How to Migrate GoDaddy Email to Gmail

Moving a domain off GoDaddy mail onto Gmail or Google Workspace looks straightforward on the surface — and mostly is — but two things trip teams up early. First, GoDaddy resells two different mail products (its own Workspace Email and Microsoft 365 branded through GoDaddy), and they need different starting points. Second, GoDaddy controls the DNS at the registrar, which means the cutover is where most of the actual risk sits, not the IMAP sync. This guide walks through the bulk path using Google Workspace's Data Migration Service, with the DNS work at the end called out specifically.

Identify the source product#

Sign in to the GoDaddy account that owns the domain and look at My Products → Email.

GoDaddy Workspace Email. GoDaddy's own IMAP mail product. Webmail at email.secureserver.net, IMAP on imap.secureserver.net:993, SMTP on smtpout.secureserver.net:465. Most older small business domains on GoDaddy are here.

Microsoft 365 from GoDaddy. A genuine Microsoft 365 tenant, but inside GoDaddy's CSP partner relationship. IMAP on outlook.office365.com:993 works for migration as long as Modern Auth and IMAP are enabled in the tenant. You may need to push GoDaddy to release administrative control or enable basic auth temporarily, depending on the tenant's age.

This guide assumes Workspace Email. For Microsoft 365 from GoDaddy, the procedure is identical other than the source host name; everything else maps cleanly.

Pick the destination type#

Two real options on the Google side:

• Google Workspace (paid plan with Gmail). The bulk migration path. Data Migration Service runs from the admin console and can migrate many users in parallel. This is the right destination for a business move.
• Personal @gmail.com. Single-user only via Gmail's Settings → Accounts and Import → Check mail from other accounts. Fine for one mailbox; doesn't scale.

This guide assumes Workspace. If you're consolidating into a personal Gmail account, the same source settings apply but you'll do it once, manually, in Gmail's UI.

Before you start#

A short prerequisites list that applies regardless of GoDaddy product type:

• A Google Workspace tenant with the domain verified.
• Gmail-enabled licenses assigned to every destination user; each user signed into Gmail at least once so the mailbox is provisioned.
• Super Admin access in the Workspace tenant for running DMS.
• IMAP credentials for every source mailbox — either the working password or, if GoDaddy 2SV is enabled on that account, an app password.
• Admin access to the GoDaddy DNS zone for the domain.
• A pilot of two test mailboxes — one small (under 1 GB) and one large (over 10 GB if possible) — to validate behavior before scaling up.

Throttling on the GoDaddy side#

GoDaddy Workspace Email enforces aggressive throttling on IMAP connections. The published thresholds are vague, but in practice:

• Around 10 simultaneous IMAP connections per source IP before the server starts refusing.
• Per-mailbox rate limiting that punishes tools opening and closing many short connections.
• Occasional regional spikes where the source IMAP server stops responding for minutes at a time, especially during US business hours.

DMS is well-behaved here — it doesn't open more connections than it needs and backs off cleanly on rate-limit responses. The practical effect on you is that a large batch may take longer than you'd expect, and that's the source's fault, not Google's.

If you're running an ad-hoc tool instead of DMS, keep concurrency at five or below for the first batch and only raise it if everything completes cleanly. The too-many-IMAP-connections fix covers the symptoms and recovery steps in detail.

Folders versus labels#

Gmail does not have folders. It has labels. DMS preserves the source folder structure by creating a label per folder, with / as the nesting separator. Three things to communicate to users before cutover:

• Their old folders appear as labels in the Gmail sidebar.
• A message in two source folders shows once in Gmail with both labels attached. This isn't duplication.
• The "All Mail" label is normal Gmail behavior — every message has it.

The IMAP protocol glossary entry goes into why this works the way it does, if you're explaining this to a curious internal stakeholder.

Migration steps#

1. Identify which GoDaddy mail product you're on

   Sign in to GoDaddy and check whether the domain is on Workspace Email or Microsoft 365 from GoDaddy. The remainder of this guide assumes Workspace Email — for Microsoft 365 from GoDaddy, swap the source host name in step 4 and continue.

   If you're not sure, look at the current MX records for the domain. Records pointing to smtp.secureserver.net or mailstore1.secureserver.net indicate Workspace Email. Records pointing to *.mail.protection.outlook.com indicate Microsoft 365 (whether from GoDaddy or otherwise).

2. Prepare the Google Workspace tenant

   In the Workspace admin console, confirm the source domain is added (as primary or secondary, depending on your architecture) and verified. Assign Gmail-enabled licenses to each destination user. Sign in to Gmail as one of them — or have the user do it — to confirm the mailbox is provisioned. DMS will refuse to migrate into a mailbox that hasn't been provisioned yet.

   Confirm IMAP access is enabled in Workspace settings — it usually is by default but tenants with hardened defaults sometimes have it off.

3. Gather source credentials and app passwords

   Build a list of every source mailbox with a working IMAP credential. Where GoDaddy 2SV is enabled, that means generating an app password and recording it for use during migration.

   Use a password manager for these. Doing this in a spreadsheet, especially one shared across the project team, is how credentials end up in the wrong places.

4. Open Data Migration Service in the admin console

   In the Workspace admin console, go to Data → Data Migration. Click Set Data Migration Up. Choose Email as the migration source, and Other IMAP server as the source type.

   Enter the connection details:

   • IMAP server: imap.secureserver.net (Workspace Email) or outlook.office365.com (Microsoft 365 from GoDaddy)
   • Port: 993
   • Connection protocol: TLS

   DMS will run a connection test when you save. If it fails, fix it here — every subsequent problem is harder to debug.

5. Add users and set the date range

   For each user, supply source email, source password (or app password), and destination Workspace user. For large environments, upload a CSV instead of typing each user.

   Set the migration date range. Most teams choose all mail. If you have a regulatory or storage reason to migrate only the last 12 or 24 months, set it here. Folder exclusion is also available — useful for skipping a large archive folder that nobody actively uses.

6. Start the migration and monitor

   Start the migration. DMS shows a per-user status table with queued, in-progress, completed and failed states.

   Watch for users that fail authentication (almost always a missing or expired app password) or that complete with far fewer messages than expected (usually a folder DMS couldn't read, often a Sent folder with a non-standard name).

   Re-run failed users individually. DMS resumes from where it left off rather than starting over.

7. Cut over DNS at GoDaddy

   48 hours before cutover, lower TTL on MX, SPF and Autodiscover records at GoDaddy to 300 seconds.

   On cutover day, change these records at GoDaddy:

   • MX → Google's five MX records (smtp.google.com or aspmx.l.google.com and its alternates, depending on what the Workspace admin console shows).
   • SPF TXT → v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com -all, merged with any other senders you legitimately need (mailing list providers, monitoring tools).
   • DKIM CNAMEs → values from the Workspace admin console's Authenticate Email page.
   • Autodiscover → remove or update any CNAME GoDaddy auto-created for Workspace Email.

   Wait for propagation. Send a test email from outside both networks to confirm mail flow now lands in Gmail.

8. Run DMS for 24–48 hours after cutover

   Leave DMS running for at least one full day after the MX flip to catch any mail that landed on the source during DNS propagation. Then stop the migration in the console.

   Keep the GoDaddy mailboxes intact for 30–60 days as a safety net before decommissioning. There's always one user who needs a message you didn't migrate.

Gotchas specific to GoDaddy#

Workspace Email size caps. Older GoDaddy plans capped mailboxes at sizes well below modern norms. If users have been on a 5 GB plan and are at 4.8 GB, the migration is uneventful. If they've been on a higher tier and are at 25 GB+, plan a long initial sync window per mailbox.

Auto-created GoDaddy DNS records. Domains registered at GoDaddy with email through GoDaddy often have DNS records GoDaddy created automatically — Autodiscover CNAMEs, SPF entries, sometimes a webmail subdomain CNAME. These need to be cleaned up at cutover, not left in place. Stale Autodiscover records in particular will cause Outlook clients on the destination side to misroute connections.

App password rotation mid-batch. If a user resets their GoDaddy security settings during migration — sometimes prompted by a "your password was used in a new location" notification when DMS first connects — the app password DMS is using will invalidate and that user's migration starts failing. Communicate clearly to users to leave GoDaddy security alone during the cutover window.

Email forwarding rules. Any forwarders or aliases configured at GoDaddy are not migrated. Document them in advance and recreate them in Workspace as user aliases, groups, or routing rules. The GoDaddy to Office 365 walkthrough covers the same DNS records from the other destination's side if you're handling both moves in parallel.

Errors you'll actually see#

A short list of strings worth recognizing.

• AUTHENTICATIONFAILED — wrong or missing app password on the GoDaddy side.
• Too many simultaneous connections — concurrency too high. DMS handles this; ad-hoc tools need to slow down.
• STARTTLS handshake failed — wrong port. GoDaddy IMAP is 993 with implicit TLS, not 143 with STARTTLS.
• Folder UTF-7 conversion error — non-ASCII folder name on the source. Rename on the source.
• Temporary system problem. Try again later — Gmail-side throttle. DMS retries automatically.

For app-password specifics on the Gmail side, the Gmail app password troubleshooting page covers when one is required and how to generate one.

Communicating with users#

Three messages, in this order.

Three days out. Date, time, what's not changing (their email address) and what is (the back end, and folders becoming labels). One sentence each.

Day before. Reminder of cutover time, instructions for signing in to Gmail at the new address (or via Outlook if they're keeping a desktop client), and a single link to your IT helpdesk channel for problems.

Morning of cutover. Confirmation that the switch is happening, the sign-in URL, and a one-paragraph FAQ on the three things people will ask first: where their folders went (now labels), where their calendar went (separate migration if applicable), and what to do if Outlook is asking them to set up the account again (sign in with their normal email and a fresh app password if 2SV is on).

FAQ#

For the broader migration playbook including cutover validation, rollback and pilot strategy, the complete email migration guide and the destination-specific Google Workspace migration guide go further than this provider-pair walkthrough. If your destination is Outlook on the desktop rather than Gmail, the GoDaddy to Outlook walkthrough is the better fit.