Bye Google! Hi Apple!

Since Google no longer provides G Suite free edition as from May 2022, I start to migrate all my data from Google to Apple today.

My most used Google services are Mail, Keep and Photos. The fact that you can take out all your Google data makes it very easy to move into Apple services. After downloading all your data to your local machine, the next steps are:

1. Migrate emails from Gmail to Apple Mail

I use some custom domain emails, so naturally I now use custom domain for emails in iCloud for that purpose. The instruction is straight forward.

To import old emails, I use Mail Mac app to import mbox file which was exported from Google. It will default import emails to your local Mac, you need to drag and drop it into iCloud tab in order to sync with other devices.

2. Migrate notes from Google Keep to iCloud Drive

Initially I intend to use Apple Notes to replace Google Keep, but it is not a trivial process. Along the way I discover Logseq and immediately feel in love with that.

I use Google Keep mostly to write journals, and Logseq is more than that, it is a personal knowledge management system (PKMS), just like a second brain of yours. The Logseq desktop app is brilliant but it doesn’t have a mobile app yet. Fortunately, we can make Obsidian mobile app to play nice with it, all sync up using iCloud drive!

By the way Obsidian itself is another PKMS, I just don’t like the way Obsidian desktop works.

3. Migrate photos from Google Photos to Apple Photos

I use Apple Photos Mac app to import photos from exported photos folders from Google, and then wait for it to sync up to iCloud.

That’s it! I’ve thought I could never live on the net without Google, turn out it’s not that hard.