlimited domains and emails.

        This worked for me for my various domains and email addresses.

        While I still run my BSD servers, I have found a proper mail setup works better for me simply to ensure no inet/power/hardware outages (although my servers only shutdown for me to clean them!).

        My only concern is that I ended up buying a substantial amount of apps and misc things in Google's e

    • Same here. I moved to Microsoft after Google started sending threatening reminders. I do have to pay up but they provide service which has more value for a family (unlike G-Suite which was geared towards small/medium businesses). No regrets. With amount of storage I got in the family plan I was able to ditch AWS S3 as a backup solution.

    • I've tried, and cancelled so many google programs because of this same BS. YouTube TV, a Nest thermostat, Google Home, Google Music, all of those were services that I had wanted to subscribe to, but they either nerfed the family aspect of it or it just flat out didn't work with my custom domain, so I used another service.

      I'll still use them for mail for the time being, but I'm looking out for a replacement now. Ultimately all of this BS led me to Apple. They have their own issues, but they didn't sell me on

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Domini ( 103836 )

      If only it was $6/month. Unfortunately, it was $6 * #users / month. $66/month for me (on only one for my two domains).

      I looked at ProtonMail, but it did not suit my needs.

      I'm using email forwarding on DNS now via Cloudflare (even though Google Domain hosting could do that as well).

  • I've been waiting for the "no-cost" option for my dad, I set him up with his own domain around 14 years ago, so as you can imagine he's amassed a bunch of e-mail, documents, YouTube subscriptions, etc. However the option only going live as of today (it's still not showing for me in the admin panel) is cutting it close to the cut-off date of June 1st. I migrated his e-mail elsewhere a couple months ago and as far as he's concerned, nothing changed for him and continues to use Thunderbird. With this rollout

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by caseih ( 160668 )

      Actually even if they hadn't done this (thank you, Google, I sincerely appreciate it), you wouldn't lose anything on Jun 1. that's just the date they required a billing address. They actually wouldn't start billing until January the following year, and at a reduced rate for the first year after that.

    • cutting it close to the cut-off date of June 1st

      Nah, there was never any rush. As of yesterday we were still waiting for a wait list (no, seriously) to open so we'd stay there and wait for the final offer from Google (it was expected to get most services, except Gmail). Then after the wait FOR the waiting list and the wait ON the waiting list (which I expected it to be months or years) you'd have like 60 days to decide if you actually want the paid upgrade or the neutered service.

      Anyway they relented now wh

  • Can Confirm (Score:5, Informative)

    by watermark ( 913726 ) on Monday May 16, 2022 @09:32PM (#62541024)

    Can confirm, the option was available for the no cost option was there for me. Billing -> Learn more -> "..you can opt out ... by clicking here...", https://admin.google.com/?acti... [google.com]

    • I'm still going to convert to regular gmail, I'll just take my time

      Can't trust google to not change their minds in the future and also free g-suite is a little broken/crippled anyway

      Further "gmail" as a domain is normal to people whereas my simple domain was confusing to most people...

  • Google Voice not included (Score:3)

    by Tokolosh ( 1256448 ) on Monday May 16, 2022 @10:17PM (#62541114)

    AFAIK (thanks to Google's befuddlement and poor communication), if you have a Google Voice number as a Workspace/G Suite user, will have to start paying. This is even if you go for the no-cost option.

    Also AFAIK, regular @gmail.com GV accounts are not affected and remain free.

    Please correct me if I am wrong or missing something.

    • Where did you get this info from?
      I asked that question on a chat with Google workspace support and I'm not sure they knew the answer (agent got a bit confused between legacy G-Suite and legacy Google Voice, which went away a while back). He told me Voice will stay active on the no-cost plans.
      I'm going to ask someone I know at Google that just went through testing the transition internally to make sure.

      • I conclude this from Google, which still says GV will be a paid option on Workspace. An the no-cost G Suite announcements make no mention of GV.

        As I wrote, I may be misiinterpreting this, so I welcome investigation and information.

        • The telephone number is called a DID and that belongs to the account holder, period. Telecommunication law pretty much everywhere these days also users to transfer their DIDs to another carrier, so this option must exist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

          • Correct, but that does not mean it has to be free. Google is good about porting numbers out to another carrier. They will also let you transfer you number (DID) from a G Suite account to a regular gmail account, but not the other way.

            • Hi Tokolosh, I'm struggling with this as well, but I can't actually figure out how to move a number out from the legacy to a free gmail.com account. I even paid the $3 to unlock my number. I posted about it here: https://support.google.com/a/t... [google.com] Am I missing something obvious?

              • Moving a number from a G Suite account to a gmail.com account is easy. Google calls it "Transfer", not porting. In GV, go to settings, and under Account "Transfer your number to another Voice account". Do not unlock your number, that is not needed. Just follow instructions and accept from the receiving account.

                Caution: Once you have transferred your number out, you cannot transfer it back!

                • Hi Tokolosh - I had tried that, but unfortunately it doesn't work (at least as far as I can tell). The response is: "Your request didn't work." Then it links to this: https://support.google.com/voi... [google.com] So I think it's a bit of a catch-22. Google Workspace (including legacy gsuite) can't transfer numbers between accounts, or at least not to a gmail.com account. And legacy gsuite doesn't have the ability to manage accounts. My preference would be to move it to a gmail.com account, but at this point, I'm worri

                  • That is strange, because it has worked for me. We must be missing something.

                    • I think it used to work, but when they stopped allowing transfers into legacy accounts, it stopped working. I think the only solution is probably to check with a couple of friends at Google and see if I can get around customer support. Appreciate you going back and forth with me on it.
                    • Hi Tokolosh, I think I've gotten to the bottom of it. It appears that I can transfer to number to a gmail account, but only if it doesn't already have a google voice number associated with it. So, the solution appears to be, use a temporary gmail.com account, then merge from there, or if that's not possible, once it's in a regular gmail account, port out to a 3rd party mobile and then bring it back in to the account you want. Obviously the history won't transfer that way. The only consideration is that in t
    • I opted for the free option, kept the dozen email addresses used with the domain and also the google Voice service for the 2-3 users with Google Voice too. So far, so good.

  • Could those of you who already migrated share where you took your accounts? Aside from downloading a few mailboxes and backing them up, my primary concern is being able to send outbound email under my domain and receive inbound email. Low volumes, not mailing lists. Quite simple. When I looked into it, seemed like there were free options. I created a protonmail account but that's as far as I got.

    Had it on my list for next week. Did some research when the announcement first came down and then assembled my no

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by caseih ( 160668 )

      I migrated my business domain to zoho. So far it's been okay. I'm not overwhelmed by zoho, but it does work just fine and you can adjust your accounts on a per-user basis according to your needs. So anywhere from about $1.50 a month to $5 per user. Using DavX5 from the F-droid app store, I can sync contacts and calendar with my Android phone. Zoho has their own email app, or you can use the Gmail app, but Gmail app's ability to search non-google account email is absolutely atrocious. Zoho's apps are a b

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by MoHaG ( 1002926 )

      My plan was FastMail (not free though). iCloud+ (with the custom domain option) also seems like an option in some cases. Zoho is free, but the UI might take some getting used to....

      Office 365 is the other non-free option, but like iCloud, you might already be paying for parts of it...

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by renzema ( 84617 )

      I moved my domain to zoho. As someone else stated, it works solidly. Search is weak though - really hit or miss, compared to gmail and always finding exactly what I was looking for. . Automatic sorting is not as good. But has actually forced me into some better routines - Spam is auto-deleted in 30 days, so I let very little into my main inbox, and just let all my mailing lists get auto-deleted if I haven't read them. It is a new way of working, but seems to be better. Big shortcomings though is the i

  • If someone is a sole proprietor with their own gmail-associated domain for a while now, is this gonna fly? Asking for a friend because I fail to understand myself. How is the line drawn between business and personal?

    • You just pick "personal"/free or whatever the bottom option is, there's no special verification.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by wwrmn ( 42399 )

      I did same thing.... But following the instructions from the article on Admin console:

      Contact support -> Questions about G Suite legacy free edition -> I used G Suite legacy free edition for personal use -> Yes (confirm personal use) and within 5 minutes I had 2 emails:

      Case is opened then:

      Current update:
      At 2022-05-16 15:00 UTC (23 hours ago):
      You are receiving this email because you have used the Support Assistant to opt-in to an alternative Workspace experience at no cost. This option is only ava

  • I'm pretty sure they did this because I finally relented and switched to Workspaces this weekend. YOU'RE WELCOME, EVERYONE.

    • You can still ask their support to switch you back to the free plan. The process was remarkably painless, given Google's usual track record.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Achates ( 7572 )

      Indeed. I deleted my account because of this forced migration a few weeks ago, and now this. Oh well. Good practice for when they decide that they are going to go back on their word again two years from now.

  • Does anyone know if one can keep both their primary and secondary domain under the personal plan?
    • I just switched to the personal plan, and it looks like it'll let me add another new domain.
      • Correction: It will not let me add a new secondary domain, only a user alias domain. So I'm not sure about keeping a secondary domain that already exists.

  • The only reason I didn't move was everything that I login to. I'd be happy to move my email and cloud storage out to Microsoft and host that there (I've got "free" Office 365 accounts through my partner status). It's logging into everything, my mobile phone, YouTube, a million and one websites.

    I can't wait till federated identity discovery becomes a thing, I know MS, Apple and Google are working on it and have been for nearly 5 years now. Maybe in 10 years it'll be standard login for websites...

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