Micah Sargent (9:32)
Now afterward, and again still before we switch over email. Now it's time to migrate all of your email over to your Google Workspace account. Once again, Google knows what's up and knows that this is a regular common process. So Google Workspace has a built in data migration tool and it will actually let you connect it directly to the bluehost email account and copy everything over. So the way that this process works, not hard. In your Google Workspaces kind of main menu you'll find this tool called Data Migration. From here you do what's called set up a new migration. This is important. You need to choose IMAP as the migration because bluehost email is going to be imap. And then remember when you logged into your bluehost email account, you probably put in your server details. It was probably mailwell kiwifruit.com you put in your email address, girlfriendiwifruit.com, your password kiwifruit123 and then hit Enter basically. And what that does is it lets Google know what it needs to use to sort of be like a mail client. Grab all of that mail and copy it over to Google to your new Google Workspace account. Now depending on how much email you have sent, received, saved, it can Take a while. So that process needs to complete entirely. And then while that's going on, no need for business lost because you can continue to use your bluehost email as normal. This is going to happen in the background and make sure to get all of those emails. Now, once you have confirmed that all of the email has been migrated over. So again, we went through that process of verifying that the domain belongs to you, then we migrated the emails. Now we're going to do the most complicated part, which is to say to bluehost, you aren't in charge of my email anymore. I want Google Workspace to do it. So once you know that all of your email has been moved to the Gmail interface, now we go through the process, we flip the switch. So what this does is it communicates to everything that the mail should now go to Google servers instead of bluehosts. And my responses should come from Google servers and not bluehosts. You're going to go back to your bluehost account. You're going to go to the DNS or again, the Zone Editor section. You will find a record called MX Records that stands for Mail Exchanger, and you're going to delete those MX records that are there because right now they will be pointing to bluehost, like mail bluehost or something. Those need to get removed. Remember, we're only removing the MX records and then you add the MX records that are provided by Google, probably about five. That was my experience. And they'll have some kind of long names, but they end in google.com don't worry, because Google's setup guide for this does list the exact records to add. And the good news is you are paying for this service. So if you run into issues, Google is much more likely to provide support because you're paying for it. It is different for people who are using the free accounts, which is why, again, I'm not suggesting we mess around with the free version. Invest $6, $7 a month. I mean, for a Google Workspace account with all this stuff built in, it's well worth it. Don't do the free. I'm telling you, if you run into any issues, it's not going to be the same as having paid for it. And then once you've done that, understand that it does take a while for the MX records to be updated. But if you're worried that while it's in limbo, you're going to miss some mail, that's not how it works. The mail will get sent out and then the Switch will either be on bluehost or on Google. There's no limbo switch, there's no in between. So the mail is either going to go whoop to bluehost or whoop, it's going to go to Google. That mail's not going to be lost while the process is happening. It'll go to one of the two places. But once it's done, then it's all to the new host, which in this case is Google. Finally, once your MX records are updated, once you've migrated all your emails over, once you've verified the domain ownership, once you've signed up for that Google Workspace account that was in reverse, you'll log into Gmail with your business email address. So again, I went with girlfriend@kiwifruit.com to access your email. Your old emails will be there waiting for you. New emails will be delivered to Google and when you send it, it's going to be from Google's blessed servers, which is less likely to end up in the spam folder. So that should take care of the problem. Again, why I love this question is you're not the first person to ask this. Steve. Steve, Girlfriend. This is a situation that is common to a lot of people who have small businesses. You know, they've got their Etsy store, they've got whatever, I don't know, you sell wonderful Kiwi based desserts and so you are trying to just do your business. And unfortunately, you know, at one point you saw that Bluehost would give you a domain for 99 cents a year and you chose them as your domain provider. And then they said, oh, it will also include email for $1.99. And then now all the email that you're trying to get to the people, you're not hearing back from your Kiwi supplier because your email ends up in spam. I understand this is the way to solve it. Given that you asked about Gmail, I will say that this is also solvable using other tools. I use fastmail, it's been a sponsor on the network but have used it long before that. And Fast Mail is also in a great space to keep it from going too. Spam. And so these are different options available to you, but as someone who specifically asked how to do it with Gmail, this is the best way to go about it. Get that Google Workspace plan. Google is not a sponsor of the network. Google Workspace is not a sponsor of the network. This is solely about having those extra protections in place and the kind of robust behind the scenes rather than using that free Gmail account. I just. If you're a business owner, you want to use that. And I'm not a tax professional, but if you talked to a tax professional, I have a feeling they would tell you that your Google Workspaces account is at least partially deductible, if not entirely. Again, not a tax professional. So talk to one who will tell you about how you can save money by using this for your business. So that is my advice for you, Steve and Steve's girlfriend. And I again, love this question. Love questions like this. Always great whenever there's something that can help a lot of people. But again, I also love those very specific questions because the chances are you're going to come across somebody else who has that same problem. The other day, I can't remember what it was, but there was some situation. Oh, it was. I was recording my show. One of my shows that I do, it's a show called Clockwise. And I was recording it and one person was on the zoom call and everything was fine. But then they started while they were talking, but then they started talking after not having spoken for a little while, and their voice had like an echo or a reverb after it and was going, what in the world? We got to fix that. So they sort of played around in the settings and got that fixed. And then another person on the show separate from that person also started to echo reverb feedback all of a sudden. And they went and fixed it. And I specifically go, okay, what happened? What did you do? What did you do? I need to know because I need to be able to provide that advice to someone else who might run into this issue. And it ended up that it wasn't the same issue. It was a completely separate issue that just happened to result in the same symptom. But it is nice to know, right? Okay, here is the problem and here is the solution. And then when people are looking for the solution, they've got it. So thank you for asking your questions. Never feel ashamed or worried or concerned that your question is silly or not worth answering. I love them all. Hot Whit TV is how you get in touch. Thank you so much for tuning in this week. We'll be back again next week with another episode of Hands on Tech. Bye. Bye.
