I’ve used G Suite Legacy Free for me, my family and some clients since it was first created). Now I’ve been looking at different options for emails, storage, docs, calendars and contacts.

in this post, I’ve put together some of the options I’ve found. There are other options out there, but I’ve listed ones which looked the most useful to me, my family and my clients! As I’m in the UK, the prices will be in British Pounds and links will be to UK version of products (if there are international options) – but you should be able to get an overall feel of prices, etc. (I’m also going to be some rounding on prices and mainly giving annual options – but again you’ll get the general idea!) You might also need to add VAT/sales tax on things! [I’ll also add the country where things are based as, with differing privacy laws around the world, this is important to many people!]

Depending on how you use G Suite, you might (or not) need certain features. I’ll cover what the costs are of staying with Google, look at ‘full’ alternatives as well as alternatives to individual components – like email and storage, etc.

(Remember that for emails, you have to have all your accounts on one service – you can’t mix and match where email accounts live!)

UPDATE 17th May 2022!

Google have now said that if you’re using Workspace for ‘non-commercial’ (personal) purposes then you can still use it for free! (This could great for families and non commercial/non business clubs and groups.)

There’s more Information about this ‘personal use’ option on the ‘Upgrade from G Suite legacy free edition’ support page.

To get this option, you need to use this special link (signing in with a master/admin account) – it’s NOT shown within the Admin area presently!

But on with the options I’ve found…

Go to:

• If you’re a Charity/Nonprofit or not a Business
• What Happens if You Stay with Google?
• Full Google Workspace Alternatives (With Docs)
  • Zoho Workplace
  • Microsoft 365
  • Apple iCloud
• Nextcloud – a DIY Cloud Server (Calendars, Contacts, Storage, Chat, Docs, Webmail)
• Email Based Alternatives (No Docs)
  • Very Simple Email Options (Forwarding, etc.)
  • Email Options by the User
  • Email Options by Space
• Google Drive/Cloud Storage Alternatives
• Calendars and Contacts
• Migrating Your Data
• What I’m Doing (and for some of my clients)!

If you’re a Charity/Nonprofit or not a Business

If you’re a registered charity/nonprofit, you can go on Google Workspace Nonprofits, I’ve already written a post about doing that!

You might also be able to use the ‘non commercial’ / ‘personal use’ option as described above in the 17th May 2022 update!

And if you are a nonprofit or other non business user, you still might be interested in some of the other options below – so read on…

What Happens if You Stay with Google?

To stay with Google (on Google Workspace), you will need to add a billing account to your admin account by June 2022. This is all explained in the page on Google about the changes. You can use multiple domains on Google Workspace.

From August you’ll start paying for Google Workspace services. These are the costs:

Google Workspace Business Starter: This is the ‘basic’ plan. You get 30GB of space for emails and things on your Google Drive (storage) as well as calendars, contacts and docs.

• It’s £2.30 per month, so about £28 a year per user for the 1st year;
• It’s £4.60 per month, so about £55 a year per user after the first year.

Google Workspace Business Standard: This is the next plan up. You get 2TB (2000GB) of space for emails and things on your Google Drive (storage) as well as calendars, contacts and docs.

• It’s £4.60 per month, so about £55 a year per user for the 1st year;
• It’s £9.20 per month, so about £110 a year per user after the first year.

There are more, higher, plans but those are only for really big businesses!

There’s more info on: https://workspace.google.com/intl/en_uk/pricing.html

[Google is based in the USA, with offices and servers around the world.]

Full Google Workspace Alternatives (With Docs)

There are two/three main alternatives to Google Workspace that come with email, storage, calendars and docs – Zoho and Microsoft.

Zoho Workplace

Each account gets some space for emails and also shared storage space. You can use multiple domains on Zoho Workspace.

• Zoho Workplace Standard – 30GB for emails and storage space starting at 10GB. It’s £2.40 per month, so about £29 a year.
• Zoho Workplace Professional – 100GB for emails and storage space starting at 100GB. It’s £4.80 per month, so about £58 a year.

You can also mix account types. There’s more info on: https://www.zoho.com/workplace/pricing.html

Zoho also have some migration tools and information: https://www.zoho.com/mail/help/gsuite-to-zoho-mail-migration.html

Zoho also offer ‘Mail only’ accounts (more on those below!).

[Zoho started in India and is now a multinational with offices and servers located globally.]

Microsoft 365

Formally Office 365, Microsoft 365 also offers email, storage, calendar and docs. They’ve got ‘Business’ and ‘Home’ plans. I won’t list them all, just a couple that might be of interest (and there are links to see all the plans). You can use multiple domains on Google Workspace.

• Microsoft 365 Business Basic – 1TB (1000GB) for emails and storage. It’s £3.80 per month, so about £46 a year.

You can see all the Business options at: https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-365/business/compare-all-microsoft-365-business-products

• Microsoft 365 Family – This gives you 6TB (6000GB) designed to be shared between up to six accounts. It’s about £80 a year.

You can see the Home options at: https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-365/buy/compare-all-microsoft-365-products

Microsoft have some information about migrating to 365 plans at: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/mailbox-migration/perform-g-suite-migration

[Microsoft is based in the USA with offices and servers located globally.]

Apple iCloud

iCloud isn’t really a complete alternative, but I thought it was worth a mention! It’s really designed to be used with/on Apple computers and iPads/iPhones. But it does offer email, calendar, contacts, storage and editing of docs (but only ones in Apple formats). You can only use a single domain with iCloud (I think).

It’s free with 5GB of space and an @icloud.com email address.

There’s also iCloud+ where you can use your domain for the email and you get more storage, from 50GB – about £10 a year, to 2TB (2000GB) – about £85 a year. You can also share this with up to five others ‘family members’ with Apple Family Sharing: https://www.apple.com/uk/family-sharing/

The price of plans vary depending on the country, so see here for more information: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201238

[Apple is based in the USA with offices and servers located globally.]

Nextcloud – a DIY Cloud Server (Calendars, Contacts, Storage, Chat, Docs, Webmail)

How about having your own version of Google Workspace? Well, with Nextcloud you can do that! It includes you calendars, contacts, storage, chats, docs and more. For the email side of things you need to have email on an email host and then use Nextcloud to view it with it’s webmail client.

Oh, and it’s FREE. Well, sort of! The program is free (yes, really), but you’ll need a server where it lives. If you’re a real techy, you can download and install it yourself.

But if you’re less tech inclined, you can get a Nextcloud approved provider (server host) to do it for you (at a cost). The costs vary between providers and the plans/space they offer.

But for some businesses and groups, this could be a great solution – so I thought I’d mention it!

Email Based Alternatives (No Docs)

If you mainly use the email part of G Suite/Google Workspace, then email based options might well be better for your needs. Some also come with calendars/contacts and even some storage. I’ll cover some of these below.

Very Simple Email Options (Forwarding, etc.)

If you’ve only got a few email accounts, then a simple (and possibly free) option would be to use ‘free’ email accounts (like from Gmail.com or Outlook.com) and have your ‘domain’ emails ‘got into’ them.

You can forward emails and/or set-up small email accounts on your web hosting (you get some email accounts on most web hosting) and import those into your main account. Cloudflare also offer ‘Email Routing’ which is like forwarding on steroids! [Cloudflare is based in the USA, with offices around the world and a global server network.]

This can work well. To send ‘from the domain’ email address, each email service normally has their own way of doing things. Here’s how to do this on Gmail and how to on Outlook.com. If you don’t have an SMTP (mail sending service) you can use, then good mail sending option are Mailjet and SendinBlue. They have a free plan where you can send up to 6000 emails a month (max 200 a day).

But if you’ve got several accounts, then you’ll probably want ‘proper’ email hosting.

Email Options by the User

Most email hosting is set-up so you pay per user/mailbox (or by groups of users/mailboxes). There are LOTS of options for this type of email hosting – far more than I can list here! So here are some good quality and good value options.

Zoho Mail

Plans are based per user/account. They come with calendars and contacts. You can use multiple domains on Zoho Mail paid accounts.

• Mail Lite – 10GB. It’s £1 per month, so £12 per year per user.
• Mail Premium – 15GB. It’s £3.20 per month, so about £38 per year per user.
• Forever Free – If you only use ‘webmail’ or mail in a mobile app, this plan gives you up to five users with 5GB for emails each.

There’s more info on: https://www.zoho.com/mail/zohomail-pricing.html

[Zoho started in India and is now a multinational with offices and servers located globally.]

CloudyHost Business Email

Plans are based on groups of users/accounts (36 month contract). They come with calendars and contacts. The space can also be used for storage. I think you can only use one domain on Cloudyhost Business Email. (There’s nothing in their docs which says you can use multiple ones!)

• Mail – 5 Users / 50GB per user. It’s £2.78pm per month, so about £33 per year.
• Mail Plus – 10 Users / 50GB per user. It’s £5.56 per month, so about £67 per year.
• Mail Pro – 20 Users / 50GB per user. It’s £11.13 per month, so about £134 per year.
• Mail Biz – 40 Users / 50GB per user. It’s £22.26 per month, so about £268 per year.

There’s more info on: https://www.cloudyhost.com/email-hosting/

[Cloudlyhost is based in Estonia and has offices and servers around the world.]

Namecheap Professional Business Email

Plans are based on groups of users/mailboxes. They come with calendars and contacts. Storage space is separate to mail space. I think you can only use one domain on Namecheap Professional Business Email. (There’s nothing in their docs which says you can use multiple ones!)

• Starter – 1 mailbox included. 5GB for Mail / 2GB for Storage. About £8 for the 1st year, £11 per year after that. Extra mailboxes about 50p a month.
• Pro – 3 mailboxes included. 30GBs for Mail / 15GBs for Storage. About £19 for the 1st year, £29 per year after that. Extra mailboxes about £1.20 a month.
• Ultimate – 5 mailboxes included. 75GBs for Mail / 30GBs for Storage. About £32 for the 1st year, £50 per year after that. Extra mailboxes about £2.14 a month.

There’s more info on: https://www.namecheap.com/hosting/email/

Namecheap also have information on migrating things: https://www.namecheap.com/hosting/email/migrate-email/

[Namecheap is based in the USA. Its email servers are also in the USA.]

ServerMX

ServerMX offers mail boxes at four different sizes. It comes with ‘basic’ calendar and contact support (using CalDav/CardDav). You can use multiple domains with ServerMX.

ServerMX’s mailboxes range from 2GB (at about £1 a month) up to 50GB (at about £3.30 a month). There’s also a 50% discount on more than five mailboxes and other discounts based on time to get them for.

Rather than me listing all the many options, there’s more info on: https://www.servermx.com/en/pricing/

ServerMX also have a migration tool: https://www.servermx.com/en/help/howto/Administration-tasks/howto-migrate.html and tips for migrating from Gmail/Google: https://www.servermx.com/en/help/documentation/common-issue/index.html

[ServerMX is based in Italy. Its servers are located around the world, including in France and Canada.]

Some other pay per user/mailbox options include: ProtonMail [Switzerland]; Fastmail [Based in Australia, servers in the USA]; PolarisMail [Canada].

Email Options by Space

In some cases, it might be useful to pay for a set amount of space and then chop that space up into as many domains and users/mailboxes as you’d like. This is a different way about thinking of handling email accounts, but it can be much for flexible in how you can do things. This type of approach could be especially useful if you’ve got several small(ish) accounts across a few domains (as I have…). There are much fewer options for ‘pay for space’ email providers, but here’s are some that might be of interest.

Migadu

There are some emails in/out limits on Migadu which might put some people off. However, these aren’t hard limits, you get an extra 25% before any disruption. It comes with ‘basic’ calendar and contact support (using CalDav/CardDav). You can use multiple domains on Migadu.

• Micro – 5GB of space. About £15 a year. 200 emails in a day / 20 emails out a day.
• Mini – 30GB of space. About £70 a year. 1000 emails in a day / 100 emails out a day.
• Standard – 100GB of space. About £215 a year. 3,000 emails in a day / 500 emails out a day.
• Maxi – 500GB of space. About £740 a year. 10,000 emails in a day / 2,000 emails out a day.

There’s more info on: https://www.migadu.com/pricing/

Some information on using Migadu’s Calendars/Contacts (not on Migadu’s site): https://www.billdietrich.me/SecureCommunication.html?expandall=1#MigaduCalendarAndContacts

[Migadu is based in Switzerland. Its servers are in France.]

Servercow

Servercow doesn’t have any in/out limits. It comes with ‘basic-ish’ calendar and contact support (using CalDav/CardDav). You can use multiple domains on Servercow.

Classic mailcow – 20GB of space. About £45 a year (-19% tax if you’re outside the EU). You can add up to 15GB extra storage at 0.50€ / month per GB. 20 mailbox limit. You can only have one main domain on this plan. (You can use other domains but they are only aliases.)

Managed mailcow – 100GB of space. About £400 a year (-19% tax if you’re outside the EU). No mailbox limits. This can use multiple domains as full accounts.

There’s more info on: https://www.servercow.de/mailcow?lang=en#hosted

[Servercow is based in Germany and their servers are in Germany.]

Some other ‘pay for space’ options include: MXRoute [USA]; Purelymail [USA];

If you really want to do things yourself, the team behind Servercow make Mailcow, which is an email server which you host/run yourself. (Servercow is their ‘hosted for you’ version of Mailcow. You can also get a support plan for your own hosted version of Mailcow at about £25 a month.)

Google Drive/Cloud Storage Alternatives

There are lots of cloud storage alternatives to Google Drive. Most give a free amount of space and then have pay for plans. Most also have applications for your computer and tablet/phone, just like Google Drive.

You can view things like PDFs, DOCx, PPTx, etc. in these options, but you can’t edit/create them like in Google Docs.

Again, I can’t mention them all, so here are some of what I think are good options! All the below offer top spec security and data protection.

MEGA

With Mega you get 20GB for free. MEGA also offers text, audio and video chats in its service.

Plans start at 400GB for £42 a year and 2TB (2000GB) for £84 a year. More at: https://mega.io/pro

They also have business plans based on the number of users and space used: https://mega.io/business

[MEGA is based in New Zealand. Their servers are in Canada, New Zealand and several countries in the EU.]

pCloud

With pCloud you get ‘up to’ 10GB for free. (You start off with 2GB and unlock another 5GB by doing things like installing their apps. The final 3GB of free space is gained by inviting people.)

pCloud offers individual, family and business plans. With individual and family plans you can pay for ‘lifetime’ accounts (which work out at about 3.5 years worth of annual plans). Individual plans start at 500GB for £43 a year and 2TB (2000GB) for £86 a year. There’s more at: https://www.pcloud.com/cloud-storage-pricing-plans.html

They also run lots of special lifetime offers around holidays and special occasions (like Christmas, Valentines, Halloween etc.) – so if you’re interested, get a free plan and wait for a special offer email to arrive!

pCloud can auto get/backup/transfer your items from Google Drive – nice! https://blog.pcloud.com/easy-google-drive-backup/

[pCloud is based in Switzerland. Their servers are in Luxembourg and the USA – you can choose where you account is stored.]

Some other Cloud Storage options include: Icedrive [10GB free. UK, servers in UK, Germany and USA]; Onedrive from Microsoft [5GB free.]

If you’re only looking for space to ‘store’ things online and don’t need sharing/viewing of them, etc., then BackBlaze can be brilliant value. They offer a simple computer backup system using their own software from about £50 per year.

However, they also offer just ‘space’ for MUCH cheaper. I’m currently using the free Duplicati backup software with BackBlaze’s ‘B2’ storage. I’ve got about 50GB of my work files auto backed-up daily (incrementally) and it’s costing me about £2 A YEAR. That sounds like an idea for another blog post (watch this space)!

Calendars and Contacts

You’ve got your emails moved, but what about your calendars and contacts? Some of the options above come with calendars and contacts as part of their plans. But for others, I’ve put that they offer ‘basic’ calendars and contacts. I’ll cover what I mean by that here, as well as some other ways you could use calendars and contacts.

Calendars

The ‘basic’ calendars, mentioned on some of the email only options above, use ‘CalDAV’. This is a protocol for storing/syncing calendar info online. With CalDAV you use a third party calendar app/service to ‘view’ the calendar(s).

Many of the services above offer the ability to use their CalDAV link/address to store calendar info, but you ‘use’ the calendar in an app on your phone or computer or with a calendar in your email client (you have to jump through a few hoops to make CalDAV work on the Outlook email program).

For simple (and more complex) calendars, they can work well – especially if you’re used to using a calendar on your mobile or as part of an email client.

Somewhat surprisingly, there aren’t many alternatives to full on ‘online calendars’ like Google Calendar. One option might be use a ‘free’ Google Calendar. (I think this could be an auto option for those who don’t pay for Google Workspace but want to keep their calendar data.)

There are calendars in Microsoft 365 but not as an individual product, they come as part of having a Microsoft 365 or a free Outlook.com account.

The only real ‘calendar only’ option is Zoho Calendar and it’s free!

Morgan is an app for Windows, Mac and Linux which can display just about any calendar out there (including Google, Microsoft, Exchange, Zoho, Nextcloud and CalDAV). It’s got a free option for viewing one CalDAV account (there can be multiple calendars in one account). It’s about £80 for multiple accounts and more advanced features.

Contacts

It’s a similar story with contacts. There aren’t many options and most email clients have their own contacts system.

CardDAV is a contacts version of CalDAV and can be used to keep your contacts on a server and using a third party app to view/use them. Most contact managers, in things like email clients and phone apps, can use CardDAV.

Google & iCloud

Using Google or iCloud for your calendar/contacts could be a simple option if there are just a few people needing those types of services. But neither are really designed for large groups…

Migrating Your Data

Not everything in Google Workspace (like some maps and forms) can be easily moved. Google have a support page with more information.

But here’s some general information on how to move different types of information you might have in Google Workspace/G Suite.

Emails

Some of the options above include their own migration systems. Apart from those, there are two main ways of moving emails, I’ll look at below.

Also be aware that Google/Gmail have limits on the bandwidth/amount of mail you can move/download/upload with IMAP and in the web interface. This is 1250MB (1.25GB) a day on the web and 2500MB (2.5GB) a day with IMAP. This might mean that using a system’s own migration tool or one of the options below could take quite a while if you’ve got more than 2.5GB of mail to move!

imapsync

IMAP is the way that most (non ‘Exchange’) email accounts now store and sync their messages. imapsync is a tool, for Windows, Mac and Linux, which does what it says – it allows you to migrate/sync two different IMAP accounts! Using it can be a bit techy. However, for mailboxes under 3GB, there’s a great free online tool from its maker which is very simple to use.

For mailboxes above 3GB you’ll need to pay €60 EUR for the basic version and €120 EUR for the program and support from its maker. (There is a free, no questions asked, refund in the first 30 days.) The imapsync site isn’t the prettiest but is VERY thorough about how you use it.

With Google email accounts, even with the online tool, there’s an extra step to do before you can use it. In you Google account, you need to allow ‘Less Secure App Access’ (at least while the migration is happening). You can do that from at link (when you’re signed into your Google account): https://myaccount.google.com/lesssecureapps (You might also need the admin of your G Suite/Google Workspace to allow you to change this setting, it can be disabled at an admin level.)

Do It Yourself!

Another way to migrate emails is to do it yourself. Using an email client (Thunderbird, which is free, is about the best one to use for this), you can have both your old and new email accounts in the client and copy/move emails between them.

You normally need to have the new email system all set-up and working (i.e. new emails are coming into it) before doing this.

Although there are limits on what you can download/move with the web/IMAP side of Google emails, there is a way round this! You can also download all of your mail and have that on your own computer and then upload mail to your new account. I’ve already written a post about how to download/export your emails with Google Takeout – so go and have a read!

This can be a good way of moving mail – especially if you have a lot. It also means you’ve got a full archive of your existing/old emails. And of course you don’t then to upload *everything* to your new email service – if you don’t want to! (There might also be IMAP limits on your new email service, so it might be worth checking with them.)

Calendars

Using the Google Takeout tool, as in the post linked above, you can also download your calendar files. These are generally very small and are in the iCal .ics file format. This can be imported by just about every calendar system out there. (Sometimes you might have to create a blank calendar first and then import an .ics file into it.)

Contacts

Google Takeout can also export your contacts. When in Google Takeout, on the Contacts section, there’s a button which says [vCard Format]. If you click that, you can choose if your contacts are exported in the vCard or CSV formats.

Different contact apps use the different formats, so check before you export. (It is possible to convert them after an export, but it can be a pain to do!)

Storage

Some storage services have their own migration/backup/moving tools (pCloud can get files from many other storage providers, including Google Drive).

If you’ve got the files on your computer, you could always manually upload them again to a new storage service. However, if you’ve got lots of files (and/or they use a lot of space) that could be a rather a pain to do… Thankfully, there’s are a third party site/service which can move things between many storage providers.

MultCloud

This service can move things between many different cloud storage services including Google Drive, pCloud, OneDrive and MEGA (and keep them synced if you want).

There’s a free plans for up to 30GB a month – this might well be enough for most people! Paid plans start at about £8 a month for 150GB – so one month might be all you’d need if you’ve got more than 30GB.

What I’m Doing (and for some of my clients)!

Phew! I hope your brain isn’t hurting with all of the above. I know mine has, when going through the multiple options for my clients and myself.

Between my business, some side projects/sites and my family, I had six domains of G Suite Legacy Free to sort out (although most of these only had one or two email accounts and many don’t have things like storage or calendars to think about).

I’m in the process of moving these over to a Migadu Mini plan – as that really fits my needs. I’ve moved four of the domains and the emails are working on there now (the other two will be moved soon). So far, so great! Setting things up on Migadu was quite frankly a joy (and you don’t hear that said about many tech things). The intro docs are great and how to set everything up was explained very well. (I’ve also got the DNS for my domains on Cloudflare, which helps make that easier/faster.)

For some of the mail accounts (with only small mailboxes) I’ve used the online imapsync to migrate them and it’s worked very well. My business email account had 6.5GB of mail. So I’ve done an export with Google Takeout and have it all on my main work computer as an ‘archive’ in Thunderbird. On the new account with Migadu, I’ve set it up with just my ‘active’ clients and their last couple of years of emails (it’s now about 1.5GB rather than 6.5GB).

I’m a Mac user, so my calendar and contacts were already in iCloud. I’m also already a user of pCloud and MEGA for storage. For docs I need to edit, etc. I’m using a free ‘Gmail’ type Google Docs account.

My charity/nonprofit clients are being moved onto Google Workspace Nonprofits (some have already moved, others are in the process of getting things sorted).

One of my clients is probably staying on Google Workspace (with a Business Standard plan). However, they’re also planning to consolidate their cloud storage to make it ‘pay’ better for them. At least one will probably go for the forwarding/Mailjet option.

And with a couple of clients, we’re looking at what would be the best option(s) for them.

And that’s really the point of this post. To share with others some of the options I found while doing research for myself and my clients!

Thanks for reading – I hope it might help…

UPDATE 8th April 2022! I’ve been using Migadu for about a month now and LOVE IT. But that’s probably another blog post…!

The post Some Alternatives to Google Workspace / G Suite Legacy Free first appeared on JPC-DESIGN.

This could be as a backup/archive (always a good idea!), to help move the emails over to a different provider (which might be happening with the end of the G Suite Legacy Free accounts – which is what’s happening with me, my family and some of my clients!), or a bit of both…

Google makes downloading your emails quite simple, using a service called Google Takeout. (Sadly, you can’t get any food in there, but you can get lots of your information from it!) You can download all sorts of your Google related data with Google Takeout, but in this guide, I’ll be only looking at emails.

It’s a pretty simple process, but there are a couple of steps along the way, that aren’t that obvious and that can make things much better. I’ll also cover how you can use the emails once you’ve downloaded them. So let’s start…

1. Log into your Google account.

This can be done at https://accounts.google.com/ServiceLogin or if you’re already logged into a Google account/product (like Gmail or YouTube), you can click the circular account icon at the top right and click the [Manage your Google Account] button.

Once you’re in the main account settings, click ‘Data and privacy’ on the left bar.

2. The Data and privacy section

In the Data and privacy section, scroll pretty much to the bottom and there’s a ‘Download or delete your data’ box. In there, click on ‘Download your data’.

3. Choose what to export

You’ll now be in the ‘Google Takeout’ page.

In this page is a rather long list of all the type of things you can download (if you’ve ever used them). But, in this case, we’re only interested in emails. As there are so many types and boxes, the simplest things to do is to first click the ‘Deselect all’ link at the top.

When you’ve deselected everything, take a scroll down to ‘Mail’ and tick that. In the ‘Mail’ box, there’s also another VERY USEFUL button – ‘All Mail data included’. If you click this, you can control what folders/data is download. This is IMPORTANT!

4. Get the Mail you want

If you don’t click that button, all the emails will be put together in ONE ‘mbox’. You get all the emails – but they ARE NOT organised into labels/folders!!! (See I said it was important.)

If you click the button, you are then presented with a long list of ‘labels’ (what Gmail calls folders) which can be exported. To selected individual ones, untick the top ‘Include all messages in Mail’ option.

When you do this, certain labels are auto selected. You’ll probably want to keep these ticked as well as to tick other ones you want to export/download. (You can probably ignore ones like the Bin/Trash, Spam, Snoozed, etc.)

The HUGE advantage of doing this step is that each of the ‘labels’ you’ve ticked will come as separate mbox files in your export. This makes accessing old emails (or moving them to another email provider) MUCH more controllable and generally nicer.

The ‘Archived’ box will probably include most of your mail, and it also includes anything that’s not been put into a label. This means that you might get two copies of some mail (in the ‘Archived’ mbox and the mbox for the label they’re in), but that’s better than not having them! If emails have multiple labels in Gmail, they will only be exported in the first label they’re in alphabetically (I think) as mbox files are like folders, rather than the slightly more flexible labels…

When you’ve ticked all the things you’d like to export/download, click ‘OK’ at the bottom. You’ll then be back on the long list of data types to export. Right at the bottom of that list is a blue [Next step] button. Give that a click.

5. Doing the Export

On the next page, you can choose some things about how the data will be sent to you. Most people can probably leave this screen as is and click the blue [Create export] button.

(The defaults are to have a link emailed to you as a zip file and the export done in 2GB blocks. If you’ve got super duper fast internet and a lot of mail, you could choose ‘4 GB’ or even ’10GB’!)

On the next screen you’ll have a notice saying that your data is being exported and that you’ll get an email.

Depending on the amount of data you’re exporting, this can take a few minutes to a few hours!

6. Downloading the Export

At some point you should get an email with a link where you can get your data. (You can also go to https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout/downloads and see all the downloads/exports you’ve done.)

When you click the button to download your data, it will ask for your Google Account password again, just to make sure you are you! As soon as you’ve entered your password, the first file will probably start to download. If there are multiple files to download, you’ll see a list of them on the screen and can click them to download.

In the main export folder, in the zip file, there will be an html file called archive_browser.html – this can mostly be ignored. The main thing you want is the folder called ‘Mail’. (There might also be some extra )

In that will be .mbox files for each of the labels you’d ticked in point 4.

In the ‘Mail’ folder, you might also have another folder called ‘User settings’. This contains ‘json’ files (a type fo file used to structure certain data) which contain things like your email signature and mail filters.

No programs can directly used them. However, if you open them in a text editor, there might be some useful info you can take out and use elsewhere manually.

7. What’s are MBOX files & what can you do with them?

An MBOX file is a email mailbox (or folder) saved in a special file. It includes everything in the emails – including attachments.

There are some different email programs which can open and use mbox files.

The general mail clients/programs Apple Mail (Mac) and Thunderbird (Windows, Mac and Linux) can open and use mbox files.

There are also some some ‘mail management/archive’ type programs like Mailstore Home (Windows) and MailSteward (Mac and piggybacks on Apple Mail) which can also use mbox files.

Thunderbird is probably the best option for most people. It can use mbox files in its ‘Local Folders’. This is a good guide on using mbox files in Local Folders in Thunderbird.

If you’ve got multiple mbox files in the folder you’ve chosen for your ‘Local Folders’, then it will display all of the mbox files are separate ‘folders’ in alphabetical order. This is quite a nice way of being able to access ‘old’ emails.

How I’m planning to use my Exported Data

I’m planning to use something like the above with Thunderbird with my 6.5GB+ mail archive from G Suite Legacy Free as I move over to a different email platform.

Rather than migrating all the emails over IMAP (which you can do – that might be another post!), I’m planning to start with a clean slate on the new account. (My emails cover a period of over 15 years and I’ll never probably need at least 70% of them ever again…)

In Thunderbird, I’ll setup the new account as an IMAP account and my archive/exported emails as the ‘Local Folders’. Then I can create the folders I want (and will use) in my new email IMAP account and then copy emails I want in there (say the last six months/year or something) into them from my archive.

Yes – you can do that as well in Thunderbird!

If both ‘accounts’ are running Thunderbird, you can copy/move emails (and their attachments) around by dragging and dropping or copy/pasting. And as the new account is an IMAP one, they’ll sync to the server.

I won’t be using Thunderbird as my main email client/app, but as a nice way of moving emails around and still having access to my full archive if I ever need it.

I’m hoping to do a post on what platforms and services I’m moving things over to – so keep an eye on the blog for that.

The post How to Download/Export Emails with Google Takeout first appeared on JPC-DESIGN.

I’m sure this is going to affect many thousands of people, businesses and charities (including me, my family and several of my clients).

However, if you’re a charity or nonprofit (I’m using the term nonprofit on this post for simplicity), and you meet some requirements, it’s possible (and relatively simple) to move from G Suite Legacy over to Google Workspace Nonprofits!

Google have a page about moving to Workplace Nonprofits, but I’m writing this post to hopefully explain it all in one place and perhaps in simpler terms!

There are different nonprofit eligibility rules for different countries – but I think that if you’re a registered nonprofit/charity in your country, you’re probably eligible! (In the UK, this includes churches, etc.)

This page from Google allows you to check the Workplace Nonprofits eligibility requirements in many countries.

Confirming your eligibility

To confirm your eligibility, Google (and many other tech companies) use a third party service called TechSoup. The eligibility page link above also tells you where to register a nonprofit to confirm its eligibility.

In the UK (where I am), this is with ‘tt-exchange’ which is done through a company/service called ‘Digital Charity’.

So if you’re in the UK, you need to register the nonprofit/charity with Digital Charity (it might be that the nonprofit has already got an account for other tech/digital related things). (Sorry but I can’t tell you about any other countries because I don’t know about them, but check the eligibility page link above!)

Once you’ve registered with Digital Charity (or your local place to register!) you can apply to get a ‘Tech Soup Token’. This is what’s used to tell Google you’re a Nonprofit. (Again, different ‘checkers’ do this is different ways and I can’t help with this.)

When you apply for a token, it can take a day or so for the email with it to come through, so don’t worry if it doesn’t arrive straightaway! (The token is a string of letters and numbers with a bit of the nonprofits name/domain in the middle – normally without vowels in.)

Making the switch!

When you’ve got the token, you can then make the move to Workplace Nonprofits.

This is done by going to: https://www.google.com/nonprofits/account/signup/us (In the UK, this link also works https://www.google.com/nonprofits/account/signup/gb – I suspect they go to the same place…) and signing in with an ‘administrator’ account for your domain on G Suite/Google Workplace.

Once logged in, click the blue [Continue] button. You’ll then have a couple of pages which you confirm with using the blue [Next] buttons. There will then be a page where you can enter the token and another [Next] button to click.

There are then some more screens with [Next] buttons confirming the Non profit’s name and contact details. There’s a final screen with a tick box to say you don’t discriminate against people – tick the box and click the [Submit] button.

You should then be told that you’re approved and can activate the Non profits account. There should be a blue [Activate products] button to click. (You might have to confirm that you’re already using Google Workspace and enter the domain again – there’s no need for the www bit in the domain!)

Once this is done, there should be a page with a section at the top titled ‘Google Workspace for Nonprofits’ and in there will be a message saying “Status: Activation request received. This can take several days to be reviewed. You will be notified by email once a decision is made.”

It normally takes a day or so for an email to come through, hopefully confirming that you’ve moved to Google Nonprofits. This email will come through to the email address on the administrator account used to ‘activate’ Nonprofits – so make to sure check it!

When the email arrives, follow its instructions. That should be it. You can carry on using your email accounts and other services like normal.

I hope that’s of some help. I’m afraid that I’m not really able to help if you have any issues. The above has worked for several of my clients…

But what about if you’re not a Nonprofit?

Well, that’s a bit of a different story and might well probably involve some money! I’ve written a post looking at some alternative options to Google Workspace and also one about how you can export your emails and other information from Google with Google Takeout.

Google have a support page about the end of G Suite Legacy Free, which you might also find useful.

The post Moving from G Suite Legacy Free to Google Nonprofits first appeared on JPC-DESIGN.

PECR is a UK law which sits alongside GDPR (the EU’s rules about how personal data is gathered/held). [Very basically] both say that you have to have consent or a VERY GOOD reason for gathering and holding data about a person, or data that can be used to track someone.

In their new cookie guidance, the ICO says “your users must take a clear and positive action to consent to non-essential cookies” and that now includes cookies used for things like Analytics and stats cookies (like the ones used by Google Analytics). [The new guidelines cover ALL kinds of cookies, but in this post I’m only talking about analytics cookies as they are the ones which are mostly affected for my clients…]

Many of my clients use Google Analytics – so things will need to change/be updated on their sites to make them PECR compliant!

So below is the info I’ve sent to my clients about this (although edited a bit to make it web friendly!).

After the email contents, I’ll explain some more about PECR/GDPR compliant ways of getting website Analytics and visitor numbers, etc.

What was in my Email…

Hi,

This email is long and might seem complicated but it’s really not too bad…

At the moment, you use Google Analytics to get stats (the number of visitors, etc.) on [your] site.

Moving forward, using Google Analytics for stats will become more tricky. The ICO (Information Commissioners Office – the bit of the UK govt that deals with online privacy, etc.) has recently changed their cookie guidance for analytics/stats related cookies.

It now says that ANY cookies that aren’t vital to the functioning of the site, including anonymised analytics/stats cookies, will need permission to be set. https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/news-and-events/news-and-blogs/2019/07/blog-cookies-what-does-good-look-like/

(In the past as long as you had a good Privacy/Cookie Policy on your site, explaining what cookies you used; and where possible any analytics/stats cookies were ‘anonymised’ (so individual IP addresses weren’t tracked), then it was ok to use analytics cookies like that.)

This means that to continue using Google Analytics (or cookie based analytics/stats) your site will need to have a pop-up where people have to click to allow analytics/stats cookies BEFORE any stats will be taken! It would look like the one on the ICO’s site on the link above.

Now I hate all those types on banners and I’m sure you do too! So with my clients, I’m working on getting non cookies based and privacy/GDPR/PECR friendly analytics/stats on to sites.

For my Clients who use WordPress:

For your site, I think the best option will be use a analytics/stats plugin on the site itself. This would give you most of the information which Google Analytics can; certainly information about the number of visits and more popular pages, etc. (And no cookie is used as it gets data directly from the hosting server and that counts as ‘vital’. And ad-blockers generally don’t affect the results either.)

If you’d like just ‘simple’ stats like the basic number of visits, top pages and where people came from, there are simple plugins like Statify or Koko Analytics that can do this (I now use Koko Analytics – you do have to turn a cookie off in its settings but it works very nicely).

If you’d like more detailed information, then a more complex plugin [WP Statistics] can be used on the site…

With plugin stats, it’s a good idea to keep a max of 6 months worth of stats (3 months is better) because they are stored in the database on the site and having too much information in there can slow things down…

For my Clients with ‘static’ sites (but could also apply to WordPress sites…):

For your site, I think the best option will be to use some analytics/stats produced by the hosting server. As part of your hosting package, the server generates stats using a service called AWStats. It’s not as ‘pretty’ as Google Analytics but for ‘simple’ stats like the basic number of visits, top pages and where people came from, it can do the job nicely.

However, all that cookie talk won’t affect the ‘Google Search Console’ (another Google service which helps Google know about your site) as that information comes direct from Google search information. And it might be that the information for that is really more useful that the site stats…

And to make sure that Google will index the site correctly, I also really need access to your ‘Google Search Console’ account. I think this is on a Google account you control.

You can add me as a ‘verified owner’ on your Google Search Console, so I can check things/make any changes without having you log into your account. How to do so is explained here: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/7687615?hl=en My Google account email to add is [retracted for privacy!!!!!].

I hope that all make sense – any questions please ask. If you’d like me to go ahead and take off Google Analytics and add in the stats plugin/show you how to use AWStats, I can do that. I’ll also update your privacy policy to make sure it’s also correct with the new situation.

Phew…

I hope your brain doesn’t hurt after all that!

Best wishes,

James

PECR/GDPR Compliant Analytics…

Below are some different options for analytics/stats. I know I’m not covering everything, I’m giving you an idea of some of the options out there!

So, to confirm what I’m using for (most of my clients):

For WordPress Sites…

These are the plugins I’m using/suggesting:

For ‘simple’ analytics there’s Statify – https://wordpress.org/plugins/statify/ and Koko Analytics – https://wordpress.org/plugins/koko-analytics/

For more detailed analytics there’s WP Statistics – https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-statistics/

(There are other WordPress Analytics Plugins, but for my client’s needs, these ones work the best!)

For ANY Sites…

Analytics/stats tools that come with hosting packages.

Pretty much any hosting company that uses cPanel (the most common control panel used on web hosting) comes with AWStats – https://awstats.sourceforge.io already installed (in fact it’s probably already getting analytics/stats for you and you don’t even know!).

Another common ‘included’ option on hosting is Webalizer – http://www.webalizer.org. I’m not a fan of Webalizer as it’s really not pretty to use and can be somewhat confusing to read as well!

Some hosting companies don’t use cPanel and they might well have some form of their own analytics/stats tools available – I suggest you ask your web host!

‘Replacements’ for Google Analytics.

Below are some ‘replacements’ for Google Analytics (i.e. scripts that you add to your site and then you get visitor stats) which I’m aware of (but haven’t used). And again, I’m sure there are more out there – if there’s a good one that I’m missing, please leave a comment!

Fathom is an analytics tools that comes in two versions. A free/open source version which you can host yourself on your hosting server or their ‘Pro’ version, where they host it all. The Pro version costs from $14 a month (or $140 a year). The Pro version is PECR compliant, but at the moment the free/open source version isn’t (but they hope it will be by the end of 2019!).

Matomo is a free/open source analytics program which you can can install on your web host to collect site stats (it can often be installed via ‘one click’ services on many hosts). There are some steps you have to take to make Matomo GDPR compliant and, as out of the box Matomo uses cookies, it’s also a good idea to turn off cookies within Matomo to make it PECR compliant as well.

But what if I still want/need to use Google Analytics..?

That’s a good question – and it applies to a couple of my clients as well! As we saw above, the ICO says “your users must take a clear and positive action to consent to non-essential cookies”; so that’s what needs to be done!

The solution used on the ICO’s own site (as that site uses Google Analytics!) is called ‘Cookie Control’ – https://www.civicuk.com/cookie-control. It’s a script which helps to control(!) what other code (which sets the cookies) is loaded and when (i.e. when you’ve got consent from someone). If you’re a WordPress user, there’s also a plugin to help install it.

Another plugin which can do a similar thing is Complianz and I’ve used this for a couple of clients.

Another option for Google Analytics is the Minimal Analytics plugin. This loads the ‘bar minimum’ of code for Google Analytics and there’s no cookie involved! But other ‘tracking’ things might still be in place…

So that’s a round up of the new UK cookie advice and what you might need to do about it! Please leave a comment if you’ve got questions or can suggest some other good analytics solutions which are GDPR/PECR/privacy friendly…

The post The Updated UK Cookie Law Info I’ve Sent to my Clients first appeared on JPC-DESIGN.

If you’ve got a site or blog (even if you’re not in the EU), then it’s probably affected and you WILL NEED to do something!

So below is the info I’ve sent to my clients about GDPR.

If you’d like any professional help with getting your site GDPR compliant, I can help. Contact me.

Hi,

You might well have heard about the new EU Data Privacy rules — GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) which come into effect on 25th May this year (two days after my birthday — nice!).

With GDPR comes new responsibilities for organisations and businesses in the way in which data in obtained and held.

You might well be sorting out some GDPR items already, if so, great!

As one of my clients, I want to help make the web side of things as easy for you as possible in regard to GDPR. However, there is a limit to how much I can help you!

What I Cannot Do…

I CANNOT be your ‘one stop shop’ for GDPR questions (and answers). I’m just a web developer, I’m not a data privacy or legal expert!

I CANNOT help you/your organisation ‘get ready’ for GDPR as you know what data you deal with and how you deal with it — I don’t (well I might know a bit but not much!).

What I Can Do…

I CAN give you some links to look through, which should be able to help you:

You can find out more about GDPR from the Information Commissioners Office (the UK Government Dept dealing with GDPR):
https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/

Info for small businesses
https://www.simplybusiness.co.uk/knowledge/articles/2017/11/what-is-gdpr-for-small-business/

Info for charities
https://www.charitydigitalnews.co.uk/2018/03/22/gdpr-is-your-charity-ready/

Info for churches (although it’s also useful for many charities and businesses)
https://www.baptist.org.uk/Groups/302154/Data_Protection_and.aspx
http://www.parishresources.org.uk/gdpr/

I CAN supply you with some basic documents and templates with might help you to think about GDPR and what you need to do for the web side of it.

I’ve put these together at: https://mega.nz/folder/XwtX2TaB#Np-zd42tpKOhaw_ybbg1lw

They include:

• A basic ‘audit’ template (Word);
• A basic ‘audit’ template (Excel) — this includes some of my very basic info!; 
• A basic ‘checklist’ (Word);
• A basic ‘privacy notice’ document (Word).

But, again, I CANNOT give you any specific legal advice. For full info, please see the ICO’s site or contact a professional legal advisor.

I CAN help with adding GDPR info to your site.

The main thing impact of GDPR on your website, following your own audits, will be putting the relevant information from the Privacy Policy/Notice on the site. The contents will be depend on what data your site collects, etc. but it might well be similar to the example document in the link above.

Any contact forms will need a clear link to this Privacy Policy/Notice (best either just above or below the Send/Submit button) — I CAN help with this.

Some example text for this would be:

This form collects your name, email and phone to help us answer your questions. Read our Privacy Policy [linked] for how we deal with this information.

It’s also a good idea to have a link to the Privacy Policy/Notice near any buttons for:

Blog Comments (with these, it would also be sensible to explicitly state that users should not put personal information into the comment and have a tick to make sure people understand thing);

Some example text for this would be:

By using this form you agree with the storage and handling of your data by this website. View our Privacy Policy [linked]. Please do not express personal data or contact details in blog comments, as these are displayed publicly on the site.

If you use WordPress (the self hosted version) and are happy installing plugins, then this plugin make it easy to add the extra tick box to comments:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-gdpr-compliance/

***

Sign ups for email lists (these will also need an extra ‘consent’ tick box);

***

‘Buy’ buttons if you are selling anything.

I CAN help with these!

If, on any forms, there is also the option to sign up to a mailing lists, this needs be to UNTICKED by default — I CAN help with this.

If you have an email newsletter, then you will also need to send out an email so people can confirm that they still want to receive the newsletter. MailChimp and MailerLite both have tools to help with this:
https://kb.mailchimp.com/accounts/management/collect-consent-with-gdpr-forms
https://help.mailerlite.com/article/show/59543-gdpr-tools

With GDPR, as a record of consent is needed for things like being added to mailing list, it won’t be practical to have a ‘paper sign up sheet’ or equivalent (where people sign a bit of paper and then you manually add them to the mailing list at a later date) as you cannot ‘prove/record’ digitally that they have given consent (unless you have them sign a paper form and then you store the form.). A better option would be to have a sign up form on something like a tablet that you can ask people to complete. In this way their digital consent can easily be tracked.

***

If you also need a simple way of storing things like passwords, website logins or anything else, then I use 1password.com (it’s pay for but is great) and for a free option (or cheaper pay for) BitWarden is also an excellent option.

Phew… I know it can seem a lot to take on board.

Please read through all the links and things. When you’ve got a Privacy Policy/Notice ready, or know what needs to go in it, please get back in touch with me and we can then make any changes on your site.

Best wishes,

James

The post The GDPR Info I’ve Sent to my Clients first appeared on JPC-DESIGN.