`Good News: non-business legacy Google G Suite customers may keep their accounts after all

Martin Brinkmann
May 18, 2022
Google
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Google revealed plans to shut down the G Suite legacy free edition in January 2022. The company gave customers only two options at the time: sign-up for a paid plan to continue using Google services and their custom emails, or migrate to another service.

google g suite legacy

Customers who used the account to make purchases using Google services, e.g., Android apps, music or media, would lose access to their purchases if they would not migrate to Google Workspaces.

It appears that Google has had a change of heart so that many customers of the legacy service may continue using it after all. In short: non-business customers may opt-out of the migration to Google Workspaces to continue using the legacy account. Customers who did migrate already need to contact support to reverse the change.

Google notes on a support page:

If you’re using the G Suite legacy free edition for non-commercial purposes, you can opt out of the transition to Google Workspace by clicking here (requires a super administrator account) or going to the Google Admin console. You can continue using your custom domain with Gmail, retain access to no-cost Google services such as Google Drive and Google Meet, and keep your purchases and data.

There is one caveat: legacy customers need to become active to block Google from migrating the account or terminating it. The deadline for the opt-out is June 27, 2022.

Customers who have not migrated to Google Workspaces yet may click on this link to opt-out of the migration to Google Workspaces. A super admin account is required for the opting-out. The option is also available in the Google Admin Console.

Customers who migrated already may also go back to the legacy G Suite version, but it is required to contact support in this case. Some users reported that they could only do so if they had a user limit of 5 or less, but this has not been confirmed by Google.

Customers who opt-out or manage to restore the legacy account will keep their data and custom email addresses according to Google.

G Suite legacy was a free offering from 2006 to 2012. Google did advertise it to individuals and families alike as a way to get use Google services with a custom email address and other perks.  During that time, Google never hinted at the chance that these accounts could become paid accounts in the future.

The announcement in January 2022 shocked customers, as Google put them in a tough spot. Either pay business rates for Google Workspaces to keep the account and data, or export the data until August 1, 2022 or lose access to all the data.

Google Workspaces plans start at $6 for a single user license, and while that does not sound like much, many G Suite customers did create accounts for their entire family using the service, which can quickly add to the overall expenses. Google offers a 50% discount on the price to customers coming from G Suite legacy.

Google did not reveal why it changed its position on the migration. It is possible that the gain in paid subscribers was not as large as expected, that the negative publicity was not worth the monetary gain, or that a higher than expected percentage of customers migrated to other services.

Now You: are you a Google G Suite legacy customers? What is your take on the development?

Summary
`Good News: non-business legacy Google G Suite customers may keep their accounts after all
Article Name
`Good News: non-business legacy Google G Suite customers may keep their accounts after all
Description
Legacy G Suite customers may keep their accounts after all, provided that the accounts are used for non-business purposes. Action is required to opt-out of the migration!
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Comments

  1. Anonymous said on September 2, 2022 at 6:15 pm
    Reply

    So from what screen do you activate your non-business account instead of Google Workspace paid edition please

  2. Anonymous said on May 19, 2022 at 11:01 pm
    Reply

    Google products keep getting worst. Now Android is being restricted more than ever. I might as well use a crappy iOS device now.

  3. Anonymous said on May 19, 2022 at 6:44 pm
    Reply

    Ugh. When I saw the announcement months ago I began to migrating all my data to gmail and google drive, and advertised my new email address to everyone. All this for nothing. Not only google didn’t get my money, they now have 2 copies of my data on their servers ?
    The options are not clear either… They ask you to confirm it’s for personal use. What’s the definition of personal use vs business use? I didn’t see anywhere where they draw the line.

  4. Anonymous said on May 18, 2022 at 7:18 pm
    Reply

    If they are loosing customers (free or paid) they are loosing all that tracking that they use/sell…

  5. Anonymous said on May 18, 2022 at 7:14 pm
    Reply

    Change of hart… because they are loosing customers?

  6. BM said on May 18, 2022 at 6:55 pm
    Reply

    Makes the case to wait until the last minute before reacting to these announcements.

    They may change their mind or modify their plan in your favor.

  7. Paul(us) said on May 18, 2022 at 10:22 am
    Reply

    Are there any numbers of how many people migrated from Google G Suite to Google Workspaces?
    Could it maybe be that Google realized that there going to lose fast amounts of customers and that this could also have an effect, on other services they offer?

    That this could also have an effect on the knowledge there they obtain for free about what are their customers doing?
    If this were to disappear, perhaps the sale of these data to third parties would become much less valuable.
    So could it possibly be a simple plus and minus cost-benefit analysis?

  8. mikolajek said on May 18, 2022 at 9:34 am
    Reply

    Great tip, thanks for it! I’ve just had my legacy account restored and preserved from the paid upgrade!

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