Getting started with Google Transfer

Overview

Google Transfer is a tool developed by Google that allows you to transfer a copy of all email in Gmail and all Drive files you own in your MHC Google account to another Google account (e.g., personal @gmail.com account). This document provides instructions for getting started with Google Transfer.

Table of contents

• Considerations and recommendations
• Start the transfer
• After the transfer

Considerations and recommendations

• Google Transfer only supports Gmail and Drive.
  • You should use the Partner Sharing method to transfer your Google Photos from MHC Google to your personal Google account.
  • You can only copy all of your Gmail or Drive content, not a sub-selection (unlike the regular Google Takeout tool).
  • Google shared drives do not transfer.
• You must ensure you have enough storage space available in your personal account, or the transfer will fail.
  • If you exceed the storage of your personal account, there is no way to stop the transfer. You will need to delete data until there is enough free space for the transfer to complete. LITS cannot help you with this, even if Google Support tells you to talk to us.
  • A failed transfer can result in duplicate files in your personal account. If this happens, you should delete all copied content in your personal account and restart the transfer.
• The process can take up to a week, especially if you have a lot of content or a slow internet connection. In our testing, we've noticed that copying large files (100GB+) significantly slows down the process.
  • We recommend breaking the transfer up into two parts: One transfer for Gmail and one transfer for Drive.
• You cannot stop a transfer once it starts. You can always check the status of your transfer, but it will not tell you the progress it’s made until completion. 
• Copied files or mail might appear in batches on your personal account during the process. It is important not to touch the mail or files in either your MHC Google account or personal account while the transfer is occurring to avoid potential issues.
• Your data organization (folder structures and email labels) is retained.
  • In Gmail, whatever labels your emails have attached to them (e.g., Inbox, Example Label 1, etc.), Transfer will maintain those labels when it copies them to your personal account. Email attachments are also retained.
• Your data sharing and permissions on files and folders are not retained. Because the files are copies, your personal account is now the owner, and anything you want to retain sharing on will need to be reshared.
• Details about what will and won't transfer over:
  • Locked files - The tool unlocks the copy in your personal account but leaves it locked in MHC Google.
  • Files with the “Viewers and commenters can see the option to download, print, and copy” setting unchecked - The tool doesn’t transfer these files.
  • Google Sites of which you are the sole owner - The tool copies the site and leaves it unpublished. The published site in your MHC Google account remains published.
  • Google Forms - The tool doesn’t transfer Forms.
  • Google Drawings, Microsoft files, .ZIP files, videos, and photos (not Google Photos) - The tool transfers all these files.
  • Shared folder structures where you own folders and/or files within it:
    • You own the shared parent folder
      • The tool moves the folder. However, the following occurs:
        • It copies everything you own in the folder structure (folders, files) and keeps the structure intact.
        • It only copies subfolders created/owned by others collaborating on the shared folder. It does not copy over any files other people own in the structure, just their folders.
      • As a note, when you delete a shared folder you own, all files/folders owned by other people within the structure will move back to their respective My Drives.
    • You don’t own the shared parent folder
      • The tool doesn’t copy any files you own that live within a shared parent folder owned by someone else.
  • File comments are copied, but revision/version history is not.
• In Gmail, because archived mail doesn’t have a label, these emails will only appear in the special labels Transfer adds. Also, emails in your Trash do not transfer.
• You should complete your transfer well ahead of your last day of employment or last day of examinations if you’re graduating. Transfers in progress at the time your account is suspended will not finish.
• When trying to use Transfer, you receive the message: "Transfer Your Content is only available to authorized G Suite for Education Accounts. Please contact your administrator, or sign in with another Google Account."
  • This error is caused when you are logged in to more than one Google account in your browser. Log out of all Google accounts and log in to your MHC Google account only, then try again. Use an incognito window in your browser to log in to your personal account.
• Google Transfer, like the regular Takeout tool, can be buggy and not work 100% of the time. In testing, we’ve found that it may create additional copies of the same file or share files from your MHC Google account to your personal account in addition to making copies of those files.

Start the transfer

To start your transfer request:

1. Ensure you have a non-MHC Google account created with enough storage to hold everything you’re copying. Remember, free personal accounts only come with 15GB of storage.
2. Go to Google Transfer while logged in to your MHC Google account.
3. Enter the email address of your personal account in the field under “Enter a destination account.”
4. Click SEND CODE.
5. Go to your personal account and log in to check your email. We strongly recommend opening an incognito window in your browser to log in to your personal account to avoid any issues or errors.
6. Find and open the email from Google in your personal account. The subject line should be similar to “Verify your account.”
7. Select the Get confirmation code button in the email, which will open a new window/tab.
8. Copy the code from the window/tab that opens.
9. Navigate back to the Google Transfer page where you’re logged in as your MHC Google account.
10. Paste the copied code in the field under “Verify destination account” and choose Verify.
11. Toggle which content you want to copy to your personal account - Drive (only files you own) and/or Gmail (all email).
12. Choose Start Transfer to begin the process.

When the transfer is complete, you'll receive a confirmation email sent to your personal account (your MHC Google account will not receive any notification). The confirmation email will be from noreply-account-migration@google.com. If you don’t find the email, check your Spam label or check the status of your transfer to figure out if it’s complete.

After the transfer

In Gmail, the tool applies two labels to all mail copied to your personal account (in addition to any user-created labels already applied):

• School/work email address (“username@mtholyoke.edu”)
• Moved [DATE] (“Moved 2024-03-26 10:44”)

In Drive, the tool places all copied files into a folder in your My Drive with the name “school/work email [DATE]” ("username@mtholyoke.edu 2024-03-26 10:44").

Google Transfer does not delete the data you transferred from your MHC Google account to your personal account. You will need to go back to your MHC Google account and manually delete all of the data that is no longer needed in Google.

You should always compare your Google Transfer data with the original data still in your MHC Google account to ensure everything has been copied properly before you delete it. If Transfer fails or data is missing, either try the transfer process again or use Google Takeout to export your data to a .ZIP file.