Google’s finally straightening out its legacy free G-Suite mess

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Almost five months after it was announced that G-Suite users would have to pay for their accounts, it seems that the path is in place that most people will be happy with. Signing up for a no-cost option that will let people keep using their G-Suite accounts for personal use won't involve a song and dance.

After a decade of keeping the legacy free tier around, free G-Suite users were told in January that they would have to pay for workspace if they wanted to keep their accounts. The company said that if users didn't decide which tier they wanted by May 1st, they'd be upgraded based on their use. You could transfer to a free account, but you would lose some features. There will be an option to just keep using the service that is open to people who aren't using it for business purposes.

Image: u/AB3DC on Reddit

The no-cost personal use option will allow you to keep using a custom domain with Gmail, use free apps, and keep all your data and purchases. If you choose the no-cost personal transition path by June 27th, everything will stay the same. You can find the instructions on how to do it in the support document, but a user on the GSuiteLegacyMigration subreddit has posted a picture of what the process will look like. There is a note on the website that says that the G Suite legacy free edition does not include support and may be removed from the plan in the future.

It seems like what should have been announced in the first place is this transition path. A lot of people were unhappy with the previous version of the plan, especially those who weren't part of a company, and had just been using G-Suite free because it was a good option for power users. For a while, it seemed like they would have to pay for features they didn't need.

It didn't help that people's options were either to start paying or export their data and set up a new account. The deadline was moved back in April, and there was a tool to transfer to a free account, but you had to join a waitlist for that, and you wouldn't be able to use a custom domain. It was going to be a pain in the ass, as evidenced by the fact that there was an entire subreddit dedicated to discussing the transition. If you're a business, you'll pay. You don't have to if you are not.