Plan your exit from Google or Google Workspace
Wanting to leave Google Workspace because of the pain in the ass Gemini, or the fact that Google doesn't care about your privacy, or the law? Here's what you need to consider before you make that leap.
Original Article: February 13, 2025
Last Updated: August 8, 2026
Full disclosure, I'm an affiliate for Google Workspace. And if you're starting out, privacy isn't a concern, you enjoy "AI" built into things, or you need the convenience or price tag of everything in one place... then Google Workspace is a great option for you.
But for some folks, it's not worth it any more. (It wasn't for me in 2025, but nearly two years later, I've had to go back.)
You have to make this decision for yourself and really reflect on a number of things, not least of which what you will use to replace the myriad of tools Google Workspace offers.
This is not easy. It is not cheap. It takes a lot of time and effort.
Workspace has email, calendars, documents, slides, spreadsheets, virtual meeting space, websites, groups, chats, and so much more. It is truly a convenient all in one place for your life or business.
Leaving Google Workspace is not a simple or affordable choice to make and I want to be clear about this up front. It takes a lot of privilege to leave such a convenient ecosystem: financial, time, capacity, ability, etc.
Whether this is by design and some huge tech-data-privacy-conspiracy to trap the tired, the financially constrained, and the overwhelmed in an ecosystem that preys upon them is another topic for this Aquarius sun to undertake at a later date.
I digress. But it is important to start paying attention to just where Google Workspace is being utilized in your life before you make the decision to upend everything.
Of the more than dozen "apps" within Google Workspace, what are you using and how are you using them? It's okay if you're not sure! I wasn't aware of how much I was utilizing Google Sign-in and that was a wake up call to how much I was relying on convenience vs. protecting my data with a password manager.
The importance to the "how do you use these tools" leads to what your alternative options might be. There are very few, if any, 1:1 replacements for something within the Google Workspace ecosystem.
Or, if there is, it often integrates or relies on an integration with Google (looking at you scheduling tools)
Not all options work together and most of them carry a cost: either financially, a learning curve, or risks of them selling to private equity vultures, forcing you to find alternatives. Again.
So then you have to start answering other questions:
- What is it that made you choose Google Workspace in the beginning? This tells us what you initially valued in the purchase.
- Why are you wanting to leave now? This tells us what you value now.
And you may as well take it to the next level:
- Will you keep a Google account in any fashion? This decision tells us how you will continue to intentionally stay in the eco system.
- What other aspects of Google do you want to get away from? This tells us just how much you want to "get away."
Leaving Google can be a bit like trying to check out of Hotel California.
"You can check-out any time you like, but you can never leave!" - Hotel California by The Eagles
I want you to build the awareness of how much you rely on Google before you begin, because so many people I've talked with don't realize just how much they use or rely on the web of Google products. And when you start moving away from them things get... well, they become a lot less easy.
You start to see just how convenient Google was. You start to wonder if this was a good idea. You have to do a values check before proceeding.
Because a switch actually requires a lot more "more" in the beginning. More effort, more time, tools, money, accounts, realizations, and more energy requirements of yourself.
From a basic tech aspect, there are multitudes of alternatives to each of the tools offered by Google and Google Workspace. But from a life, business, values, and reality aspect: it's not going to be simple and straightforward.
It requires re-training your brain. Your habits. Your workflows. And, it may even require changing how you operate your life or business entirely. Entire processes will change within your life or business.
Leaving Google Workspace is an investment in diversifying the way you utilize the internet, grow your business, and even your understanding of your own values.
And along the way you will have to compromise on something.
How others have left Big Tech
As the conversation in May 2026 has turned to a lot of everyone leaving Google because of their all in on AI over traditional search, here's some other folks that have written about leaving Google and Big Tech in general.
Worth your time to read:
Daniel Prindii
Andrea Reeves
Have you left Google and other Big Tech? Drop me a line. I'd love to read any blog posts you have about your experience.
Alternative Tools to Google Workspace
- Do you need a way to send and receive basic email and use your domain? Proton, Namecheap or Zoho could do the trick.
- Do you rely on meeting scheduling in Calendar? Proton Calendar may be an option for you. (Update 2026: they've added scheduling and video conferencing) Cal.com is a favorite option.
- Do you need a Meet alternative? There's still Zoom or one of my favorites: Whereby (Update 2026: Proton now has a Meet alternative)
- Do you lean on the ecosystem of Sheets? Notion might work for you. Airtable or ClickUp could do it too. LibreOffice or Grist might be better bets.
- Do you use Docs to write? ProtonDocs, Obsidian, Notion, iA Writer, Scrivener, LibreOffice are all great alternatives
- Do you use Docs to collaborate on documents with clients? Elipsis might work (it's made for authors), Paper by Dropbox is another option
- Do you rely on Chat for communications? Signal is my go to
- Do you rely on Drive for Photo storage? Anyone remember Flickr? DropBox? OneDrive?
- Do you need the space of Drive? Old fashioned portable hard drives, DropBox, ProtonDrive, and OneDrive
- Analytics? I love Fathom Analytics
- Fonts? Download them.
- Browsers? I use Brave and Firefox, but am eyeing Vivaldi
- Search engines? Ecosia, Brave, udm14, DuckDuckGo
- Maps? Good old Mapquest
