This feature supports all Google Workspace editions.
Use the new data migration service to migrate files, folders, and associated permissions from a Dropbox business account to your organization’s Workspace accounts. Except where indicated, you complete these steps in the Google Admin console for the Workspace account that you’re migrating to.
Workspace requirements
- Make sure a super administrator sets up and runs the migration. Resellers can’t migrate data for their customer accounts.
- You need to create shared drives in Workspace for your organization’s files. For details, go to Set up shared drives for your organization . If you already have shared drives, go to Manage shared drives as an admin instead.
- You must give each Workspace user a user account before they can sign in and use Google services. File migration only migrates data to existing user accounts. The new data migration service doesn’t use migrated data to automatically create user accounts. For details, go to Options for adding users .
- Each user must have a user license before they can access their migrated data. For details, go to How licensing works .
- You must turn on Google Drive for every Workspace user that you’re migrating to. For details, go to Turn Google Drive and Docs on or off for users .
- You can migrate up to 150 Dropbox personal or team folders at a time. If you need to migrate additional users or folders, you must start another migration.
Dropbox requirements
- Make sure a Dropbox team admin helps with the migration.
- You need a Dropbox user email address for every user you want to migrate, and a path for every team folder. To get a list of email addresses and team folder paths in your Dropbox tenant, export a member data report and a team storage report .
Run a migration
You must be signed in as a super administrator for this task. Resellers cannot migrate data for their customer accounts.
Expand section | Collapse all & go to top
- Sign in with a super administrator account to the Google Admin console.
If you aren’t using a super administrator account, you can’t complete these steps.
- For Dropbox,click Migrate.
- Click Connectand sign in to Dropbox as a Team Administrator.
The new data migration service copies files, folders, and permissions from Dropbox users and team folders to Google Drive. Set the migration scope by creating a comma-separated values (CSV) file with the Dropbox information that you want to migrate. You can create a new CSV file with the required columns, or you can download a sample file and add rows. The completed CSV file must be smaller than 10 MB.
- In Workspace, open a spreadsheet program or select Download a sample CSV file.
- In the first column, add the header Source DropboxValueand enter an email address for each personal folder or a folder path for each team folder. Team folders migrate to a specified Workspace shared drive. Use a separate row for each folder.
To find personal and team folder information in the Dropbox Admin console, go to How to create a member data report or How to create a team storage report .
Note:You can migrate up to 150 Dropbox personal or team folders at a time.
- (Only applies if you're migrating a Dropbox team folder) In the second column, add the header Target Drive FolderIDand enter the ID for the Workspace shared drive where you want to migrate a Dropbox team folder.
You can find existing shared drive IDs on the Manage shared drives page in the Google Admin console.
- (Only applies if you're migrating a Dropbox team folder) In the third column, add the header Target GUserand enter an email address for the Workspace user whose data will be migrated from a Dropbox team folder to Workspace. Use a separate row for each folder.
Note:Target GUser is the file owner when:
- Information on the creator or last modified user is unavailable.
- The Dropbox folder includes only group permissions and no user permissions.
- The creator or last modifier of a folder or file lacks sufficient Workspace permissions.
Recommended:To avoid migration failures or lag in Google Drive, you can add multiple email addresses in a cell under Target GUser, separated by commas. You can migrate up to 500,000 Dropbox items for one Target GUser.
Example:
Source DropboxValue Target Drive FolderID Target GUser terry@example.com /folder/folder2 BDEz25J3DzFb alan@other-company.com,
emma@other-company.com - Save the spreadsheet as a CSV file.
- Upload the file to the Admin console:
- Click Upload CSV.
- Select your CSV mapping fileclick Open.
- Click Tasks to confirm that the mapping file was successfully uploaded.
Create a second CSV file to use as an identity map that connects Dropbox users to Workspace users. You can create a new CSV file with the required columns, or you can download a sample file and add rows. This file should be separate from the list of folders you want to migrate. It must also be smaller than 10 MB.
Before you begin:If you're migrating Dropbox Groups to Google Groups, you need to:
- Create groups in Google Groups in your Workspace account. For details, go to Create a group in your organization .
- Replicate the Dropbox Groups user memberships in Google Groups.
To create the identity map:
- Open a spreadsheet program or select Download a sample CSV file in Workspace.
- In the first column, add the header Source Entityand enter the Dropbox user email addresses and group names that you want to migrate. Use a separate row for each user or group.
- In the second column, add the header Destination Emailand enter a Workspace email address that will receive migrated information from the Dropbox user or group in the first column. Use a separate row for each user or group.
Example:
Source Identity Destination Email emma@example.com emma@other-company.com Group Team A group-team-a@other-company.com - Save the spreadsheet as a CSV file.
- Upload the file to the Admin console:
- Click Upload CSV.
- Select your CSV mapping fileclick Open.
- Click Tasks to confirm that the mapping file was successfully uploaded.
Use the following settings to choose which data to copy from Dropbox:
- To migrate all OneDrive users, including those not found in the identity map, ensure that the Copy accounts that aren't included in the map that are discovered during the migrationbox is checked, and then choose an option:
- If the user's email address in Dropbox is the same as their address in Workspace, ensure that Keep their original email addressis selected.
- If the domain name for all migrated users is changing, select Use a different email address domain for these accountsand select a domain from the list.
Note:These settings don't apply to external users or Dropbox Groups.
- To copy files by date, check the Only include files created or modified after the following datebox, and then select an option:
- To copy files created after a certain date, select Created after, and then select a date .
- To copy files modified after a certain date, select Modified after, and then select a date.
Note:Date settings are based on your local time zone and apply only to individual files, not folders. All folders migrate, regardless of the date that you select.
- If you don’t want to migrate all file types, check the Exclude specific file formatsbox, and then enter the file extensions that you want to exclude. Separate different file extensions with a comma (for example, tmp, log, bak, and so on).
- If you don’t want to migrate larger files, check the Exclude files greater than the following sizebox, enter a maximum size, and then select MBor GB.
- Click Save.
- Click Start migration.
- You can review updates on the following information in real time while the migration is in progress:
- Successful—Number of tasks that were successfully completed
- Skipped—Tasks that were skipped because of certain migration settings, or because they were completed in a previous migration
- Warning—Tasks that were completed but failed to complete as expected
- Failed—Tasks that failed to migrate due to an error
- Time elapsed—Time elapsed since the migration started
- Files discovered—Number of files detected during the migration
- Files migrated—Number of files that successfully migrated
- Files skipped—Number of previously migrated files that were skipped
- Files failed—Number of files that failed to migrate
- Size of migrated files—Total size of migrated files
- Discovery issues—Folders from Dropbox that couldn't be crawled
When the migration is complete, you get an email with migration statistics. Any reports are attached.
- Click Export migration report. You can export the report at any time once the migration starts.
- If the Taskslist doesn't automatically open with the exported report, Click Tasks in the report link.
- To open the report in Google Sheets, click Open in Google Sheets.
If you need to stop a migration while it’s in progress, click Stop migration.
Stopping a migration might take a few minutes, and it doesn’t roll back the migration process. Any files that migrated before you stopped a migration aren't deleted from Google Drive.
You can run delta migrations and review information about a completed migration in the Admin console until you exit the migration. If you need to start a new file migration from Dropbox, you must exit the current migration.
To exit a migration:
- If you want to migrate any new or updated files before you exit, follow the steps in Run a delta migration for Dropbox .
- (Optional) If you want to save logs and reports from a migration, click Export migration report Export folder report.
- Click Exit migration Exit and delete migration.
Retention & legal holds
File migration is intended as a productivity feature and is not designed to assist with legal compliance matters. You and your organization are responsible for assessing and meeting your organization’s legal compliance needs. If you require files and folders for legal compliance purposes, consider backing up the files in Dropbox prior to migrating data to Workspace.
Google, Google Workspace, and related marks and logos are trademarks of Google LLC. All other company and product names are trademarks of the companies with which they are associated.
