Google will eliminate free, unlimited storage in Gmail, Drive, Google Photos, and Shared Drives for its higher education clients. This requires some changes to every university-managed Google Workspace account. Changes will affect UMD Google accounts (for faculty, staff, and graduate students) and TERPmail accounts (for undergraduate students and alums). DIT is working to maintain service quality, minimize disruption, and contain costs while addressing immediate storage needs and planning for the future.
What will change?
- Account Limits - Every existing and new UMD Google account will have a storage limit (quota). For faculty and staff, there will be options for those who require and qualify for additional storage.
- Shared Drive Limits - Existing shared drives will have storage limits implemented.
How will this affect individual UMD faculty, staff, and current student accounts?
On March 27, 2024, UMD will apply storage limits to all UMD Google and TERPmail Google Workspace accounts. (The total storage includes Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos.)
Storage limits:
- Faculty and staff: 256 GB
- Current students: 256 GB
- Alumni accounts: 15 GB
Approximately 99% of the UMD community falls within the new storage limit of 256 GB and can continue using UMD Google Workspace accounts as usual while being advised to monitor their storage usage. You can check your storage usage at any time.
The remaining 1% of UMD users are near or above 256 GB and will be given a few months to reduce their space usage. The Division of IT will contact them directly with more details and support them in the coming months as they reduce their Google Workspace storage and adapt to storage alternatives.
How will this affect UMD alumni accounts?
Alumni accounts will be limited to 15 GB of storage space (the same as free Google accounts). Any current alumni whose accounts exceed the storage limit will be notified and given time to reduce their space usage.
Upon graduating, new alumni using more than 15 GB of storage space will have about a year to reduce their storage usage. If they do not, storage space will be reclaimed. Items in Google Drive and Google Photos will be deleted first. Email messages will be deleted if the account is still over the limit. The Division of IT will send notifications to account owners before deleting data.
How will this affect users of UMD-managed shared drives?
Shared Drives will get a storage limit. New shared drives will need to be requested via an online request form and approval process.
What happens if I go over my Google storage quota?
Individual Account
When you reach the storage limit on your Google account, your access to services such as Drive, Gmail, and Photos will be affected in the following ways:
- Gmail: Your email will not be affected, and you can still send and receive emails.
- My Drive: Until you reduce the amount of storage in your account to below your quota amount:
- You cannot sync or upload new files.
- You cannot create new Google file types such as Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings, Forms, Jamboards, etc.
- You can’t record new meetings in Google Meet.
- Neither you nor anyone else (i.e., collaborators shared on the file) will be able to edit the files you own.
- Collaborators cannot add to or edit files in affected folder structures where you own the parent/root level folder. (For example, someone else owns files in a folder you own. If your storage is full, the other person cannot edit their owned files in your folder.)
- Google Forms in your account cannot accept additional responses.
- Syncs stop between your computer's Google Drive for desktop folder and My Drive.
- Photos: You cannot sync or upload additional photos or videos.
Shared Drive
When a shared drive approaches its storage limit, some functionalities in that specific drive will be affected:
- No members or collaborators can move, create, upload, or copy content (including Google file types) into the shared drive when the storage is full or if the item they are trying to move/create/upload/copy will cause the storage to exceed the limit.
- All members and collaborators can still view, comment, and edit (depending on their permission level) existing files and folders within the shared drive.
- You will need to reduce the amount of storage in the shared drive before full functionality will be restored and warning banners disappear.
Warning Notifications
Users nearing or over their storage limit will see banner notifications when logging into their UMD Google Workspace accounts in a web browser.
Is there an option to increase my Google Workspace storage limit?
Individual faculty/staff Google Workspace storage limits can be increased to 512 GB with manager approval and business justification. Please review this support article for details: Google Drive Storage Limits and Increase Request.
To request an increase for a shared drive, please use the UMD Google Workspace Team Drive Quota Increase Request.
Questions?
If you have any questions about the upcoming changes, please contact the IT Service Desk.