Ethical Tech

How to Leave Google: Moving My Business from Workspace to Proton

Google sat under my business email, my calendar and the logins for 26 tools. How I moved Sophie's Bureau to Proton, step by step, without locking myself out.

1 Nov 2026 · 10 min read · By Sophie Kazandjian

I left Meta a while ago, and Google was always the obvious next step, and I kept putting it off because Google sits underneath almost everything: my business email and calendar, the logins for 26 different tools, and 123 GB of family photos in a personal account.

What finally moved me was a forest in northern Finland. In March 2026, Google's Finnish subsidiary began clearing land at Muhos for an AI data centre, while the environmental impact assessment was still unfinished. By the time the regulator ordered the work to stop in October, about 330 hectares had gone at Muhos and nearly 200 more at a second site in Kajaani, and most of nine kilometres of drainage ditches had been dug into soil the regulator warned could make runoff more acidic. On 29 October, Oulu police opened a criminal investigation. Google's country manager apologised while maintaining that the work had been legal (ABC News, Tech Times).

Here is how I moved Sophie's Bureau from Google Workspace to Proton.

Why leave Google: broken promises, your data and the environment

For years, Google's code of conduct for its staff was built around the phrase "Don't be evil". In 2018 the company edited it down to a single mention, in the very last line of the document, and deleted the paragraph that explained what it meant (CNBC). In February 2025 it went further and removed the section of its AI principles listing the applications it would not pursue, which had included building AI for weapons and for surveillance (TechCrunch).

Google makes its money from advertising, which means from what it knows about us. In May 2025 it agreed to pay Texas $1.375 billion to settle lawsuits alleging it tracked people's locations even with Location History switched off, collected searches made in incognito mode and gathered voiceprints and facial geometry without consent (The Hacker News).

In August 2024 a US federal judge ruled that Google holds an illegal monopoly in search. The remedies ordered in September 2025 left Chrome and Android in Google's hands, banned exclusive default deals and required some search data to be shared with competitors (Gulf News). A second judge found in April 2025 that Google also illegally monopolised parts of the advertising technology market, and in September 2026 ordered six years of conduct rules rather than a break-up (The Star). In Europe, the Commission fined Google €2.95 billion in September 2025 for favouring its own ad exchange from at least 2014 (SCL).

Google's own environmental report for 2025, published in June 2026, shows greenhouse gas emissions up 18% in a single year (the largest annual rise it has reported) and electricity use up 37%, to roughly three and a half times its 2019 level. Water consumption rose 34% to 10.9 billion gallons, about 41 billion litres, most of it from data centres (Axios). It signed a record 12 gigawatts of clean energy deals that year, yet its share of carbon-free electricity stayed roughly flat.

I tell my clients to check who owns a tool and where their data lives before they choose it, and I was still paying Google every month for my own.

Why quitting Google is harder than it looks

Moving the email was the easy part. When I went through my account's security page, 26 services were set up to sign in with Google, from Cloudflare (which controls the domain my email runs on) to Canva, Notion, Make and Claude. Several others, including Zapier and Squarespace, had permission to read my Drive, Sheets or Calendar. Microsoft had access to my Gmail because I had once added it to Outlook, and SaneBox, which had been sorting my inbox, left behind dozens of labels. Any of them could have locked me out of something the day the Google account closed.

The best European alternatives to Gmail and Google Workspace

I chose Proton. It is based in Geneva, stores mail encrypted so that Proton itself cannot read it, and covers mail, calendar, contacts and file storage under one subscription with your own domain. Its import tool, Easy Switch, connects to Google and copies mail, contacts and calendar across without any downloading on your side.

It has drawbacks. To use Proton in a desktop mail program you need a small app called Proton Bridge running on your computer, and Proton says Bridge is "technically incompatible" with the new Outlook for Windows, because new Outlook fetches mail through Microsoft's servers rather than from your machine (Proton). I used new Outlook every day, so I switched to Proton's own desktop app instead. The calendar import is a one-off copy rather than a sync, so anything added to Google afterwards stays behind (Proton), and as far as I can tell, booking tools that read your calendar to block out busy times cannot connect to Proton Calendar. Gmail labels also come across as labels, and I wanted folders, which meant rebuilding the structure by hand.

In 2025 Proton began moving much of its physical infrastructure to Germany and Norway, citing proposed changes to Swiss surveillance rules that could require some services to identify users and keep their data (TechRadar). It is still the best fit for me.

Of the European alternatives, Tuta, in Germany, encrypts even more of each message but only works through its own apps. mailbox.org, also German, uses standard protocols, so it works with Outlook and ordinary calendar apps. Infomaniak's kSuite, from Geneva, is the closest thing to a full Workspace replacement, with mail, calendar, storage and online documents on your own domain, and the company says its data centres run without air conditioning and feed their heat into homes. Posteo costs €1 a month and is lovely for personal mail, but it does not allow your own domain, so it will not work for a business address.

How to move from Google Workspace to Proton, step by step

Step 1Find every app that uses "Sign in with Google"

In your Google Account, the Security page has a section listing third-party connections. Go through every service that uses "Sign in with Google" and give it an ordinary password and two-factor authentication, then sign out and back in to check it works. Do your domain first. If your DNS lives somewhere like Cloudflare and you sign in there with Google, closing the Google account could lock you out of the very records that deliver your email. Make a note of the apps that only have access to your data, too, because they need removing later rather than converting.

Step 2Point your domain's email to Proton (MX, SPF, DKIM and DMARC)

Proton walks you through the DNS records: one to prove you own the domain, then the mail records (MX, SPF, DKIM and DMARC). Add them at your DNS host, wait for Proton to show them as verified, and switch the MX records last. From that moment new mail arrives in Proton.

Step 3Import Gmail, contacts and Google Calendar with Easy Switch

Easy Switch imports mail and contacts from inside Proton Mail's settings. The calendar import is easy to miss. In Mail's settings the Google option only offers Gmail, and you have to open Proton Calendar's own settings to see calendars as a choice. If other people's calendars are shared into your Google account, import only your own, because an imported copy of someone else's calendar stops updating the moment you make it.

Step 4Turn Gmail labels into folders and clear your inbox

This took the longest. I had 795 messages in my inbox and around a hundred old labels, many of them left by SaneBox, which does not work with Proton. I archived everything older than 30 days, moved the remaining labels into folders with colours and emoji, and set up filters that file newsletters into subfolders and receipts by supplier. I kept a couple of newsletters I actually read arriving in the inbox. Deleting a label in Proton does not delete its emails.

Step 5The Proton settings to change on day one

Set your own domain address as the default, so it is the one Proton picks when you write. Check the calendar's time zone, and turn off auto-detect if your computer runs on a different one (mine is on UK time while I live and work in France). If you work across countries, add a secondary time zone. Proton also adds "Sent with Proton Mail" to every email until you switch it off under Identity and addresses, which is also where your signature goes.

Step 6Proton Mail on your desktop: the app, Bridge and Outlook

The Proton Mail desktop app is the simplest route and needs no setup. If you prefer a traditional mail program, install Proton Bridge and use classic Outlook, Apple Mail or Thunderbird, which is free, open source and made by the non-profit Mozilla Foundation. New Outlook will not work.

Step 7Decide what to keep from Google Drive

Google Docs, Sheets and Slides only exist inside Google Drive. If you have kept everything else on your computer or another cloud, these are the files most likely to be missed, so download any you still need. Folders you have shared with clients will stop working when the account closes, which only matters if someone still uses them. In the end I kept one folder of family photos, because everything else was years old.

Step 8Delete your Google Workspace account safely

Before deleting Workspace, check anything that reads your Google Calendar, especially booking tools, and any automations that write to Sheets or Drive. Check you can sign into everything from step 1 without Google. Disconnect Google from any AI tools you have linked to it. Once the account is deleted, remove Google's leftover records from your DNS, including its entry in your SPF record.

How to export Google Photos to Proton Drive

I have not moved my photos yet. They sit in my personal Google account rather than the business one, all 123 GB of them, which is far more than my current Proton storage, so this step waits until I upgrade.

Google's export tool is Takeout. Click Deselect all, tick only Google Photos, and ask for the download link by email. Proton suggests choosing the largest file size Takeout offers, because smaller archives can scatter photos from the same year across different folders. Large libraries take a while to prepare, and the download link only lasts a week, so set aside time to download every part once the email arrives.

Proton Drive can then import the unzipped export. Its Windows desktop app has a Google Photos import that rebuilds your albums from the folder structure, while the web app simply adds everything to the photo timeline (Proton). A Mac version was still listed as coming soon when I checked. I will add what I learn here once mine is done.

What to do with a personal Gmail address

A Gmail address cannot move, because it belongs to Google. I am keeping my personal Gmail for now and shrinking it gradually. Proton can pull Gmail into the same inbox (it calls this Connected emails), and each time something useful arrives at the old address I change that account to my Proton one. When the old address goes quiet and the photos are safely out, I will delete it. Before you do the same, check whether an Android phone, past purchases or any sign-ins depend on that Google account, because they go with it.

Life after Google Workspace

My business no longer runs on Google. It took a weekend, most of it spent on the inbox and the logins rather than the email itself, and the new setup is tidier than the one it replaced. My client emails, calendar and contacts now sit with a company paid by subscription, which stores my mail encrypted and cannot read it. None of it is there any more for Google to build an advertising profile from or feed into its AI. Proton has compromises of its own, and I have still swapped one company's servers for another's. The 123 GB of family photos are the last thing left, and they move as soon as I upgrade my Proton storage.

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