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How can I setup Google Apps for email hosting and seamlessly migrate my mail?

Gutensite Support
Updated

 

 

GOOGLE APPS SUPPORT

If you sign up for Google's business package, they will provide customer service and support for everything you need. But if you are having second thoughts about managing mail on your own, and this is all too complicated for you, we are happy to continue providing mail service for $2/mailbox.

 

EASY INSTRUCTIONS TO MIGRATE TO GOOGLE APPS

  1. Setup Main Google Apps Control Panel Account
    • Pick which account is best for you. In most cases the 'Google Apps for Business' account is the best choice, but they also offer an option that comes with advanced security that you might want to consider: http://www.google.com/enterprise/apps/business/pricing.html
    • Follow the setup wizard. At some point Google asks you to verify your site, choose “alternative methods” and select “meta tag”. Copy the info and either email it to Gutensite service or add it to your site yourself via the Gutensite Admin Meta Tag Editor.
  2. Setup Desired Mailboxes
    • Go to the “Organization and Users” Tab, and click the “Create New User” button to setup mailboxes. You need to create a new mailbox for every old mailbox you currently have on the old mail server. You can bulk upload a file of email addresses if you want (choose more actions to see this option).
    • The setup interface gives you an option of mailing the new login info to the user (you can always reset the password from the Google Apps control panel if you need to).
    • Add name aliases on any mailboxes that you want to receive emails from multiple addresses, e.g. john@domain.com, johnsmith@domain.com, contact@domain.com can all go to the same mailbox.
    • If you want to forward an email to another email, you don’t need to setup a mailbox. Just go to the “Groups” tab and specify the email you want it to forward to (be sure to check that people outside of your domain can send to this address).
  3. Instruct Your Team How To Migrate
    • Give the following instructions to each member of your team.
    • Setup Gmail to pull in all the email stored on the old mail server.
      • Login to webmail at https://mail.google.com (full email username@domain.com).
      • Click on the icon of a gear in the very top right of the page (dark area) and go to “mail settings”.
      • Customize any options you need.
      • Click on the Accounts tab in your mail settings.
      • Click "Add a POP3 mail account you own".
      • Enter in your old email address in the pop-up window. Your username will be the full email address for the old account, e.g. name@domain.com and password on the old account.
      • Leave the POP server default to mail.yourdomain.com (replace 'yourdomain.com' with your actual domain name).
      • Leave the Port set to default at 110.
      • Select any of the check boxes below that you would like.
      • Click on Add Account and Google will start fetching mail from your old account. This process may take several minutes depending on how full your inbox is.
      • This pulls all the mail from your old server into Gmail. And it will ensure that any new mail that goes to your old server will appear in Gmail throughout the migration.
    • Start accessing email at Gmail from now on.
  4. Change DNS Records for your Domain
    • Once you have verified that your team are all accessing email from Gmail, it’s time to point your DNS to the Gmail servers so mail goes directly to Gmail’s mail server instead of Gutensite’s old mail server.
    • If we control your domain name (they are pointed to dns1.stabletransit.com, dns2.stabletransit.com) tell us to point the MX records to Google Apps.
    • If you control your domain, you will need to do this yourself at your domain registrar (their support can help if you need assistance modifying the DNS records). Here is information about the required settings: http://support.google.com/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=174125

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