Migrate from Google Workspace to Nextcloud on a VPS

The Google Workspace price increase announced in 2025 changed the economic equation for many small teams. Business Starter, the entry-level plan, now runs around $7/user/month in several markets, up from roughly $5.40 previously — an increase of about 30% (source: workspace.google.com/pricing). Business Standard is approaching $14/user/month. For a 10-user team, the annual Business Starter bill exceeds $840. For 5 users, it reaches around $420. These figures do not account for future increases: Google has already made two significant pricing revisions since 2022. Data sovereignty adds to the equation: data stored on Google servers is subject to US law (CLOUD Act), which is a concern for organizations handling sensitive data outside the United States. Nextcloud deployed on your own VPS addresses both concerns — a fixed cost independent of user count, with data hosted in the jurisdiction of your choice.

Before starting the migration, verify three things. First, the VPS: Nextcloud All-in-One (AIO) requires at minimum 4 GB RAM for use without Collabora Office, 8 GB if you enable document co-editing. Storage must be SSD — spinning disks significantly degrade PostgreSQL performance. Plan for your current Google Drive volume plus a 30% growth margin. Second, the domain: you will need a domain name pointing to the VPS for the Nextcloud Let's Encrypt TLS certificate, and a subdomain or dedicated domain for the mail server if you are also hosting email. Third, PHP is not required separately if you use Nextcloud AIO (Docker): everything is encapsulated in containers. However, Docker Engine must be installed on the VPS — the ServOrbit template pre-configures this. You will also need SSH access to the VPS for migration steps and a workstation with Python or Perl for imapsync.

Google Takeout (takeout.google.com) is the official Google data export tool. It lets you export Drive, Gmail, Contacts and Calendar in one operation or separately. Here are the exact steps. Sign in with the Google Workspace account to export. Go to takeout.google.com. By default, all services are selected: deselect all (click 'Deselect all'), then check only the services relevant to the migration: Google Drive, Gmail, Google Contacts, Google Calendar. For Google Drive, leave the default format (Google Docs stay as .gdoc, other files keep their original format) or choose 'Convert to compatible Office formats' if you prefer .docx/.xlsx directly. For Gmail, the export format is MBOX — one file per label. For Google Contacts, the export is vCard (.vcf). For Google Calendar, the export is iCal (.ics). Click 'Next step', choose frequency (one-time), delivery method (download link by email), and maximum archive size (2 GB recommended for easier downloading). Click 'Create export'. The delay varies by volume: from a few minutes for a small account to several hours for a Drive with tens of gigabytes. Google sends you an email with download links once the archive is ready. Links expire after 7 days.

MX reconfiguration is the step that determines where new emails arrive after the cutover. As long as MX records point to Google's servers (aspmx.l.google.com and its variants), new messages continue to arrive in Gmail even if you have already synchronized the history via imapsync. The recommended procedure is as follows. Step 1 — Prepare the target mail server (Mailcow, Stalwart, or any SMTP/IMAP server) on your VPS or a dedicated VPS. Verify the server responds correctly on ports 25 (inbound SMTP), 587 (submission SMTP) and 993 (IMAP SSL) before touching DNS. Step 2 — Create the necessary DNS records in your domain zone: the MX record pointing to your mail server (e.g. mail.your-domain.com, priority 10), the A or CNAME record for mail.your-domain.com pointing to the server IP, the SPF record (e.g. v=spf1 ip4:YOUR_SERVER_IP ~all), the DKIM key generated by your mail server, and the DMARC record (e.g. v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:[email protected]). Step 3 — Reduce the TTL of the existing MX record to 300 seconds (5 minutes) at least 24 hours before the cutover — high TTL values (3600s, 86400s) mean external DNS servers take a long time to propagate the change. Step 4 — Perform the cutover by replacing the Google MX records with your MX record. Monitor your mail server logs for the first 30 minutes to confirm that the first messages arrive correctly. Step 5 — Wait 24 to 48 hours for full DNS propagation before deleting the Google Workspace configuration.

Four situations come up regularly. First, imapsync stuck on 'Too many connections': Gmail limits the number of simultaneous IMAP connections. Add the --gmail1 option to the imapsync command (activates Gmail-specific parameters: throttling management, automatic exclusion of All Mail) and reduce parallelism with --maxprocs 1. If the block persists, wait 15 minutes and relaunch — imapsync resumes from where it left off. Second, Google Docs files (.gdoc, .gsheet, .gslide) do not appear in Nextcloud after import: these files are JSON shortcuts of a few bytes, not real documents. To convert them, you have two options: download them directly from Google Drive in Office format before Takeout export (File > Download > .docx), or use the Takeout export with 'Include Office files (if applicable)' checked, which converts Google formats to OOXML. Third, imported emails show today's date instead of the original date: add --syncinternaldates to the imapsync command to preserve internal IMAP dates. Without this flag, mail clients sort by server arrival date, not original send date. Fourth, the MX change does not propagate or emails still arrive in Gmail: verify that the TTL was lowered before the cutover and wait the time corresponding to the previous TTL. Use the command dig MX your-domain.com @8.8.8.8 to query Google DNS and check which MX value they are currently serving.

Migrating from Google Workspace to Nextcloud is a one-day project for a small well-prepared team. The Google Takeout export, imapsync synchronization, and contacts and calendar import all run in parallel once Nextcloud is operational. The MX cutover itself is the shortest step — a few minutes in the DNS interface — and the most visible: it marks the end of dependence on Google's servers. The economic gain is immediate: for a 10-person team, a ServOrbit VPS with Nextcloud AIO costs a fixed amount per month versus around $70 at Google (around $7/user/month, 2025 pricing), for a return on investment within a few months. For 5 users, the break-even is reached even faster. Nextcloud is available in the ServOrbit marketplace with a pre-configured template: Docker Engine, bridge network, firewall, and persistent volumes are ready. You just need to enter your domain, enable the optional containers, and start the import.