Split delivery refers to the simultaneous transmission of emails to two different mail systems under the same domain. This lets you choose whether to send an incoming message to the recipient’s Gmail inbox or a legacy system inbox.

If some of your users use Gmail but others use a different mail system, this technique works effectively. For specific email types, such as emails sent to the legal department, you might need to apply particular handling.

Lastly, this approach also works well if you want to conduct a test with a small group of users while switching from a legacy mail server to Gmail.

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Google Workspace (previously known as G Suite) and business email

Split delivery as well as Dual delivery are now cutting-edge features of Google Workspace. As the name suggests, Split Delivery enables you to divide the entire mail delivery operation of a single domain across two distinct servers.

Additionally, according to this logic, some IDs for a domain will operate on Google as the primary server and some IDs will run on other secondary servers.

How Split Delivery and Dual Delivery works

Set up dual delivery if you need to deliver mail from your company to two or more inboxes. Dual delivery involves sending messages to both a Gmail inbox and an inbox that is not Gmail, such as Microsoft Exchange or an archiving server.

Incoming mail is sent to a primary mail server first when dual delivery is used. Each message is delivered by the primary server to its corresponding inboxes before being forwarded to a secondary mail server. The messages are delivered to the secondary server’s inboxes by the secondary server.

The mail server listed in the MX records for your public domain is the primary server.

Your legacy mail server or Gmail can serve as the main server. Usually, we advise utilising Gmail as the main server. For a pilot or migration to Gmail, you might use your legacy server as the primary server. Update your mail to deliver solely to Gmail after the pilot is over and you’re ready to migrate everyone over.

How to setup dual and split delivery with Gmail as a primary server

1. Add the route for the legacy server if you haven’t already.

2. Start by signing in, choosing your organisation, opening the Routing setting, and adding a description for the new setting.

3. Choose Inbound, Internal-receiving, or Both if you want email messages to be affected.

4. If you want the rule to just apply to particular envelope senders and recipients, set up an envelope filter. By providing the user’s email address, you can pick a single recipient. Groups can also be specified.

5. Choose Modify message under For the above types of messages.

6. Click Add to add the secondary mail route after selecting Add more recipients under Also deliver to.

7. Select Advanced by clicking the Down arrow under Recipients.

8. Select Change route.

9. Choose the secondary mail route from the list.

10. Click Save.

11. Add extra settings as necessary.

12. Save the settings.

How to setup dual delivery using a legacy server as the primary server

If you must use your legacy server as your primary server for some reason, select this option. Otherwise, for dual distribution, we advise utilising Gmail as your main server.

Select one of the following approaches to make your legacy server the main server:

• Set up server-based forwarding to Google from your legacy server (recommended).
• Forward to a test domain alias if your legacy server does not allow server-based forwarding.

Remember: don’t update your MX records to Google if you run your legacy server as your primary server.

Interested in Migrating to Google Workspace?

Onsite Helper can help you Migrate to Google Workspace

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