TL;DR
- Personal G Suite free users will not need to give up their custom domains or services anymore.
- Admins will need to agree to Google’s new terms, but then they can continue to operate as normal.
- This only applies to domains with fewer than 10 users and only to people, not businesses.
Earlier this year, Google made a distressing announcement. The company said it would rebrand G Suite as Google Workspace and move all accounts to paid tiers. This was especially upsetting to legacy users who still use G Suite as a way to administrate family accounts.
However, Google has finally acquiesced to pressure and will not fully go through this change (via 9to5Google). Instead, legacy G Suite free users who meet a small set of criteria can continue to use the service without cost. Additionally, these users will not need to forego their custom domains.
The criteria to keep your current setup are as follows:
- You must choose to stay within the legacy G Suite free tier before June 27, 2022.
- Your G Suite account(s) must be strictly for non-business use.
- You must administrate fewer than 10 users.
Assuming you meet those qualifications, you can continue using G Suite as normal. All your accounts will remain unchanged; you’ll retain all your data and apps and even keep your custom domain name, if any.
However, if you don’t meet those criteria, you will need to upgrade to a paid Google Workspace plan. You will automatically switch to the most appropriate plan in that case. You will also switch to a paid plan if you don’t inform Google that you’d like to stay on the G Suite free plan.
To keep your G Suite as it is, head to your Admin Console and follow the instructions you find there.
