Can I move GoDaddy email to Google Workspace without downtime?

Yes, if you sequence it. Create and license the Workspace accounts, run a first import pass while mail still flows to GoDaddy, then change the MX records to Google and run a delta pass for anything that arrived during the switch. The old mailboxes stay paid for a while as a safety copy.

Does the import bring calendars and contacts across?

It depends on the route. An IMAP import from Professional Email copies mail only, so calendars, contacts and files move by other means. The Exchange Online import, used for Microsoft 365 bought from GoDaddy, also brings calendars including recurring events, contacts and Microsoft To Do tasks.

Do I have to move my domain away from GoDaddy?

No. The domain and DNS can stay at GoDaddy and the website is untouched. You change the MX, SPF and DKIM records in the GoDaddy DNS panel. Do release the GoDaddy email product from the domain after the cutover, because a domain can only use one email service at a time.

GoDaddy email to Google Workspace: Titan or Microsoft 365

The question that decides the whole migration

Say a 12-person insurance brokerage bought its domain at GoDaddy in 2016, took whatever email came bundled with it, and never thought about it again. Now the team lives in Docs and Meet all day, and mail is the last thing still somewhere else. They ask what it takes to move to Gmail.

Before anything else we ask them to open their GoDaddy account and read us the name of the email product. Not the plan, not the mailbox count: the product name. GoDaddy sells two mailbox products that look identical from the outside, and they migrate in two different ways, with different tools, different credentials, and different things that quietly do not come across. Teams that skip this question lose a weekend pointing an IMAP import at a mailbox that does not speak IMAP.

Find out which GoDaddy mailbox you have

Email products are listed on the My Products page under Email & Office, and the Email & Office Dashboard opens from there. Sign in with the GoDaddy username or customer number, not with a mailbox address: those are separate credentials, and the mailbox password will not open the dashboard.

GoDaddy's own comparison page separates the two products plainly. Professional Email supports POP and IMAP. Microsoft 365 from GoDaddy runs on Microsoft Exchange. Checked 27 October 2026. Elsewhere in the GoDaddy help centre, Professional Email carries the label "powered by Titan", which is the clearest signal of all: if the help articles you are reading say Titan, you are on route one.

One more case to watch. Accounts that came over from an older GoDaddy email product can sit under a Microsoft 365 email pack heading on My Products. A pack is a billing wrapper. Underneath it is still Exchange Online, so it takes route two.

What the GoDaddy account shows	What the mailbox really is	Import route	What you need before you start
Email & Office lists Professional Email	Titan, reachable over POP and IMAP	IMAP import from the Google Admin console	An application password per mailbox wherever two-factor authentication is on
Email & Office lists Microsoft 365	Exchange Online	Exchange Online import from the Google Admin console	A Microsoft 365 Global Administrator sign-in you have tested
Accounts grouped under a Microsoft 365 email pack	Exchange Online, bought as a block of seats	The same Exchange Online import	Confirmation of who actually holds the Global Administrator account
The address only forwards somewhere else	No mailbox to move	Nothing to import	The full list of forwards, so none is dropped at the cutover

Route one: Professional Email, over IMAP

Google reads the old mailbox as a plain IMAP server and copies the messages into Gmail. You run it from the Google Admin console with the data import tool, as a super administrator. The Workspace accounts have to exist and be licensed first: the import copies mail into accounts, it does not create them.

GoDaddy publishes the connection settings on its IMAP help page: incoming server imap.secureserver.net on port 993 with SSL, username is the full email address, password is the mailbox password.

Server:   imap.secureserver.net
Port:     993
Security: SSL
Username: ana@example.com
Password: mailbox password, or an application password when 2FA is on

That last line is where most of these stall. Titan's support documentation describes an application password as a separate code that lets other mail apps connect while two-factor authentication stays on, and notes that once an application password exists for a connection, the regular password stops working for third-party apps. So for every mailbox with 2FA, somebody has to generate one before the import runs, and the import keeps failing on that user until they do. It is the single most common reason a GoDaddy import slips a week.

The rest of this route is planning:

Up to 100 IMAP users per import. Past 20 users you supply a CSV with the IMAP address, the IMAP password and the Workspace address for each person, and the file has to stay under 128 MB.
Mail only. Calendars, contacts and files are not part of an IMAP import, so they move by other means.
Attachments are skipped when the message plus attachment goes over 25 MB, or when the file type is one Gmail blocks.
Delta imports are supported, which is what lets you run a first pass days before the cutover and a short catch-up pass after it.
You can set a start date and choose whether deleted and spam messages come along. For a small business we usually take everything and let Gmail search sort it out later.

Route two: Microsoft 365 bought from GoDaddy

If the dashboard says Microsoft 365, the mailbox is Exchange Online and the import is the Exchange Online one, not IMAP. Google's data import covers 1 to 1,000 users for that source. It needs a Google super administrator on one side and a Microsoft 365 Global Administrator sign-in on the other, and again the users have to exist and be licensed on both sides before anything copies.

That Global Administrator sign-in is the check we do first, before anybody agrees a date. A tenant provisioned through a reseller is administered through the reseller's own panel, so the account you assume is the global admin may not behave like one when Google asks it to consent. We prove it by running the import for a single test mailbox a week early. If the consent step works, the rest is scheduling. If it does not, that is a conversation with the reseller, and it is far cheaper on a Tuesday afternoon than at nine on a Saturday night.

This route brings more than mail: messages from all folders, with folders arriving as labels, calendars including recurring events, contacts, and Microsoft To Do tasks. Shared mailboxes mapped to a group arrive as Collaborative Inboxes. Read the gaps to the client out loud before the move. Messages over 150 MB, Outlook categories, flags and shared folders do not come. Folder paths longer than 225 characters lose the label. Contacts cap at 27,000 and task lists at 100. In-Place Archives, event attachments, calendar permissions and Outlook rules need the advanced method rather than the standard one. Our Microsoft 365 to Google Workspace checklist walks the same route in more detail.

One date to keep in view: Google's migration product matrix states that Google Workspace Migrate for Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and OneDrive will no longer be available as of the end of 2026, and points at the data import tool instead. Checked 27 October 2026. For a company this size that changes nothing, because the data import tool is the right tool anyway.

The DNS changes in the GoDaddy panel, in order

DNS stays at GoDaddy unless the client wants it moved, and the website is untouched. What changes is mail routing and authentication, in this order.

First the MX records. Google Workspace takes a single record: host blank or @, priority 1, value smtp.google.com. Old MX records come out, because leftovers break delivery. Some panels want a trailing dot on the hostname, and some want the priority and host on one line.

Type  Name  Priority  Value
MX    @     1         smtp.google.com

Type  Name  Value
TXT   @     v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com ~all

Two warnings from GoDaddy's own help pages are worth repeating. Adding, editing or deleting MX records can interrupt whatever email service the domain is currently connected to. And when a domain uses GoDaddy nameservers and is connected to one of GoDaddy's email services, GoDaddy adds the required MX records for you automatically. Read that second one twice. While the GoDaddy mailbox product is still attached to the domain, the panel has an opinion about your MX records, and GoDaddy notes that a domain can only use one email service at a time. Sequence matters: finish the import, point MX at Google, confirm delivery both ways, and only then release the GoDaddy email product from the domain.

Then SPF. A domain that sends only through Google Workspace publishes v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com ~all as a TXT record at the root. Every other service that sends as your domain, the invoicing tool, the CRM, the newsletter, belongs in that same record, and the whole thing has to resolve inside the SPF limit of 10 DNS lookups.

Then DKIM, from the Admin console under Apps, Google Workspace, Gmail, Authenticate email. Generate the key as a super administrator, choose 2048 bits where the DNS host supports it, publish the TXT record and start authentication. Two details catch people. After Gmail is turned on for the organisation you wait 24 to 72 hours before the key is available in the console. And a 2048-bit key does not fit in a single 255-character TXT string, so the host has to accept a split or longer value. The exact record layout in the GoDaddy panel is in our guide to SPF, DKIM and DMARC on GoDaddy DNS.

What we watch in the week after the cutover

Leave the old mailboxes alive and paid for a little while. They cost less than a bad week, and they hold the only copy of anything the import skipped. Run the delta pass once mail is flowing to Gmail, then spot-check a few mailboxes: compare folder counts, and search for an old thread everybody remembers.

After that it is deliverability, which is where a clean migration quietly goes wrong. The domain's sending history was built on a different platform, and the first week on Gmail is when any missing authentication shows up as mail landing in spam at the other end. We check that SPF resolves inside the lookup limit, that DKIM is signing with your domain rather than a vendor's, that DMARC reports are arriving and being read, and that no forgotten sender is still trying to push mail through the retired host: the shop plugin, the accounting system, the contact form on the site. The GoDaddy DNS panel is where those senders' records live too, so it is worth a line-by-line read while you are already in there.

How Guanacos Tech helps

We run this move end to end: identify the mailbox product, prove the credentials work on a test import, copy the mail in a first pass and a catch-up pass, change MX, SPF, DKIM and DMARC in the right order, and stay on the domain in the weeks afterwards while reputation settles. If you would rather hand the whole thing over, that is what our Google Workspace migration consultants do. Book a 30-minute call with your GoDaddy My Products page open: we can usually tell you which route you are on, and what the week looks like, before the call is over.

GoDaddy email to Google Workspace: the mailbox you have decides the route