Can you still migrate from Universal Analytics to GA4?

The definitive end of Universal Analytics

Universal Analytics stopped collecting data on July 1, 2023 for standard properties and July 1, 2024 for 360 properties. Since July 2024, access to Universal Analytics interfaces and APIs has been cut off. It is therefore no longer possible to “migrate” in the traditional sense, meaning transferring a UA configuration to GA4 via Google’s migration assistant.

If you do not yet have a GA4 property in place, the process involves creating a new property from scratch. There is no historical data to automatically import: GA4 and UA rely on fundamentally different data models (sessions vs events), making any direct data migration impossible.

Recovering UA historical data

If you planned ahead, your UA data was exported before shutdown via the Reporting API, BigQuery exports, or manual CSV downloads. If not, that data is permanently lost. Google had warned with several months of notice.

For organizations that have exports, this historical data can be stored in BigQuery and viewed via Looker Studio to maintain a longitudinal view. However, be careful: comparing UA and GA4 metrics directly is meaningless due to counting differences (sessions, users, bounce rate vs engagement rate).

Starting fresh with GA4

The priority is to set up a solid and complete GA4 configuration. Define your key events, configure Consent Mode v2, structure your data layer, and activate the BigQuery export now to stop losing raw data. Every day without GA4 collection is a day of lost data. Our GA4 and GTM setup service can help you get started.