Google Apps
I decided to switch from GMail as a primary address to an address @codertao.com. However, I ran into a bit of a snag. I like GMail. It’s friendly and has over 1,000 daily slashdot headlines waiting for me to search them the next time I want to remember what I read about small scale nuclear reactors. That, and the mail service that comes with my web host isn’t exactly perfect (and a 7GB inbox is larger then the disk space I have in the web hosting account). So I tried the clearly logical thing of playing with the free version of google apps.
And I can now say I’ve found something Google doesn’t do well- GMail -> Google Apps Migration. Once everything is setup and the old accounts are forwarding to the new ones, everything seems to work fine; with the possible exception that Apps seems to be behind GMail in so far as UI features.
To actually get all of my infinitely valuable slashdot daily headlines to transfer, I signed up for the free demo of Google Apps Premiere Edition, which includes an IMAP migration tool. Some amount of setup was need with that, the details of which I have forgotten and don’t wish to live through again. The end result is everything appears to have transferred- tags seem to still be in place, my 600mb inbox has stayed roughly the same; but I am still shocked. That Google doesn’t consider the use case of a user switching from gmail to google apps important enough to warrant time for streamline migration is just… weird.
Granted, I can hardly complain. Standard Edition of Google Apps is free. I finally have an email address simple enough to be written down in chicken scratch and still be read. Along with easy inbox searching and the email log of my last ~5 years online. Overall I think it was worth it.
