Frequently Asked Questions: Migration Manager Google

Question: Are there any other tools available to migrate my Google accounts?
Answer. Currently, Migration Manager is the tool to use to for migrating Google content.

Question: Is this available for GCC, GCCHigh, DoD tenants?
Answer. No, Migration Manager Google isn't available for any of the Government clouds.

Question: What gets transferred?
Answer: Only owned folders and the root files for each user are copied. If a user isn't the owner of data they can access, we don't copy it. Content may be automatically reshared after it's migrated so that each user has access to their content exactly as before.

Question: Does Migration Manager Google sync files?
Answer: There's a source-to-destination delta; when you run a transfer, we compare the destination directory to the source, and only transfer new or modified files over. We call this our incremental feature. We compare the timestamps of the files in both the source and destination and transfer the newest versions only. The incremental feature is always on. Here are a few examples of how we deal with changes to files and folders.

• Content changes: If a document is edited in your source or you've added a few new files, we copy them to your destination on the next incremental run, overwriting the previously existing file(s) in the destination.

• Name changes: If the name of a file or folder changes in Office 365, we treat it as a brand new object. This can lead to duplicate files being migrated to Office 365, or worse in that entire folders worth of data would be duplicated from the changed folder downwards.

• Example: Changing the path /Sales/Clients to /Global Sales/Clients results in two copies of your Sales folder after the Global Sales folder is also copied during an incremental pass.
  

Question: Does Migration Manager delete my files?
Answer: No. We never delete your data from any source. We take your data from one place and copy it to another; akin to copy and paste rather than cut and paste. We also don't retain any of your cloud storage data for any reasons.

Question: Can I rearrange content during a migration?
Answer: Not recommended. Any major changes in directory structure should happen before or after your migration. It's also not a good idea to use our app to rearrange content. The risks that come with rearranging content during the migration are primarily in the form of data duplication; our incremental process sees all changes as new data. So, for example, if you change a folder name at the root, we detect that as a new folder, and all of the contents is retransferred, including all subfolders. When sharing permissions are transferred, both owners and collaborators receive duplicate data if content has been rearranged or renamed.

Question: What happens to external sharing links?
Answer: We don't recreate external sharing links. After migration, these have to be set in the destination manually.

Question: What about external collaborators?
Answer: We don't share content with external collaborators. This policy is in place to protect your organization, and industry best practice is to never automatically share sensitive internal data with external users.

Question: Does Migration Manager preserve file versions?
Answer: No. During a migration, only the most recent version of a file is transferred.

Question: Does Migration Manager automatically notify users?
Answer: No. We automatically suppress all emails to users so they aren't bombarded with excessive notifications about the data they now have access to.

Question: Does Migration Manager transfer permissions for shared drives?
Answer: No. During a migration, we only transfer permissions for user drives. Permissions for shared drives aren't migrated. Learn how to migrate Google Shared Drives

Question: What can't Migration Manager migrate from Google?
Answer: Google does not allow us to export drawings, sites, and maps from Google Drive. Learn more about what isn't migrated

Question: Does Migration Manager migrate Google Forms?
Answer: Yes. Migration Manager now will migrate Google Forms.

Question: Does Google calculate the size of their proprietary files?
Answer: Google only started calculating the size of its proprietary files, including Google Docs, Sheets, Forms, and Slides, on May 2, 2022. Any Google proprietary files created and modified before May 2, 2022 don't include file size in the metadata info we get from the API calls. As a result, all Google proprietary files created before May 2, 2022 default to a scanned size of 1 byte and are reported as such in our ScanSummary report.