Unwelcome migration to Gmail - What a mess in Outlook for Windows

[NancyM]

OK, so yesterday I migrated my mailbox to Google, pretty much under duress (I mean what choice do we have? I've avoided Google all these years to be forced into it by Telus). I lost a full day to get all my devices set up properly. 

I use Outlook. This is dictated by my work environment. I acknowledge that Outlook is not a great platform. But I've been using it for years with very few real issues compared to what I had to work through yesterday. (No I didn't waste any time contacting Telus support. Forum posts make it very clear they have no idea how to help).

Today I notice that my emails on my Windows Outlook instances are being sorted by the day of the week (!!) rather than the day of the month. WTF??

I use my email extensively to manage my business dealings. Now I'm seeing all the emails I've received on a Thursday all together, as if they were received yesterday. Not in order of date mind you. Essentially the list for Thursday jumps from Oct 8 to Oct 1 to Sept 24 to Sept 17 and so on right back to 2018. However, the dates are actually mixed up so some emails actually received yesterday are displayed AFTER 2018 emails. Sure I have a lot of emails and I use them regularly..... 

I note that in the Gmail interface, the email are sorted by the date, not the day of the week. 

Gmail made it excruciatingly difficult to get my mailbox set up on my Windows machines. Strangely, my Mac Outlook was easy to setup and the emails are sorted by date as expected. Also on my iPad, it was simple and took moments. 

Do I expect a solution from Telus? Not on your life. They are not in the business of supporting customers. This comment is based on my experience over the last 3 months - nothing to do with this email migration. So this is simply the icing on an already rotten cake.

If you have not migrated yet, I recommend that you back up the .pst file and then clean up all emails so that Gmail and Telus can't touch the history you might want to keep. You can locate the .pst file by looking at the Data Files area of Accounts in Outlook. Then close Outlook and copy this file to another location (don't move it or Outlook won't be able to read it). Then go back into Outlook and clean up your mailbox by removing all old emails. This will speed the migration and will ensure that neither Telus or Gmail can mess you up. After the migration is complete, you can use Outlook to open the copy of .pst file. You'll be able to access those emails as a separate folderNone of the emails will be moved to Gmail. Also don't touch the G Suite Synchronization tool. I recommend IMAP. 

[starchoice · Accepted solution]

An e-mail migration such as this is a fairly extensive undertaking. On the positive side, you should be glad to be rid of Outlook. Have not used it for years. I also have a Mac but use Apple mail. I worked at a large University that did an e-mail migration from Outlook to Gmail. Lots of complaints before and during migration but after the fact, there was no further mention. Gmail is a great interface so it is clear why so many people and companies are going to it. I don't think that you can fault TELUS for date synchronization of your old e-mails. I mean what do you expect them to do? It does not sound like you are familiar with the Gmail platform and those that have not used it before, I would expect have some issues over those who have previous experience. Gmail does offer options for sorting your e-mail. If possible, try and touch base with someone familiar with the platform.

[RonAKA]

I certainly sympathize with the issue of being forced to switch email systems. And the sad part is that all Telus really offers is the ability to keep your Telus email address. The rest of it is the same as just getting a free email account from Google. 

That said you may want to consider some features of Gmail may be of benefit to your business. One is the ability of being able to Create Rules to automatically handle your Inmail. Also remember that Labels in Gmail are different than typical folders, in that multiple Labels can be put on one email. 

[BernieS]

It is not necessary to create a new profile, all you have to do is edit the server settings for the Telus profile and redirect both the incoming and outgoing server values.

However beware of a possible issue with the folders that are created in the gmail web app. - I had folders and rules set up in Outlook that moved emails to folders. The synch created those folders and placed them under the gmail hierarchy. It also created a folder called Important. This is how I discovered what was going on. When Outlook 2019 synch'd with gmail, unbeknownst to me it created a duplicate in the important folder if it was labeled important. I only discovered that it was a duplicate because I would 'shift-delete' rather than move to trash and the email would still exist in the other folder. When some other emails came in that had a rule, the rule would fail. I finally called support and they blamed Outlook and said they could help because they didn't support that product. Wouldn't listen that it all worked before and now it wouldn't and that there were no 'eroneous' settings. So I told this person fine and hung up very frustrated. When I looked at the gmail web interface, I noticed something called label settings so I opened it. As I reviewed, something clicked. The synch had created these folders and moved them to the gmail hierarchy from my inbox hierarchy. I also realized there were some settings that would alter if folders would show or not and if I wanted to synch. Since I rarely use gmail web app, I removed these settings and then recreated the folders and rules the way that I had them previously and voila, no issues.