PSA: Google to free G Suite users: Pay up or lose your account

Forums › Desktop computing › PSA: Google to free G Suite users: Pay up or lose your account

davidcole

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#293433 20-Jan-2022 13:44

Came across this article today: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/01/google-tells-free-g-suite-users-pay-up-or-lose-your-account/

If you are one the old G Suites 50 accounts for free on a custom domain, you might fall under this.

I haven't had any communication from google about my domain, but I think I'd fall under it. Might take the opportunity to exit google.

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BDFL - Memuneh
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#2854142 20-Jan-2022 13:51

I have a free G Suite licence, with a single account - emails to it are forwarded to my Office 365. Easy way out: changed DNS to point to Office 365 as main email, deleted Google Suite account.

It may not be as easy for people using this for a family, association or small business where other services depend on this account (Photos, Apps, Documents, Calendar, etc).

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nickb800

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#2854147 20-Jan-2022 14:06

Can't say I'm surprised - I knew a day of reckoning would come. Quite a jump from $0 to $324 per year though (3 users @ $9 per month).

Will probably look to extract the other two users (family) from the Google ecosystem - I'm too far gone myself.

scottjpalmer

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#2854149 20-Jan-2022 14:07

I've got a bunch of non-tech family members on mine, they're not the type to want to pay a monthly fee for email.

I'm thinking I'll migrate them to outlook.com addresses (or whatever the free Microsoft accounts use these days) as they feel like the most stable long term free accounts. I'll host the domain somewhere non-Google and forward any mail they get automagically to their MS addresses.

I foolishly have my email on the same domain as them so by getting them off the domain I can maybe go to a Office 365 account for me at some stage.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

I'm glad I kept all my other Google stuff on my gmail address.

networkn

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#2854155 20-Jan-2022 14:11

I think it's a matter of time until MS (and everyone else) charges for their 'free' stuff too.

deadlyllama

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#2854163 20-Jan-2022 14:31

Jerks!

That's ...

My elderly step mother
My mother
A church I was a member at until we moved cities in 2013
My own personal + wife's email

all on separate "Gmail for your domain" setups. Back in the "don't be evil" days. Back when Google was sufficiently cool that someone asked if they could buy my Google T-shirt.

All who will need to pay or be migrated by someone, probably me. Ideally without flying to Mataura where one of them lives.

Of course back when I moved everyone onto GApps it was feasible to run your own mail server, it's much less so now.

Batman

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#2854167 20-Jan-2022 14:41

i see that microsoft is a bit cheaper but with 1TB and you get office. do you know how many emails one MS Subs gives? with google workspace i get 30 emails with one sub.

(PS i like gmail app but despise outlook app :(

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davidcole

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#2854204 20-Jan-2022 15:14

I've been looking at protonmail, fastmail and mailbox.org. The latter being the front runner so far for pricing, features and storage (10gb vs 15), custom domain and catch-all. But I'll have to consolidate down some accounts to aliases as I was a bit greedy in g suites and had 14 accounts for various things.

Talkiet

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#2854205 20-Jan-2022 15:16

Wow. Thanks for this PSA. This screws me a lot but honestly why would I expect anything else? Multiple accounts to move for multiple family members, all so entrenched that it will be a nightmare.

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

Gordy7

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#2854206 20-Jan-2022 15:19

I have dropped G-Suite and Google drive.

G-Suite wanted to migrate my web site from Old sites to New sites which required a lot of editing and didn't seem flexible enough.

Also Google Drive seemed too slow to manage large quantities of files.

I have now moved my web site to 1stdomains and I am using ConcreteCMS for editing.

My email domain now forwards to a free GMail account.

Using Onedrive $3/m for 100GB.

All in all I my costs gone from $160/yr with G-Suite/Google drive to $149/yr with 1stdomains web hosting and Onedrive.

Gordy

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mdf

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#2854227 20-Jan-2022 15:59

Haven't had the email myself but this seems to confirm it:

https://support.google.com/a/answer/60217

I should have known it would come. I regret creating all those special purpose accounts now...

davidcole

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#2854228 20-Jan-2022 16:01

Currently tossing up between zoho mail and mailbox.org and exchange online plan 1

Have 3 domains, receive email on 2 of them.

Have 3 users (that I can whittle it down to), and make heavy use of a catch-all across those two domains (I should just consolidate to one domain).

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Talkiet

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#2854230 20-Jan-2022 16:02

This is horrible.. I appear to have my apps account as my primary account so all my Android app purchases etc seems to be on that - if I let that account die I presume I lose everything? There appears to be no way to transfer apps to a new account

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

mdf

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#2854233 20-Jan-2022 16:09

Talkiet:

This is horrible.. I appear to have my apps account as my primary account so all my Android app purchases etc seems to be on that - if I let that account die I presume I lose everything? There appears to be no way to transfer apps to a new account

N

Me too. You would hope Google would have some kind of account transfer or merge, but not that I can find...

nztim

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#2854244 20-Jan-2022 16:31

scottjpalmer: I've got a bunch of non-tech family members on mine, they're not the type to want to pay a monthly fee for email.

I'm thinking I'll migrate them to outlook.com addresses (or whatever the free Microsoft accounts use these days) as they feel like the most stable long term free accounts. I'll host the domain somewhere non-Google and forward any mail they get automagically to their MS addresses.

I foolishly have my email on the same domain as them so by getting them off the domain I can maybe go to a Office 365 account for me at some stage.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

All my family are now on O365 Business Basic on our domain name. $8 per month each for user with email, 1tb OneDrive, and 10gb of SharePoint added to the shared pool of space for each user that is worth IMHO paying for.

Any views expressed on these forums are my own and don't necessarily reflect those of my employer.

davidcole

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#2854248 20-Jan-2022 16:38

nztim:

scottjpalmer: I've got a bunch of non-tech family members on mine, they're not the type to want to pay a monthly fee for email.

I'm thinking I'll migrate them to outlook.com addresses (or whatever the free Microsoft accounts use these days) as they feel like the most stable long term free accounts. I'll host the domain somewhere non-Google and forward any mail they get automagically to their MS addresses.

I foolishly have my email on the same domain as them so by getting them off the domain I can maybe go to a Office 365 account for me at some stage.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

All my family are now on O365 Business Basic on our domain name. $8 per month each for user with email, 1tb OneDrive, and 10gb of SharePoint added to the shared pool of space for each user that is worth IMHO paying for.

What about Microsoft 365 Family? $165 a year for up to 6 users, 50gb storage though.....and I'm trying to work out if you have to have your custom domains through godaddy

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