Moving Your Contacts and Calendars from Google to Exchange

Our migration tool should have brought over your Google Contacts and Calendar information.  If it did not, you can export this information manually from Google and import it into your Microsoft account.  Below are step by step instructions:

Contacts

1. Export from Google by opening Gmail 
2. Click on your contacts in the left column below the ME logo.
3. In Contacts, click on "More" which is at the top of your contacts list.
4. From there, click on "export"
5. This should bring up an Export box, like the one shown here.
6. You can select all contacts, or select specific ones you want to move.
7. Make sure to select your format as "Outlook CSV format"
8. Click on the "export button.

Import into Outlook

1. Open MS Outlook
2. Click on "File"
3. Click on "Open & Export" 
4. Click on "Import/Export"
5. Select "Import from another program or file" and hit "next"
6. Choose "Comma Separated Value (CSV) and hit next.
7. Select the CSV file you just created (it's probably in your "downloads" folder).
8. I recommend selecting the option to replace duplicates with items imported and hit "next."
9. Select your contacts at the destination and "next"
10. Hit "finish"

Calendar 

Export from Google:

1. Open your Google Account again and open calendar
2. Click on the Gear in the upper right hand corner and select "settings"
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. Click on the calendars tab, then select the calendar you want to export.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. Click on "export this calendar"
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. This will download the calendar into a zip file.
6. You will want to open the zip file and extract it to save on your computer.
   
   

Import into Outlook

1. The first part of these instructions are the same as importing the contacts above, Open Outlook again and go to "file"
2. Click on "Open & Export" 
3. Click on "Import/Export"
4. Select "Import an icalendar (.ics)" and hit "next"
5. Select the ICS file you downloaded from Google and unzipped.
6. Typically, you would import this into your existing calendar.
   

Trashing your Gmail Messages

Gmail offers three ways to rid yourself of email you no longer want to keep around.  You can archive it, mark it as spam, or put it in the trash.  If you archive it, the message will remain in your mailbox forever, just not in the inbox or any of your other folders.  You can find it by looking in "all mail" or by searching for the message.

If you mark an item as spam, it goes into your spam folder.  This has the added benefit of alerting Google that you consider similar messages to be spam.  If you are getting ads that you don 't want to see in your inbox, it is best to mark them as spam rather than simply trash them.  That way, you will not be bothered with as much junk mail in your inbox going forward.

If you have a message that you no longer want or need for any reason, you can delete it by moving it to trash.  When a message goes into your trash, it will eventually be removed from your mailbox entirely.  If you search for an email that is in trash, you must specify that you want Google to search trash.  By default, email searches exclude anything in the spam or trash folders.

The benefit of the spam or trash folders is that you have time to realize that you really need something you had removed.  You can go into your trash folder and move any item back to the inbox. Similarly, you can go into your spam folder and mark an item as "not spam" thus moving it back to the inbox.

In truth, there is no real need to delete any messages anymore.  The firm pays for unlimited storage, meaning you can save as much as you like.  Saving extra email also has no impact on performance in Gmail.

Even so, there are some emails you are certain you never want to see again.  It is fine to put those in the trash.  Some people like to be tidy and regularly empty their trash as soon as they put messages in it.  I strongly recommend against this practice.  Google will automatically delete anything in trash or spam folders after 30 days.  That gives you time to realize you need something, but also ensures that the trash will not pile up in the account forever.  Once you remove an item from trash, it is virtually impossible to restore to your inbox.  It is much better to give yourself that 30 day window to recover anything, before it is gone forever.

Gmail: Including Sent Items In Your Inbox

Google can sometimes be frustrating.  It its efforts to simplify, it sometimes leaves out options we may like.  One example of this is Google's refusal to include an option that allows you to have your sent items shown in your inbox.  This is part of Google's strategy to keep your inbox as uncluttered as possible.  But it would be nice if users had the ability to opt out of this.

The only way a sent item will show up normally, is if you send a message and receive a response.  If your mail is set to "conversation mode" both the sent item and the reply are in your inbox.  You also have the option of selecting "all mail" instead of just sent items to see everything, including all emails you have sent, receive, or even filed away.

Some, however, would like all sent items to be in their inbox all the time as soon as they are sent, without having to move an item to inbox each time.  This could be done by sending a BCC to yourself each time you send a message.  It also has the unfortunate affect of doubling the amount of mail you are saving.

I found an interesting work around to this dilemma.  You can create a filter that will force Google to put all of your sent items going  forward into your inbox.  The filter should say that whenever an email is from your address, the action taken is "never send to spam".  The original purpose of this filter was to force emails from certain people to go always to your inbox, even if Google thinks it is spam.  Google does this by forcing such messages into the inbox.  This has the beneficial side effect of allowing you to create a rule that all mail sent by you should also go in your inbox.