This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

Previously, when you migrated content from Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) to Microsoft 365, a user could bring over their Mail, Calendar, and Contact information. While this did help reduce friction for users getting used to the new platform, it did not avoid the burden of re-creating all their email organization rules in Outlook. To address this, we have now added the capability to migrate Gmail filters to Outlook rules as a part of the standard migration offering!


With this feature you can now migrate Mail, Rules, Calendar and Contact data for all users and everyone is opted in by default.


Here are some of the conversions we support:


Gmail filter criteria
































































































Gmail filter Criteria



Criteria Syntax



Outlook Rule Condition



From:



user@domain.com



From people or public group


 

!user@domian.com



Except it from people or public group


 

-user@domain.com



Except it from people or public group



To:



me



Where my name is in the To box


 

user@domain.com



Send to people or public group


 

!user@domain.com



Except it send to people or public group


 

-user@domain.com



Except it from people or public group



Has the words:



cc:me



Where my name is in the CC box


 

word1 or word2



With word1 or word2 in the subject or body



Doesn’t have:



Word1 or word2



Except if the subject or body contains word1 or word2


 

cc:me



Except where my email address is in the cc box



Subject:



Word1 or word2



With word1 or word2 in the subject


 

!word1 AND !word2



Except if the subject contains word1 or word2


 

word1 AND !word2



(With word1 in the subject) AND (Except if the word2 contains B)


 

!word2 AND word1



(Except if the subject contains word2) AND (With word1 in the subject)



Size:



Greater than number unit



With a size in a specific range



Has attachment:


 

Which has an attachment



Gmail filter action






































Gmail filter Action



Outlook Rule Action



Skip Inbox (Archive it)



Move it to the Archive folder



Mark as read



Mark it as read



Apply the label



Move a copy to the specific folder



Forward it



Forward it to people or public group



Delete it



Delete it (Move to Deleted Items folder)



Always mark it as important



Mark it as important


Importance: High



Never mark it as important



Mark it as important


Importance: Medium



Conversions that are not supported


We do not currently support migrations of Categories from Google Workspace to Microsoft 365.


Additionally, if there are certain filters we are unable to process and convert, we mark these as bad items. And bad items from filters to rules migration do not negatively impact the DCS score of a job since that mechanism is more relevant for identifying data loss for the underlying data set (like Mail, Calendar and Contacts).


How to configure the feature


By default, the feature is enabled when you use New-MigrationBatch for Google Workspace migrations. If, however, you wish to disable the rule migration capability, you can do so by specifying the –SkipRules parameter via PowerShell.


In the screenshot below, you can see that there are now checkboxes for migrating Gmail Filters (to Outlook Rules) – which is checked by default. Simply un-checking the checkbox for Rules will skip migrating those items. Currently you need to do this via the Classic Exchange Admin Center; this change will be incorporated into the Modern Exchange Admin Center in the future.


GWRules01.jpg


Note: We do not have a way to reset rules once migrated, as is the case for any other data like Mail, Calendar or Contacts.


Try the feature out and give us feedback in the comments if the conversion was to your liking and what improvements we can make in the future!


The Exchange Migration team

Brought to you by Dr. Ware, Microsoft Office 365 Silver Partner, Charleston SC.