How to move business email from GoDaddy or cPanel to Google Workspace or Microsoft 365

Many businesses start with the email that came with their domain or hosting: a GoDaddy mailbox, or accounts created in cPanel alongside the website. It works until storage runs out, spam gets through, website form emails go missing or the team needs shared calendars and proper mobile apps. The usual next step is to migrate business email to Google Workspace or Microsoft 365.

You keep the same email addresses, and a planned move shouldn't lose any mail. Your address belongs to your domain, not to the company hosting the mailbox. What changes is where mail is stored and delivered. Here's how to do it properly.

Step 1: Choose where you're moving to

Choose the provider by how your team works, not by the email itself. If you live in Gmail, Docs and Drive, Google Workspace is the natural fit. If Word, Excel and Outlook run your business, choose Microsoft 365. Zoho Mail suits small teams that mainly need email, and the steps below apply to it too. Our comparison of Google Workspace, Zoho Mail and Microsoft 365 covers the differences.

Check current plans and prices on each provider's own website, as they change often.

Step 2: Take an inventory of what you have

Before touching anything, list everything the current setup does. Log in to the GoDaddy email dashboard or cPanel and note:

• Mailboxes: every address with its own password, who uses it and roughly how much mail it holds
• Aliases and forwarders: addresses like info@ that forward to someone else's inbox
• Shared addresses: sales@ or accounts@ that several people read
• Autoresponders and filters people rely on
• Other senders: your website's contact form, invoicing software, a newsletter tool, a CRM, anything that sends email "as" your domain
• Devices: which phones, laptops and email apps each person uses

This list becomes your migration plan. It's also a chance to tidy up. Mailboxes for former staff can often become aliases or shared addresses instead of paid licences, depending on what the new provider offers.

Is your "GoDaddy email" actually Microsoft 365?

GoDaddy sells its own email product and also resells Microsoft 365. If your mailboxes are Microsoft 365 bought through GoDaddy, the mail is already on Microsoft's service, but the account is administered through GoDaddy. Moving to Google Workspace, or to a Microsoft 365 subscription you manage directly, needs extra planning. Check which one you have before you start.

Step 3: Set up the new account in your business's name

Create the Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 account with an admin login your business controls, and put the licences in your business's name. Your IT provider can be added as an administrator, but the business should own the account. It's the same principle we explain in who should own your domain and website.

Then:

1. Verify your domain. The provider asks you to add a TXT record to your DNS to prove ownership. This doesn't affect your current email.
2. Create users for every mailbox on your inventory, plus aliases, groups or shared mailboxes for the shared addresses.
3. Turn on two-step verification, for admins at the very least, and plan to roll it out to everyone.

At this stage the old email still receives everything. Nothing has switched yet.

Step 4: Copy the existing mail across

Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 both include migration tools in their admin consoles that can connect to your old mail server over IMAP and copy messages and folders into the new mailboxes. GoDaddy's own email and cPanel mailboxes both support IMAP. For larger or more complex moves, third-party migration tools are also available.

A few practical points:

• IMAP moves email and folders. Contacts and calendars usually need to be exported from the old system and imported separately.
• Copy the bulk before the switch. Moving older mail in advance means the final pass only has to pick up recent messages.
• Spot-check mailboxes by hand afterwards: folder structure, older messages, attachments.
• Look for mail stored only on a computer. POP accounts that downloaded and deleted mail from the server leave nothing to migrate over IMAP. Find these early, because that mail has to be exported from the computer itself.

How long copying takes depends on the volume of mail and the old server, so start early rather than the day before.

Step 5: Plan the DNS cutover

The actual switch happens when you change your domain's MX records, which tell other mail servers where to deliver mail for your domain.

1. Find out who controls your DNS. It may be GoDaddy, your domain registrar, your web host or a service such as Cloudflare. That's where the changes are made.
2. Lower the TTL on the MX records a day or so ahead. TTL controls how long other servers may keep using the old record, so a shorter value makes the switch take effect sooner.
3. Choose a quiet time, such as an evening or weekend, and tell the team what will happen.
4. Replace the old MX records with the ones the new provider gives you. Remove the old ones rather than leaving both.
5. Run a final copy after the switch to collect anything that reached the old server while DNS was updating.

For a while, some mail may still arrive at the old server. That's why the old mailboxes stay open until the final copy is done and the old server has gone quiet.

The cPanel gotcha

If your website sits on the same cPanel server as your old email, check the Email Routing setting for your domain. If it's set to Local Mail Exchanger, the server can keep delivering messages generated by your own website, such as contact form notifications, to the old mailbox on that server, even after your MX records point elsewhere. Switching it to Remote Mail Exchanger fixes this.

Step 6: Update SPF, DKIM and DMARC

A new provider means different servers send your mail, so your authentication records must change too. Otherwise mail from the new account is more likely to land in spam.

• SPF: replace the old provider's entry with the new provider's, and keep entries for anything else that still sends as your domain. You can only have one SPF record.
• DKIM: generate the signing key in the new admin console, publish the DNS record or records it gives you, then switch signing on.
• DMARC: if you already have a policy, keep it at monitoring (p=none) during the move, and tighten it again once reports show every legitimate sender passing.

If these records are new to you, read SPF, DKIM and DMARC explained before cutover day.

Step 7: Fix website forms and other senders

Website contact forms are the most common casualty of an email move. Many sites send notifications through the web server's own mail function, which the new SPF record doesn't cover. After the switch, test every form, and consider sending through authenticated SMTP with the new provider or a dedicated email-sending service. Update the recipient addresses while you're there.

Do the same for invoicing software, booking tools and everything else on your "other senders" list.

Step 8: Reconnect devices

Everyone needs to remove the old account from their phone and email app and add the new one: usually the Gmail app or browser for Google Workspace, and Outlook on desktop and mobile for Microsoft 365. Microsoft 365 also asks you to add an Autodiscover record in DNS, which helps Outlook find the right settings automatically.

A short written guide sent to staff the day before saves a lot of questions.

After cutover: what to check

• Send test messages to each address from an outside Gmail or Outlook account, and from each address to outside accounts
• Open a test message you sent to an outside Gmail account, choose Show original, and confirm SPF, DKIM and DMARC pass
• Check aliases, groups and shared mailboxes deliver where they should
• Submit every website form and confirm the notification arrives
• Confirm migrated folders and older messages are all present
• Watch the old mailboxes for a few days: once nothing new arrives and the final copy is complete, you can close them

Cancel the old email service only when all of this is done, and keep an export of the old mailboxes if you have any doubt.

Want it done for you?

A careful email move is mostly planning: an accurate inventory, a well-timed DNS change and thorough checks afterwards. Our business email setup and migration service can cover each of these steps, from licences in your name to SPF, DKIM, DMARC and website forms. Tell us how many mailboxes you have and where they're hosted, or message us if you have questions first.