Why sole traders leave (without it being a manifesto)
Most Irish sole traders we speak to are not leaving Google Workspace because they read a blog post about surveillance capitalism. They leave because the €6–12 per user per month adds up when it is just them, because they want @theirname.ie to sit on a registrar they already pay, or because they are tired of admin consoles that assume a twenty-person company. Sometimes Proton, Fastmail, or mailbox.org is the destination; sometimes it is email on the same .ie domain at Blacknight, Register365, LetsHost, or another Irish shop they can ring. The technical job is the same: copy mail, move MX, do not lose Sent items, and tell your accountant nothing scary happened.
Your .ie domain is the centre of gravity
If you already have @yourbusiness.ie on Workspace, you own the hard part. The IEDR rules mean the domain is tied to a real Irish connection; keep your registrar login in a password manager, not in a notebook in the van. Export DNS or take screenshots before you touch MX. A sole trader’s world runs on PDF invoices, ROS correspondence, and the odd Revenue email — those messages must land in the new mailbox after cutover, not bounce for a weekend because someone typed aspmx wrong.
If you are still on @gmail.com for business, you are not “leaving Workspace” — you are buying a domain and starting professional mail. Budget €15–25 per year for the domain plus hosting; that is often cheaper than Workspace within a year for one person.
IMAP migration before MX — non-negotiable
The step that saves evenings is IMAP to IMAP copy into an empty mailbox at the new host, while Google still receives mail. Use Thunderbird, Apple Mail, or a migration tool the new provider offers. Pull Inbox, Sent, and the folders you actually use before you touch MX. A ten-year sole trader account can be tens of gigabytes; plan background sync over a week on Ethernet, not a single Friday on café Wi‑Fi.
Google Takeout is a safety net, not the primary path for day-to-day mail you still need threaded in the client. After copy, compare message counts per folder. Off by a few on Spam is fine; off by hundreds in Sent is not.
MX on Blacknight, Register365, and the rest
When mail is copied and you are ready, change MX to what the new host publishes — copy-paste from their panel, never from memory. Irish registrars usually apply DNS quickly, but TTL and mobile resolver caches on Three, Vodafone, or Eir can mean some senders still hit Google for hours. Lower TTL a day ahead if your registrar allows it.
Typical pattern: priority 10 (or whatever they specify) to mail.yourhost.ie, plus SPF and DKIM records they give you. DMARC can wait until mail flows, but add it within the first week so spoofing is harder. If you use Squarespace or Wix for the website, do not confuse website DNS with mail DNS — we have seen MX edited in the wrong panel more than once.
Calendars, contacts, and the phone in your pocket
Export contacts as vCard before you delete anything. On iPhone, check which account is the default for contacts after migration — split brains between Google and iCloud are common. Google Calendar can move by export/import or CalDAV sync; for a sole trader, pick one calendar as source of truth for new appointments the day MX moves. Old calendar can stay read-only for a quarter if you are nervous about double bookings.
Revenue, ROS, and “will my accountant kill me?”
Revenue does not care which mailbox hosts your email as long as you can receive ROS and agent correspondence and you keep records you are already required to keep. Changing from Google to Irish hosting is not a tax event. Tell your accountant you changed email so they update their address book; if you use an agent, confirm they still have authority and that notifications arrive. Minimal drama, minimal paperwork — the implications are operational, not fiscal.
What does matter: if you lose two-factor codes tied only to the old Google account, or if Drive shared links were how you sent VAT backups. Export what you need from Drive before you cancel Workspace, not the day the subscription ends.
Timelines that match reality
Honest timeline for one person, one mailbox, under 50 GB: several days of IMAP sync, a cutover evening for MX, and 48 hours of watching for stragglers. Over 100 GB or heavy Shared drives habits: add a week. Do not schedule MX change the same night you are filing a VAT return unless you enjoy risk.
Fixed-price migration is something we offer when you want the copy verified, DNS set, and phones checked — no hourly surprise. Scope is the mailbox and DNS, not reorganising your entire business in the cloud.
After Google: habits that stick
Update email on your website, Google Business Profile, LinkedIn, and the footer on invoice templates. Set up autoresponder on the old Google mailbox for thirty days if you keep a cheap forwarding slot, or forward from Google temporarily if your plan allows — read the terms so you do not violate storage limits. Test send and receive from the new host to Gmail, Outlook, and your phone on mobile data, not just home Wi‑Fi.
If the thought of MX and IMAP in one evening is why you have stayed on Workspace, that is fair. Get a quote — the work is unglamorous, but it is exactly the sort of unglamorous we like.