Changing your inbox from UW Google to Microsoft O365 can be simple (just change your forwarding) or complex (copy all old email)

Here are a few tips to think about ahead of the change.




Step 1: Clean up your mail: sort your current google account by file size. It's a good idea to search for the top 10-15 largest attachments out of your email. Here are some ideal inbox searches:




Search for all mail that is 10Mb or more:


larger:10M after:2009/5/15 before:2023/5/18 




Remember:


  • Generally, the longest retention time for any UW document is six years or less.
  • Messages from students are transactional, they should be deleted in one year
  • Email shouldn't be the system of record. Think about putting the information somewhere else. If you're searching in email as a reference, consider that it shouldn't be in email.


Step 2: Make the email forwarding change in your MyUW from Gmail to O365:

https://uwnetid.washington.edu/manage/?forward






Step 2.5 (optional) Migrate your old email (with help from the tech team)

  • setup Gmail in Microsoft outlook to download the mail
  • export the mail as a .PST file from outlook
  • reset Outlook, setup Outlook with O365
  • import the .PST

Step 3: Your new inbox location: https://www.office.com/ sign in with your [email protected]



Don't forget about your Calendar. This can be exported and imported too:


  • Export from you Google calendar (three dots > Settings and sharing > Export calendar

 


  • Unzip the export
  • Go to your calendar in the web
  • Click "add calendar"


 


  • "Upload from file > Browse > select your .ics file.
  • Pick "Calendar" and click "Import"