Migrating a 10-person team from Google Workspace to Airfree Mail: a case study

A Melbourne design studio of ten people moved off Google Workspace to Airfree Mail Business over a single weekend. We worked through it with them; here is the honest account of how it went.

Why they moved

The trigger was a client in the health sector who required that correspondence not be stored on ad-funded infrastructure. Rather than run two systems, the studio decided to move everyone. Cost was a secondary factor — Business came out slightly cheaper per seat than their Workspace tier.

The migration plan

We staged it across a Friday evening and Saturday. The domain’s SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records were prepared in advance with a low TTL so the cutover would propagate quickly. Each mailbox was imported using the built-in Gmail importer, which pulled mail, contacts, and calendars in parallel.

• Thursday: create accounts, publish DNS with low TTL, test with two pilot users.
• Friday evening: flip MX records, start bulk imports.
• Saturday: verify each mailbox, reconfigure mobile devices, decommission old aliases.

What they learned

Two lessons stood out. First, lowering DNS TTLs a day ahead made the MX cutover almost instant. Second, shared calendars needed manual re-sharing — imports bring your own data, not another user’s permissions. By Monday morning the team was working normally, and the client signed off on the new setup.