Moving from ASU Outlook to Personal Gmail

A personal Gmail account is one that you open directly with Google. It is separate from the one that was created for you by ASU -- it belongs to you and is not governed by ASU.

Moving from ASU Outlook to a personal account on Google.com is not as scary and complicated as you may fear. The picture on the right is an overview of what you will do: You will copy the mail, contacts and calendar from the ASU Outlook cloud service to your computer, and then copy them from your computer to the Gmail.com cloud service that you will be using when finished with the migration.

Gather Information You'll Need

The procedure for migrating will require you to have on hand:

• Your ASURITE UserID and password.
• Your ASU Outlook/Exchange direct email address, which is ASURITE @exchange.asu.edu.

Make Sure You Have the Outlook App on Your Computer

To make the transfer from the ASU Outlook service to your computer, you need to have the Microsoft Outlook app installed on your computer. If you are not sure whether you have it, look in your list of programs. On Windows you do this by clicking on the Windows icon in the lower left corner of your screen and scrolling through the list of programs. If you have the app, it will appear in the program list alphabetically under "O". Microsoft has animated instructions for finding apps in Windows 10. 

There are several ways to find installed programs on a Mac. 

If you don't have the Outlook program installed on your computer, you can download and install a free one-month trial of Microsoft Office 365. Outlook is one of the pieces of Microsoft Office 365. 

Get established on Gmail.com

Next, you will need your personal Gmail account. You probably already have an account (called a Google account) if you have an Android phone - it's what you use with the Play Store. Your account should end in @gmail.com. If it doesn't or if you don't have an existing Google account, open a new one. If you do have an account that ends in @gmail.com, use it to Sign In to Google. If your account is not yet connected to Gmail, you will see an invitation to "Add Gmail to your Google Account". Follow those instructions, which include choosing your Gmail address. Be sure to make note of your address and the associated password.

Now that you are established with this new service, you will want to start receiving new email there right away. You don't want new email to go to your old ASU Outlook account, since you will soon be closing that. You can direct new email messages sent to you @asu.edu to your new @gmail.com address by managing your ASU email address. You'll need to log in with your ASURITE UserID and password to do this. Choose Non-ASU Email Forwarding, enter your Gmail address, and then click on the link in the verification email account that is sent to your Gmail mailbox. If you are unclear about how this works, see Using Your ASU Email Address for an explanation.

If you have given anyone your direct ASU Outlook address (i.e., an address ending in exchange.asu.edu or possibly mainexn.asu.edu) you should give those people your new Gmail address. Similarly if you used the ASU Outlook direct address as a target for forwarding instructions from within another email service you are using, now is the time to change that forwarding address to your new Gmail address.

Copy Your ASU Outlook Data to Your Computer for Backup Purposes

In this set of steps you will be copying from the ASU Outlook cloud email service to your computer.

If you have not been using an Outlook app on your computer to access your email, begin by adding your ASU Outlook account to the Outlook app. The email address you will use in this step is your direct ASU Outlook address, i.e., ASURITE @ exchange.asu.edu. When you have successfully added the account, you will see it in the left column:

Once your ASU Outlook account is present in your Outlook app, follow Microsoft's instructions for exporting email, contacts, and calendar items from Outlook to a .pst file:

• Choose "Outlook without Office 365" if you are using Outlook 365 (counterintuitively!). Otherwise, use the instructions for your version of the Outlook app.
• In the step "Select the folder to export from", be sure that the main folder for your ASU Outlook account is selected:

 

• When you come to the step "Save exported file as": either note the default location where the file will be saved or use the Browse button to store it on your desktop or another location where you can find it easily later
• When prompted for an optional password, don't supply one -- just click on OK.

You should now have a file on your computer (called a .pst file). This will serve as a backup of everything that you had when you migrated. You won't use it to copy to the Gmail service unless something goes wrong when you use the method outlined below.

Copy Contacts From Your Computer to Gmail

Follow steps provided by Microsoft for Export Your Contacts From Outlook and Use Them in Google Gmail. The contacts will be in the Google cloud service when you are done.

• In step 2, go to your Google Contacts by clicking on the 9-dot box in the upper right corner -- this gives you a chance to select from all the various Google apps.
• In step 3, find the Import button in the left column.

Copy Calendar From Your Computer to Gmail

Follow steps provided by Microsoft for Export Your Outlook Calendar to Google Calendar. Don't skip steps 4, 5 and 6. Your calendar will be in the Google cloud service when you are done.

Copy Mail From Your Computer to Gmail

In this section you will be copying mail from the ASU Outlook cloud service directly to the Gmail cloud service. Your computer is being used only to orchestrate the transfer -- mail is not actually transferred to your computer.

It's a good idea to begin by cleaning up your mail folders in ASU Outlook: delete anything you don't want to keep, and, if you normally file your mail into folders, do that now for the items in your Inbox and Sent Items folders. 

First, follow steps provided by Microsoft for adding your Gmail account to your Outlook app.

You should now see both your ASU Outlook account and your Gmail account in the column on the left:

First open your inbox on your ASU Outlook account (the one below the account name ending in asu.edu). Now, select all of the mail items in that inbox. Do this by clicking on the first item, holding down the Shift key, and clicking on the last item.

• Right-click on one of the items and select "Move" and then choose "Copy to Folder" from the menu.
• From the selection box, choose the In box of your Gmail account.

If you have mail in the Sent Items folder of your ASU Outlook account, follow the same procedure: select all of them, right-click on one of them, select "Move-Copy to Folder" and in the selection box choose the Sent Mail folder of your Gmail account. 

If you have filed any mail into folders in ASU Outlook and/or if you have mail you want to keep in the Archive folder, copy those folders to Gmail one at a time as follows:

• Right-click on the folder and choose "Copy Folder".
• Select your Gmail account in the selection window and then click on OK.

When you have finished copying all of your mail, log in to your Gmail account to make sure you can see it and that it looks fine. If you have missed anything, follow the same steps to copy it.

Connect Your Devices to Your Gmail Account

Because everything is in a cloud email service, you can access it from a computer, phone or tablet (or all three!) via an email app or a web browser.

• For web browser access, you simply need to point your browser to https://gmail.com. You may want to set that address as a favorite in your browser.
• For access from an app, you will need to tell the app about your new email service account. Directions follow. 

If you have and intend to keep the Outlook app on your computer, the steps you have completed have it already set it up to use your new Gmail.com account. You can now remove your ASU Outlook account from the app. Your ASU Outlook account ends in asu.edu.

If you have an Android phone that already had a Gmail account on it, and if that is the account you have used during this migration, you need only choose an app you wish to use with the Gmail service. It can be the Outlook app for Android if you wish, or the Gmail app, or the generic mail app on your phone -- whatever you like best. You may have to go into the settings of the app to connect your Gmail account to it.

If you do not already have your Gmail account established on your device, add it now. You will also want to delete your ASU Outlook account.

• Android: Instructions for adding or deleting accounts are available from Google. The account your are adding has a type of Google. The account you are deleting ends in asu.edu. You may have to go into the settings of an app to connect the account you have added to the app. 
• Apple: Add email account to Apple device. Delete Exchange account from Apple device. The account you are deleting ends in asu.edu.

Finished?

If you don't intend to keep the Outlook app on your computer, you can now uninstall it. If you don't know how to do that, use your web browser to search on "uninstall an app in OpSys x", where "OpSys" is Windows or Mac OS and "x" is the version of Windows or Mac OS that you are using. If you downloaded the one-month trial of Office 365, don't forget to cancel before your free month is over.

When you are sure all is well with your new Gmail.com account and everything is there, you should close your Outlook/Exchange account with ASU. If you don't, you may lose some messages that people currently using ASU Outlook send to you, as these are internal to the ASU Outlook/Exchange service and don't go out to the ASU EPO and from there to your current email service. To close, call the Help Center at 855-278-5080. They will verify your identity and then close the account.