This is a very rough guide to migrating your mail service to Google Apps. There is a lot of nice documentation on the Google site itself, but I felt that certain things were missing, or I had to hunt down bits of info from here and there. I have gathered these nuggets here.
SHORTEN TIME TO LIVE ON MAIL SERVER DNS RECORDS
To make the transition go faster you can force the Internet to check on your mail server DNS records more often. This is done by reducing the Time To Live (TTL) for each of the Mail Exchange (MX) records associated with your domain.
General instructions for modifying MX records with any domain host
Log in to your account with your domain host.
Navigate to the MX record maintenance page. MX records may be located in DNS Management, Mail Server Configuration, or Name Server Management. It’s possible that you will have to enable advanced settings to edit your MX records.
Reduce the TTL on each MX record to the minimum allowed buy your DNS provider. Most providers will allow you to reduce TTLs to less than an hour.
SIGN UP FOR GOOGLE APPS
Go to http://www.google.com/nonprofits/products/ and click on the Join the Program button. Note, approval for a free Google Apps account can take weeks.
Create User Accounts in Google Apps – Create user accounts before configuring your MX records (more on MX records later). Create the same set of user accounts and email lists in Google Apps that you have at your current e-mail provider. This may be a good time re-think which e-mail accounts are needed and if you wish to use a new e-mail address naming scheme, such as J.Smith@yourdomain.org, or Jeff.Smith@yourdomain.org, or Jeff_Smith@yourdomain.org. If your organization is small, perhaps you wish to provide e-mail addresses for positions instead of people (ex. operations@yourdomain.org) and them forward the message to an individual mailbox or outside e-mail address. Google Apps also allows you to create Nicknames, or Aliases, that do not store mail but forward to an e-mail accounts. Using a Nickname allows you to still receive e-mail at an old address and have it go to the new e-mail account. You have to create a mailbox first before assigning a nickname to that mailbox. This is a great way to setup a new e-mail address scheme without losing any mail.
CHANGE POP3 AND IMAP SETTINGS IN GOOGLE MAIL
By default Google does not allow POP3 or IMAP access to your Google Mail account, you must turn this on for each account.
Log into an account that has permissions to “Manage The Domain”. Using your web browser go to http://mail.google.com/a/your_domain.org.
Click on Settings icon and then choose “Manage the Domain” to go the the Dashboard.
Click on Security -> Basic Settings and enable SSL. You can also enforce password strength and Two-Step Verification.
Log into each user account and activate it (you will be prompted for how to do that when you log in).
Once logged into a user account go to Settings -> Forwarding and POP/IMAP.
If you are using the POP3 protocol in your mail client (Outlook, Thunderbird, Eudora, Entourage, etc.) click next to the “Enable POP for all mail” action. We recommend enabling the option to keep a copy of the e-mail in the Inbox on the Google Mail server. If you are using IMAP, click next to the “Enable IMAP” action. Click Save Changes.
You must follow these steps for each account which means logging into each account manually which means keeping track of the passwords somewhere, or, my choice, using the same password for all accounts at this stage and then changing passwords later.
CONFIGURE YOUR MAIL CLIENTS
POP Instructions: If you are using the POP mail protocol the key configuration points are below:
– Account Type: POP3
– Incoming Mail Server: pop.gmail.com
– Outgoing Mail Server: smtp.gmail.com
– User Name: username@yourdomain.org
– SMTP Authentication: Required (in Outlook click on the More Settings button, then the Outgoing Server tab, then check the box for “My outgoing server requires authentication” and the option “Use same settings as Incoming mail server”)
– Incoming Server Port: 995
– This Server Requires SSL: On
– Outgoing server Port: 587
– Use Encryption Connection type of: TLS
IMAP Instructions: If you are using the POP mail protocol the key configuration points are below:
– Account Type: IMAP
– Incoming Mail Server: imap.gmail.com
– Outgoing Mail Server: smtp.gmail.com
– User Name: username@yourdomain.org
– SMTP Authentication: Required (in Outlook click on the More Settings button, then the Outgoing Server tab, then check the box for “My outgoing server requires authentication” and the option “Use same settings as Incoming mail server”)
– Incoming Server Port: 993
– This Server Requires SSL: On
– Outgoing server Port: 587 or 465
– Use Encryption Connection type of: TLS
You can read more about configuring your mail clients here:
http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&ctx=mail&answer=12103
CHANGE DNS RECORDS
To receive mail in your Google Apps email accounts, you must change the Mail Exchange (MX) records in your Domain Name System (DNS) settings. This routes incoming mail to Google’s mail servers. Once your MX records have been configured for Google’s mail servers, mail will no longer be delivered to your previous email service.
General instructions for modifying MX records with any domain host
1. Log in to your account with your domain host. (Who is my domain host?)
2. Navigate to the MX record maintenance page.
MX records may be located in DNS Management, Mail Server Configuration, or Name Server Management. It’s possible that you will have to enable advanced settings to edit your MX records.
3. Delete existing MX records (this is will discontinue current email service).
4. Use the information in the following table when you enter each MX record.
– You may not be able to enter the priority value exactly as it appears in the table below — if you can’t, make sure each record follows the indicated order (instead of 1, 5, 10, you can use 10, 20, 30, etc.).
– If you aren’t able to assign priorities, you should only enter aspmx.l.google.com.
– Set any TTL values to the maximum allowed.
– If you can’t enter all five records, enter as many as you can.
– MX records often require a trailing dot (.) at the end (for example, aspmx.l.google.com.).
Priority Mail Server
10 ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM.
20 ALT1.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM.
20 ALT2.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM.
30 ASPMX2.GOOGLEMAIL.COM.
30 ASPMX3.GOOGLEMAIL.COM.
30 ASPMX4.GOOGLEMAIL.COM.
30 ASPMX5.GOOGLEMAIL.COM.
TEST GOOGLE MAIL
The DNS changes may take up to 72 hours to reach the entire Internet, but you can start testing right away.
Sign in to your Google Apps mail account (http://mail.google.com/a/your_domain.com) using your web browser.
Compose a message to a separate email account that you can check, and click ‘Send.’ (Don’t choose an email account that is automatically forwarding to your domain).
Sign in to the separate email account.
Open the message from your domain, and reply.
Check the inbox of your Google Apps mail account for the message.
Check the inbox of your former email account for your domain. The message shouldn’t appear in your inbox.
MIGRATING OLD MAIL ONTO GOOGLE MAIL SERVER
Your users may have a lot of e-mail history in their mail client software (Outlook Personal Storage files can be up to 2GB in size) that they want to be able to access through the web interface. The following are some tools that you can use to do this.
Google Apps Migration for Microsoft Outlook – http://support.google.com/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=176213
This standalone utility lets you migrate Microsoft Outlook® mail, contacts, and calendar events (including recurring meetings) to Google Apps. You can import data to Google Apps from a Microsoft® Exchange profile or PST file.
Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook – https://support.google.com/a/users/topic/23333?rd=1
This Microsoft Outlook® plugin lets you use Outlook as a client application for accessing your Google Apps mail, contacts, and calendars. You can also use it to migrate Outlook mail, contacts, and calendar events (including recurring meetings) to Google Apps. You can import data to Google Apps from a Microsoft® Exchange profile or PST file. That data is then synchronized between Google Apps and your Outlook client.
Gmail’s Mail Fetcher – https://support.google.com/mail/answer/21289?rd=1
Gmail’s Mail Fetcher is configured with each user’s email account (rather than in the Google Apps control panel) and allows your users to fetch mail from both Gmail and non-Gmail accounts. Fetched mail is inserted into your users’ Google Apps Email accounts. With this method, migration is performed on a user-by-user basis. Use this method if transferring existing data isn’t required but each user has the option of transferring mail.
Google Email Uploader for Mac – http://support.google.com/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1366854#uploader
Google Email Uploader for Mac uploads email archives from Apple Mail, Eudora, Thunderbird, as well as exported Entourage mail and other mbox and Maildir archives to your Google Apps mailbox.
OTHER CONSIDERATIONS
Domain Administrators
Google Sync for Outlook – Administrator setup for Google Apps Sync
http://support.google.com/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=148484
Please note that Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook only works if you have the Google Apps for Business or Google Apps for Education edition because the selection fields in the Google Apps control panel that are required to work with Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook are only available then. Trying this tool with a regular “Google Apps” (top of the screen in the Dashboard) will not work to sync calendar and Contact info. I believe that it will work for mail though.
Google Apps Sync user help
https://support.google.com/a/users/topic/23333?rd=1
Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook
https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gappssync
iPhones
Since you have users with mobile devices (iPhone and Windows system phones)
you may want to visit these two references.
Enable Google Sync for mobile devices
http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=135937
Mail, Calendar, & Contacts: Set Up Your Apple Device for Google Sync
http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=138740
Blackberry
Sounds like you may have to perform a manual sync on the Blackberry using
this tool, according to the docs, unless there is a way to automate a task on the
Blackberry. Here is the doc for getting started.
Overview: Get Started with Google Sync for BlackBerry
http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=82619
Windows Mobile 6.5
The default app in Windows Mobile 6.5 does not provide a field for a mail server port number so you have to enter the port number as part of the server name, ala:
imap.gmail.com:993 and smtp.gmail.com:587
Also, there seems to be no edit feature for an e-mail account – you either enter the info correctly the first time, or delete the account and start again.