The University is switching to Microsoft as the primary university-wide platform for collaboration and productivity tools, reducing the use of Google services on campus. This change aims to provide a consistent experience, enhance security and privacy, and manage costs more effectively.
Knoxville-area Campus and Institutes to minimize Google services usage
Faculty and Staff: Use Microsoft Outlook for email and calendaring:
Starting in June 2025, OIT will migrate all existing faculty and staff Gmail accounts to Outlook. Emails and calendars will be copied from Google to Outlook during the migration.
- June – July 2025: Staff email migrations. If you currently use Gmail, please monitor your university email over the summer, as OIT will send important information about the transition.
- September – November 2025: Faculty email migrations
By the end of the Fall 2025 semester, all faculty and staff email services, including mail, calendar, and contacts, will be hosted on Microsoft Outlook.
Changes to Google Drive: While Google Drive and Forms will remain available to faculty, staff, and students, OIT will significantly reduce the amount of available storage.
- OIT will help faculty and staff move their files from Drive to OneDrive and Teams.
- If your department wants assistance transitioning to OneDrive, please contact us online, and our project team will contact you to discuss the timeline.
Frequently Asked Questions
When will I get access to the Microsoft services?
All faculty, staff, and students have access to Microsoft services. Go to https://office.com to get started. You can save files to your OneDrive, use the online web apps to create new documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, create Teams for collaboration, create Surveys to collect information, and more.
Will you move my email, calendar, and contacts?
- Faculty/Staff: Yes, if you use Gmail for your UT email account, OIT will migrate your email to Outlook.
- Students: Students are not currently required to move to Outlook; however, if you want to move from Gmail to Outlook, contact OIT online to get started.
Is there anything I need to know about the Gmail migration to Outlook?
During the migration, OIT will copy your email and calendar from Gmail to Outlook. Here are a few limitations to the migration:
Please note that you will see duplicate emails in Outlook due to differences between the two systems and how messages are routed. Unfortunately, this is expected and will need to be cleaned up manually.
| Data type |
Limitations |
| Mail |
Vacation settings, Automatic reply settings |
| Meeting rooms |
Room bookings won't be migrated |
| Calendar |
Shared calendars and event colors won't be migrated |
| Contacts |
A maximum of three email addresses per contact are migrated over |
| Contacts |
Gmail tags, contact URLs, and custom tags won't be |
Will you move my Google Drive files?
- Faculty and Staff: If you wish to migrate from Google to Microsoft, submit a request online.
- Students: If you wish to start using Microsoft instead of Google, you can use Google Takeout to export your Google Drive and import it into your UT OneDrive account.
Where can I learn more about Microsoft applications?