How to Migrate Gmail Labels to Office 365 with Proper Steps

During the process of migrating your Gmail emails to Microsoft 365. Many users may have a problem with transferring their Gmail labels. To help you in this, I am going to provide you with ways that can help you migrate Gmail labels to Office 365 folders.

Google and Microsoft use different techniques to organize their emails: labels and folders. Both are mainly used for managing emails, but they follow different models.

Gmail Labels are kind of folders, but they work like tags, providing more flexibility than traditional folders. Such as, a user can save their single email in multiple labels, you can create nested labels, and you will get your emails in All Mail even if the labels are applied. However, you cannot manually move the emails in labels. You have to categorize them.

Microsoft 365 or Outlook use traditional folder-based structure where only one email exists in a folder at a time. You have to physically move the emails from one location to another. A proper folder hierarchy is maintained, and categories exist, but it is different than the Gmail labels.

One main difference between them is that Gmail allows an email to appear in multiple labels. Microsoft 365, on the other hand, allows an email in one folder. Because of this, it is not possible to directly move your Gmail labels to Office 365 folders. But you don’t need to worry, there are some ways that you can use. But before going through the process, you must follow the pre-migration checklist.

Preparations for Transferring Gmail Labels to Office 365

First, check if there are any labels that are not used or any duplicate labels you are using.
Remove those labels that you no longer require. Also, merge the similar labels to avoid any folder duplication in Office 365.
Now, find the emails that have multiple labels. From there, decide which labels should be the primary folder in Office 365 or which ones you can remove.
Delete spam, junk, and unnecessary emails. Empty the trash and spam folders to reduce the Gmail mailbox.
If you have old emails that you no longer require, archive or remove them.
Enable IMAP access in Gmail for the migration. To do this, follow the steps below.
- First, go to your Gmail account. Then, click on the Settings.
- Select Settings and then See all settings.
- Choose Forwarding and POP/IMAP. After that, enable IMAP.
- Click on Save changes.
Make sure you have a verified Office 365 user mailbox.
Create a folder in Microsoft and give e descriptive name.
Before you start the migration process, backup your Gmail data.

After following these pre-migration steps, you can start using the manual methods.

Manually Migrate Gmail Labels to Office 365 Folders

Users can manually transfer their Gmail labels, but for them, they have to first connect Gmail to the Outlook desktop (classic Outlook). Export the emails to a PST file and then import them to Office 365. This can be a lengthy process. But it is a nice way of moving personal Gmail emails into a Microsoft 365 account. So, start by configuring your Gmail account to Outlook using IMAP.

Configure the Personal Account to Outlook

Start by connecting your Gmail account to Microsoft Outlook. Ensure that you enable IMAP and then follow the steps below.

In the Outlook application, log in to the account.
Click on the File option in the menu bar.
Select the Account Settings and then New Account.
Press the Add new account. Now, add the Gmail email address and password.
Configure the account.

Export Emails from Gmail

Click on the File option again in Outlook.
Select the Open & Export and then Import/Export button.
Choose Export to a File. Click on PST format.
Select the Gmail emails that you want to export.
Browse a location where you want to store the file and then export it.

Import Exported File into Office 365

Start by adding an Office 365 account to the Outlook application.
Then, go to the Import/Export option.
Select the Import option and select your file.
Then, import the file into Outlook 365.
After that, you can move your emails to the folder.

By following this method, you can easily move your emails from Gmail labels to Office 365 folders. But it is a long process and time-consuming. Also, you may miss some of your data during the process. Other than that, an individual user can easily move their emails. However, if you are migrating professional Gmail emails into Microsoft 365. Then, this next method will help you.

Professionally Migrate Gmail Labels to Office 365 Folders

Many professionals use technical software like the G Suite to Office 365 Migration Tool by SysTools. It is a great tool that can easily migrate complete Google Workspace emails into a Microsoft 365 account without losing emails. Also, you can move contacts, calendars, and documents with permissions. The software provides you date filter option that you can use to move specific emails. To know how this works, follow the steps.

Steps of the Professional Software

First of all, download and install the software and activate it.
Choose G Suite as the source and Office 365 as the destination.
Click on Emails from workaround selection. You can apply a date filter to sort out your emails.
Provide G Suite Admin Email, Application ID, and Certificate File. Click on the Validate button to check the account permission.
Enter the Office 365 Admin Email and Application ID, then hit the Validate option.
Now, add the users by automatically fetching or manually importing.
When manually importing the download Template. Added user mapping and submitted to the software.
You can set the priority and click on the Start Migration button.

Conclusion

If you are having a problem migrating Gmail labels to Office 365 folders. You can follow the methods that I have mentioned below. The manual method is free, but you have to do three parts of the process. This method is good for transferring your personal email accounts to Microsoft 365. But, if you want to professionally move the emails to Office 365, professional software will be great.