GoDaddy email: what happens when you leave GoDaddy

Your GoDaddy email does not move when your domain moves. The mailbox, whether it is Microsoft 365 sold by GoDaddy or GoDaddy's own Professional Email, is a separate subscription that stays at GoDaddy and keeps billing until you cancel it. What the domain move can break is the delivery: the records that tell the internet where to send your mail have to exist wherever your domain's settings live next. Get the order right and nobody notices the switch.

First, find out what kind of email you have

Microsoft 365 from GoDaddy. Outlook mailboxes, often labelled Email Essentials, Email Plus or a similar plan name. You sign in through GoDaddy's email page, and the mail lives in Microsoft's system, but GoDaddy is the seller and runs the account behind it.
Professional Email. GoDaddy's own simpler mailbox, read in a webmail page or set up on your phone.
Email forwarding that came with the domain. No mailbox at all: mail sent to your business address is forwarded to a Gmail or other personal inbox.
Nothing. Your email is elsewhere, for example Google Workspace or a mailbox at your web host, and GoDaddy only holds the domain.

Write down which one it is and how many mailboxes you pay for. The rest of this guide depends on it.

What a domain transfer changes, and what it does not

Moving the domain to another registrar does three things to email:

The mailbox stays at GoDaddy. The subscription, the stored messages and the billing do not leave with the domain.
The DNS records may stop answering. DNS is the address book for your domain. Among its entries are the MX records, which say which server receives your mail, plus a few others that help your messages avoid spam folders. If GoDaddy held your DNS, those records go quiet when the domain leaves, unless they have been set up again somewhere else first.
Forwarding stops. Forwarding that came free with a GoDaddy domain ends when the domain leaves GoDaddy.

So the real job is not "moving email" but making sure the address book points to the mailbox at every moment. MX records: why changing your website can break email explains the mechanics in plain words.

Option 1: keep the GoDaddy mailbox

This is the least work, and often the right choice if your email works and you are happy with the price.

In GoDaddy, open the domain's DNS page and take screenshots of every record, especially those of type MX, TXT and CNAME.
At the new registrar or DNS service, recreate those records exactly, before the domain moves.
Move the domain's nameservers to the new service, then send test messages both ways.
Start the domain transfer only after mail has worked for a day on the new DNS.

Keep the email subscription's auto-renew on. Your mailbox now lives at GoDaddy while the domain lives elsewhere, which is perfectly normal; just keep both bills in your records.

Option 2: move Microsoft 365 away from GoDaddy

If your mailbox is Microsoft 365 from GoDaddy, GoDaddy describes a process to move the whole Microsoft account to Microsoft directly or to another reseller. A few points from GoDaddy's own help on it are worth knowing before you decide:

It moves the whole organization, every mailbox, not one at a time, and you cannot come back to GoDaddy afterward.
The licenses you bought through GoDaddy do not carry over. You buy new ones from Microsoft or the new reseller.
Your mailboxes at GoDaddy must stay active during the move, so do not delete them or let them lapse first.
Moving the email does not detach your domain from the Microsoft account. It stays attached there.

Because of those rules, the usual order is: move the email first, check every mailbox works with the new license, then move the domain. Doing both at once doubles the places something can go wrong. Microsoft 365 email and your website domain covers how Microsoft 365 and your website share one domain once you are settled.

Option 3: switch to a different mail service

Some owners take the chance to move to Google Workspace or another provider. That is a real migration: new mailboxes, old messages copied across, phones and computers set up again. Plan it as its own project.

Set up the new service and its mailboxes first, without changing MX records.
Copy old mail across with the new provider's import tool, or ask them how.
Switch the MX and related records to the new provider on a quiet day.
Keep the GoDaddy mailboxes running for a few weeks so nothing in flight is lost, then cancel them.

Moving your business email to a new provider goes through this step by step.

If you only had forwarding

Forwarding is the easiest case and the easiest to forget. Before the domain leaves, set up forwarding at the new registrar, or at a mail service, to the same personal inbox. Then send a test to your business address and see it arrive. Email forwarding vs a real mailbox helps if you are wondering whether it is time for a proper mailbox.

Common mistakes

Cancelling the email at GoDaddy along with everything else. Old messages can be deleted when a subscription ends. Download or move them first.
Forgetting the TXT records. Mail arrives but your outgoing messages start landing in spam, because the records that vouch for your sender address were not copied.
Changing the email password during the move. Phones then fail to sign in and it looks like the move broke mail.
Doing it on a Monday morning. Pick a quiet afternoon when a delay of an hour would not matter.

What to do this week

Write down which email product you have at GoDaddy and how many mailboxes.
Screenshot the domain's DNS records, every page.
Decide: keep the GoDaddy mailbox, move Microsoft 365, or switch providers.
If you are moving the email, do it first and the domain second.
Send test messages in both directions after each step.

Your website can change without email being touched at all. If a new site is the bigger goal, you can see your site rebuilt first and leave your mailbox exactly where it is while you decide.