Google Drive To Onedrive

Seamless Migration: Efficient Transfer of Google Drive to OneDrive While Preserving Data Integrity

Migrating enterprise data between cloud platforms is rarely as trivial as “copy and paste.” The challenge increases when file attributes, permissions, and metadata must remain intact. Missteps lead to broken links, orphaned documents, and hours spent remediating access controls.

Scenario

Company standard shifts from Google Workspace to Microsoft 365. Hundreds of gigabytes—mixed file types, deeply nested folders, shared project drives—need to land in OneDrive without structure loss or data corruption. A classic drag-and-drop approach simply won’t scale, nor will it retain access policies or modification dates.

Why Manual Approaches Fail

Manual download and re-upload introduces typical pain points:

• Folder trees flatten, breaking inherited permissions.
• Google Docs and Sheets convert to Microsoft formats inconsistently, often losing complex formatting.
• Large volumes (>100,000 files or >100GB) risk connection timeouts, partial transfers, and non-obvious data loss.
• No audit trail or rollback if users discover missing content later.

Note: For regulatory compliance, even brief file downtime or metadata loss can violate audit requirements.

Pre-Migration Preparations

Key prerequisites:

• Inventory source data. Identify critical directories, file counts, and largest items (gtfast --summary recommended for Google Drive, or use Google Admin Reports for high-level overview).
• Confirm destination storage: OneDrive quotas (usually 1TB/user by default) should cover total data plus margin.
• Flag external shares and shared drives; OneDrive cannot ingest Google “Shared with me” (third-party ownership) directly.
• Stage a local backup of irreplaceable business data. Storage outages do happen. Don’t skip this.

Tool-Based Migration: Mover.io

Preferred method for business contexts and complex migrations. Mover is integrated into Microsoft’s ecosystem and offers robust tracking and error reporting.

Example: Migrating with Mover.io

Steps:

1. Navigate to https://mover.io/.
2. Authenticate using Microsoft 365 admin credentials.
3. Add source connector: Select “Google Drive” (OAuth required).
4. Add destination connector: Choose “OneDrive for Business”. Map user accounts if needed.
5. Select source folders; define filters (e.g., exclude .gsheet, system files).
6. Launch migration. Monitor via real-time logs and error summaries.

Typical output log:

Migrating: /Marketing_Q2/Assets/ 
Success: 2375 files (3.1 GB)
Warning: 11 Google Forms skipped (unsupported format)
Error: File too large - /Videos/archive.mov (6GB exceeds OneDrive 15GB file limit)

Performance: In controlled tests (1 Gbps backbone), Mover can consistently handle 200-300GB/hour, though Google API throttling occasionally surfaces (HTTP 429 Too Many Requests). For over 1TB, split migrations or schedule during off-peak hours.

Known issue: Permissions do not translate. OneDrive supports MSFT-centric sharing; expect to manually reconfigure access after import.

Alternative: Google Takeout with Onedrive Sync

Not ideal for business context, but sometimes necessary (no admin rights, uncooperative IT).

Procedure:

1. Use Google Takeout.
2. Select “Drive”, set export type to .zip (watch file count; Takeout splits >2GB archives).
3. Download and extract locally.
4. Install the OneDrive sync client (OneDriveSetup.exe v24.072+ recommended; disables legacy “shell” bug that can cause duplicate uploads).
5. Copy all files into the syncing OneDrive folder. Wait for sync completion.

Tip: Bulk uploads skip Google file types (e.g., .gsheet) unless previously exported to compatible formats. Pre-convert mission-critical spreadsheets.

Drawback: No file history/versioning retained; all upload timestamps reset. For records compliance, this is unacceptable.

Data Integrity Validation

Post-migration, always inspect for silent failures:

• Sample open 5–10% of random files. Corruptions may not be flagged by OneDrive UI.
• Compare folder/file counts pre/post (tree /F > listing.txt can be used on both sides).
• Validate critical permissions.
• Confirm sharing settings—OneDrive external sharing is off by default for many tenants.

Practical Example: Mid-Sized Marketing Department Migration

Parameters:

• 10 users, 500GB data, 120k files.
• Mixed Docs, Sheets, Slides, PDFs, raw image/video.

Process:

1. User mapping established (CSV import: user@company.com -> user@company.com).
2. Initiate Mover.io batch, dry-run with small folder subset (~2GB).
3. Post-pilot, execute full migration overnight. Typical throughput: 320GB in 8 hours.
4. Export migration log. Investigate flagged items (e.g., “unsupported Google Site”).
5. Office admins manually adjust top-level share permissions; train team on OneDrive sharing nuances (link settings, expiring links).
6. Legacy Google sharing links deprecated—communicate known breakage in transition docs.

Non-obvious tip: To map legacy Google Groups-based permissions, export group membership before cutting over. There is no automatic mapping to Microsoft 365 groups.

Observations and Recommendations

• For tenants with >500k files or data over 2TB, stagger runs to avoid Google API quota bans.
• Never rely on “move everything at once”—some files (often hidden system files) will fail quietly. Scrutinize error logs.
• For ongoing sync (until cutover is finalized), avoid bidirectional sync apps; risk of “file churn” and accidental deletions.

Summary

A robust cloud-to-cloud migration always depends on the right tooling (preferably Mover.io for scale and transparency), rigorous pre-flight checks, clear communication about changed access models, and post-move verification. Manual tooling (Google Takeout) is an acceptable fallback for small volumes, with known caveats. For regulated environments, lack of audit trail or metadata loss is a deal-breaker—validate before cutover.

Next:

• Verify storage allocations in both clouds.
• Run a pilot migration of a non-critical folder.
• Document residual issues and process gaps immediately after first cutover.

Questions about edge cases or bulk exports? The devil’s in the details. Even after dozens of migrations, quirks still appear. Don’t skip dry runs.