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.
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.
Existing shared drives will have storage limits implemented.
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.)
>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.
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.
Shared Drives will get a storage limit. New shared drives will need to be requested via an online request form and approval process.
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:
Your email will not be affected, and you can still send and receive emails.
Until you reduce the amount of storage in your account to below your quota amount:
You cannot sync or upload additional photos or videos.
When a shared drive approaches its storage limit, some functionalities in that specific drive will be affected:
Users nearing or over their storage limit will see banner notifications when logging into their UMD Google Workspace accounts in a web browser.
Individual faculty/staff Google Workspace storage limits can be increased to 512 GB with manager approval and business justification. Review the Google Drive Storage Limits and Increase Request for details.
To request an increase for a shared drive, use the UMD Google Workspace Team Drive Quota Increase Request form.
If you have any questions about the upcoming changes, contact the IT Service Desk.