Google Apps: Recommended Steps for Importing Mail

Hello Friend…

If you’re reading this, some of you may have already tried what I did. When implementing Google Apps and using the Microsoft Outlook sync tool, you may have found that the mail import process either bombed or was incomplete. As a work-around to that problem, you were clever, and you imported a backup of a *.pst using Outlook’s import tool into the MAPI Google Apps profile. But then you found that you can’t copy or move email into mail folder objects in Outlook, and Outlook produced the following error message:

“Can’t move the items. The folders you are trying to change do not support this operation. Could not complete this operation because the service provider does not support it.”

You see, the *.pst import your did dumps to a local Google Apps *.pst in the user’s profile. This content isn’t acknowledged by Google Apps so it’s never sync’d, and, you can’t move objects around.

So here’s a fix – and my recommended setups for importing mail from Outlook (either a stand-alone MAPI config or Exchange config).

1. Go into your Google Dashboard and under the Advanced Tools, at the bottom under User Email Uploads, make sure the checkbox to Allow users to upload mail using the Email Migration API is checked true. Like me, you may have been doing your tests using an administrative account, which isn’t subject to this toggle, and for whom the API is _always_ on. Right. Makes a big difference.

2. Verify minimum requirements with Outlook and Windows. Appropriate service packs and what not.

3. Login to the web manually and authorize the user’s account. If the user account hasn’t been used yet, they still need to confirm the Terms of Service. Do this first. Make sure your setup password works as well.

4. Run the Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook.

5. Provide the user account’s credentials.

6. When offered to import from another MAPI profile, at this time, check all but email. Leave email unchecked.

7. State your preference for error reporting to Google.

8. Outlook will launch. Select the new Google Apps profile.

9. Outlook will then start populating as the Google App utility in the System Tray begins initial sync. Allow this to play out until it’s done with initial sync.

10. Close Outlook.

11. Go get the Google Email Uploader. If the machine is regularly patched, it’ll install quickly and do nothing; launch it from the icon created on the desktop. If the machine needs the more recent .NET framework, it’ll download it.

12. Launch the uploader, targetting the user’s Google credentials. The Uploader will identify the MAPI profiles to the Exchange Server and/or of Outlook Express. Select the folders you want to pull over – in my opinion, select the email containers you want to bring over.

13. Allow the tool to convert/enumerate the mail containers into Labels. This will create the mail hierarchy in Google Apps.

14. Proceed. This sync can take a long time and the user has to remain out of Outlook. It’ll take hours for really big containers, many thousands of email messages. The app will announce when it’s done.

15. Open Outlook and select your Google Apps profile. You can now move around content and the material is sync’d to Google; note the disclaimer that it may take a day or two for all of the content to appear online and to be sync’d back in to the Outlook thick client.

After this is done, your user will be very disappointed that the autofill for Outlook is no longer working. This is because their old Outlook.nk2 file that stores the autocomplete info is still named in the name of the old profile. To address this, follow the instructions from Microsoft, but you’ll want to rename or copy the *.nk2 file to the exact name of the Google Apps profile in MAPI. I’ve had the best success actually copying this profile name into the filename of the object. Restart Outlook; your autocomplete should be just swell.

In situations where you have already done most of this but are having the problem with the users folders, instead of starting over, try going into Outlook under the Google Apps profile. Then, manually delete the folders. This will remove them from the local Google Apps *.pst file. Then, exit, and launch the Mail Import Tool we were just discussing.

After that, it should work like a charm.

R

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