Google requiring all ‘G Suite legacy free edition’ users to start paying • Hacker News Board

Re: Google requiring all ‘G Suite legacy free edition’ users to start paying

#861

Post by neogodless » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 9:03 PM UTC

starik36 wrote: post #829

neogodless wrote: post #776

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you use GSuite Legacy for personal email, you would have the choice of switching to a paid plan, or migrating your email to a personal account (or any other email hosting provider.) If you use a personal GMail account, there is no change here that applies to you.

> migrating your email to a personal account I use GSuite Legacy for a personal email only. So migrating my foo@customdomain.com to a @gmail.com is fine. However, I didn't see anything in the article that indicates that this will be offered or even possible. Where did you see this?

There are a few ways to achieve this technically, even if Google isn't going to be super helpful.

If you use Google's tedious Takeout service, you can get a big zip file which will contain an .mbox file with all of your email. But note, labels don't really apply here, so it'll be one giant folder with all of your email. (That was my experience trying to use ImportExportNG, an add-on for Thunderbird.)

You can also use an application like Thunderbird. Connect via IMAP to your GSuite Legacy account. Connect via IMAP to another account; can be Gmail or another provider. Drap and drop folders and/or individual emails between the two. Works surprisingly well, albeit not particularly fast. I copied about 100,000 emails yesterday evening. The nice thing about this preserving labels/folders.

There are tools in some email providers that would let you login to your GSuite Legacy account and import/copy all email.

Re: Google requiring all ‘G Suite legacy free edition’ users to start paying

#862

Post by Macha » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 9:03 PM UTC

fanzhang wrote: post #807

etaioinshrdlu wrote: post #786

I find the outrage here quite amazing. This tier has been deprecated for about 10 years already. Furthermore, the costs to upgrade are not egregious, most everyone here would not have a big problem with it. Also, it's not like one is losing one's email address -- you control the domain...

Well for almost any service, people would rather prefer it to be free than paid, so it's almost an instinctive emotional reaction. Google being huge makes it a particularly easy target.

Also many of us _do_ pay Google quite a bit already, e.g. via YouTube Premium, Google Drive storage space, YouTube Music, Android application purchases/subscriptions, Google hardware purchases, etc..

Some others may even be Google's suppliers, such as operators of Youtube channels, devs on the Play Store, etc. etc.

Re: Google requiring all ‘G Suite legacy free edition’ users to start paying

#863

Post by modeless » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 9:03 PM UTC

I still haven't received an email about this. Is it confirmed to affect everyone?

Re: Google requiring all ‘G Suite legacy free edition’ users to start paying

#864

Post by jrochkind1 » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 9:03 PM UTC

blakesterz wrote: post #148

jfengel wrote: post #100

Huh. I thought that was what I had, but I haven't heard this directly from them. It's the first I've heard of it. I used a microscopic subset of the features. Aside from them hosting my email, I don't think I'm any different from other users. It's just me; I'm not really a business. I notice some differences, mostly in limitations: less storage, features of my Pixel phone that sometimes don't work with that account.…

> Perhaps I'm on yet another different legacy thing. I keep wondering the same thing. Haven't seen any communication at all from Google, so maybe for some reason I don't fall into this thing that is no longer free? They can't possibly do this to me and not even tell me... can they?

Same. I think they aren't actually emailing us. Lucky I saw it here! We have until May 1st.

It definitely applies to you, if you think it might. There aren't different legacy things like this, just this one. Go to to admin.google.com, click on Billing / Manage Subscriptions. You'll see your subscription is "G Suite legacy"/"Free plan". And you'll see a message "You are on the G Suite Legacy free edition. Consider upgrading to Google Workspace Business Starter [Learn More]".

Click on [Learn More], you'll see the message that "you need to upgrade to a paid Google Workspace subscription to keep your services. The G Suite legacy free edition will no loger be available starting July 1, 2022".

Also the confusing message that "Support availability is rolling out to our G Suite legacy free edition customers oer the coming days. If you do not currently have access to Support, please check back in a few days."

I don't even know what that means, or how to check if I "have access to Support". (I guess I have literally never had access to Support!)

Re: Google requiring all ‘G Suite legacy free edition’ users to start paying

#865

Post by neogodless » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 9:04 PM UTC

pkrumins wrote: post #794

Does anyone know if this applies to Gmail for domains as well?

I believe Gmail for Domains, Google Apps for Business and GSuite (now GSuite Legacy) were all previous names for what is now Google Workspaces.

Re: Google requiring all ‘G Suite legacy free edition’ users to start paying

#866

Post by xn--7pr67wky3 » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 9:06 PM UTC

ankurpatel wrote: post #769

It would be cheaper to go with iCloud+ service which offers custom email domains. I am now considering that after being on the free legacy plan for all of these years. https://support.apple.com/guide/icloud/add-a-custom-domain-m...

Is catch-all supported yet for custom email domains on iCloud+? That's really the only thing holding me back from it.

Re: Google requiring all ‘G Suite legacy free edition’ users to start paying

#867

Post by fuzzy2 » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 9:08 PM UTC

MarkusWandel wrote: post #826

fuzzy2 wrote: post #818

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck with that. For home accounts, you’re tied to GoDaddy. Or rather Microsoft via GoDaddy? Who knows. I would NEVER use GoDaddy after reading various experiences around the net. Also, no aliases. Are multiple domains even possible?

Their help admittedly is professional-tier centric and suggests that if you can edit your DNS record to add the "I own this" file they give you, you can use any domain. Do they explicitly not support this for the family edition? I guess I'll have to test it with a free month and a spare domain.

The FAQ explicitly answers this question:

> Q: I already own a domain that's registered with a provider other than GoDaddy. Can I set up a personalized email address in Outlook.com? > > A: At the moment, we only support connecting domains managed by GoDaddy with Outlook.com.

There’s not a lot of room for workarounds here. If you read some help, be extra careful it’s not for Microsoft 365 business, which offers a lot more freedom. For a price.

Re: Google requiring all ‘G Suite legacy free edition’ users to start paying

#868

Post by below43 » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 9:08 PM UTC

ankurpatel wrote: post #769

It would be cheaper to go with iCloud+ service which offers custom email domains. I am now considering that after being on the free legacy plan for all of these years. https://support.apple.com/guide/icloud/add-a-custom-domain-m...

If you're an iPhone/Mac user and already using iCloud+ for files/photo storage, this is a good solution as it won't cost you anything more (assuming you're happy to rely mainly on the iOS and Mac OS apps as the web-based mail client is terrible to use).

Re: Google requiring all ‘G Suite legacy free edition’ users to start paying

#869

Post by makerofthings » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 9:08 PM UTC

Someone at google needs to have a good think about who they're upsetting with this. Tech people, who early adopted a new product to host vanity email addresses who have been in the industry for 10-20 years+ and are now in decision making positions. I don't think they thought this through.

Re: Google requiring all ‘G Suite legacy free edition’ users to start paying

#870

Post by bonestamp2 » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 9:09 PM UTC

PradeetPatel wrote: post #745

asciimov wrote: post #742

It's sad that the MBA's have finally taken over at Google, and now they have to squeeze every last penny out of their customers (on top of all the ads they sell). The worst part of all this, is most of us casual users just want to do email, nothing else. I personally don't have a high enough volume of email to even warrant paying out for most services.

Why do people speak of MBA as if it is a bad thing? Serious question, in India it is often seen as an extremely prestigious title and its a gateway into a high paying position. Or is there a cultural difference I'm not understanding?

It's all a matter of perspective. An MBA is nice for the person who has it and the company the work for. It is not nice for all of the users that have to pay more once the MBA starts working their magic.