Switch from Google Workspace to an EU-Hosted Alternative

You've made the decision. The CLOUD Act research, the DPA review, the conversation with your legal team - it all pointed in the same direction. Now the question isn't whether to switch, but how to do it without breaking your email, losing files, or disrupting a team that has twelve deadlines this month.

Before You Start: What to Audit

The migration will go wrong if you skip the audit phase. Before touching a single DNS record, you need a clear picture of what you're actually moving:

• Email volume and history. How many mailboxes? How many years of archived email matter? Is any of it legally required to be retained? This determines whether you need a full historical migration or a clean-break cutover.
• Files in Google Drive. How much storage are you actually using? Are files organised by shared drives, individual drives, or both? Who owns what? Files owned by departed employees are a common problem.
• Third-party integrations. What tools authenticate with your Google account via OAuth? CRMs, project management tools, calendar integrations, automation workflows - these all need to be reconfigured after the switch.
• Google-specific formats. Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides are stored in proprietary formats. Before migrating, export everything to standard formats - DOCX, XLSX, PPTX - so they open correctly on the new platform.

Phase 1: Set Up and Test the New Environment (Week 1)

Don't migrate to something you haven't tested under real conditions. In the first week, set up your new accounts and create access for two or three people - ideally the most technically comfortable members of your team. Run actual work through the new environment for a week before anyone else touches it.

Send real emails. Create real documents. Test calendar invitations with external contacts. Put the collaboration features under genuine load. This is the phase where you discover edge cases before they affect everyone.

"Every migration that went badly skipped the parallel-running phase. Every migration that went well spent two weeks feeling slightly inefficient."

Phase 2: Email Migration (Week 2–3)

Email is the highest-stakes part of the migration. A document that migrates imperfectly can be fixed. An email that disappears during migration may be unrecoverable. The approach depends on how much history you need to bring over.

For a clean-break migration - where you're keeping Google as an archive and starting fresh - the process is simple. Update your MX records to point to your new mail servers. Set a forwarding rule in Google Workspace to forward incoming email to the new addresses during the transition window. New email flows to the new system from day one.

For a historical migration - where you need years of email searchable in the new system - use IMAP migration. Generate an app password in Google, configure the IMAP import on the new platform, and let it run overnight. For large mailboxes, expect the process to take several hours per account.

Phase 3: File Migration (Week 3–4)

Download everything from Google Drive in its native format first - this is your backup. Then do a second export in standard formats (DOCX, XLSX, PPTX) for the files that need to be actively worked on. Upload the standard-format versions to your new cloud storage.

Folder structure matters more than people expect. Recreate your Google Drive folder hierarchy before uploading - don't just dump everything into a flat structure and sort it out later. The time spent organising now is a fraction of the time you'll waste searching for things in a flat folder six months from now.

Phase 4: DNS Cutover (Week 4)

The DNS cutover is the moment the outside world starts seeing the new configuration. Lower your MX record TTL to 300 seconds (5 minutes) 48 hours before you plan to switch - this ensures the change propagates quickly when you make it. On cutover day, update the MX records to point to your new mail server, verify propagation with a DNS lookup tool, and monitor incoming mail for the next 24 hours.

Keep Google Workspace active for at least 30 days after the cutover. Some senders have aggressive email caching. Some automated systems take weeks to pick up DNS changes. Having Google still accepting and forwarding mail during this window prevents anything from falling through the cracks.

Phase 5: Team Onboarding (Week 4–5)

Roll out by team, not by individual. When the accounting team switches, everyone on the accounting team switches that day. Mixed environments - where half a team is on Google and half is on the new platform - create confusion that takes weeks to untangle.

Prepare a one-page reference document for each major workflow: how to share a file, how to add a calendar event, how to use the mail client on mobile. Most people don't need training - they need a reference they can check when something doesn't behave the way they expect.

"The first week after cutover will feel bumpy. By week three, most people will have stopped noticing they're on a different platform."

What to Monitor After the Switch

For the first 30 days, keep an eye on three things: email deliverability (are outgoing emails landing in inboxes or spam?), calendar sync (are external invitations being received and accepted correctly?), and file access (can everyone reach the files they need with the permissions they expect?).

Deliverability issues are almost always DNS-related - a missing SPF record, an unsigned DKIM key, or a missing DMARC policy. These are fixable in an afternoon once you know what to look for. Most EU mail providers, including InfoPeak, include a deliverability checklist as part of setup.

The Part Nobody Mentions

The biggest surprise most businesses report after switching isn't a technical problem. It's realising how little they were actually using Google's more advanced features. The core workflow - write, send, store, share - works the same way on EU infrastructure. The difference is where the data lives and who can access it. That difference is exactly the point.