Discover how to switch from Big Tech mail (e.g. Gmail) to European email providers like Proton Mail and Infomaniak. Privacy-focused, secure, and ready for European consumers.
I like this topic, and articles like this one. They’re fine for single-person migration from Google etc to alternatives.
The problem hits when it is not one user, but a whole family with a custom domain name on those services, and they want to move to another provider including their family domain name.
I haven’t figured out how to do that, barring a big-bang all-at-once everyone-at-once switch during some holiday or something. And I am terrified of breaking it completely.
Most providers have a way of performing a staged onboarding. So Proton, for example, lets you:
Add a custom domain name
Add mailboxes with the custom domain
Periodically gather emails from GMail, etc, to your new mailboxes
Create DNS records to allow email to be sent from your custom domain.
…and you can do those in any order at any time without changing the MX records, so your users can switch across to Proton when it suits them. Once everyone is over you can throw the switch on the MX records and kill the GMail service with essentially zero downtime.
I’ve got a bit of experience with migrating to Proton and Microsoft Exchange but I imagine the vast majority of providers - and certainly those that target enterprise - will support similar workflows.
Thank you! That makes it sound a lot less painful. First I’ve seen of a way forward.
Personally not sure what provider to go to yet, but seeing that Proton has a plan, it proves that there’s a good solution, so others might have similar. Feeling more optimistic now.
I like this topic, and articles like this one. They’re fine for single-person migration from Google etc to alternatives.
The problem hits when it is not one user, but a whole family with a custom domain name on those services, and they want to move to another provider including their family domain name.
I haven’t figured out how to do that, barring a big-bang all-at-once everyone-at-once switch during some holiday or something. And I am terrified of breaking it completely.
Most providers have a way of performing a staged onboarding. So Proton, for example, lets you:
…and you can do those in any order at any time without changing the MX records, so your users can switch across to Proton when it suits them. Once everyone is over you can throw the switch on the MX records and kill the GMail service with essentially zero downtime.
I’ve got a bit of experience with migrating to Proton and Microsoft Exchange but I imagine the vast majority of providers - and certainly those that target enterprise - will support similar workflows.
Thank you! That makes it sound a lot less painful. First I’ve seen of a way forward.
Personally not sure what provider to go to yet, but seeing that Proton has a plan, it proves that there’s a good solution, so others might have similar. Feeling more optimistic now.