Managing storage in your UD Google and M365 accounts

Both Google and Microsoft have announced storage limits for all Google Workspace and M365 customers. All UD members must take steps to stay within storage limits in their Google and M365 accounts. Effective data management benefits UD and members of the UD Community by:

  • Avoiding additional storage costs
  • Preventing unexpected data loss
  • Helping to keep accounts and data secure
  • Allowing for effective and efficient workflows
  • Reducing UD’s carbon footprint

Contents

Google and M365 accounts at UD

Faculty, staff, and students are assigned individual M365 and Google Workspace accounts that have a limited storage space. Depending on your status after leaving UD, you may be permitted to keep your Google UD account (storage limit reductions may apply), but your M365 account will be removed. 

Data stored in these M365 and Google Workspace entities count towards your individual storage limit.

M365

Google Workspace

Individual Microsoft Exchange accounts

GMail, calendar, and contacts

Microsoft OneDrive

Some Google Photos. UD disabled Google Photos starting on October 1, 2024. Photos that remain in your account continue to count against your storage even though you cannot access them. Review your options.
 

My Drive documents, including those that you share

UD also has an institutional storage limit for M365 and Google Workspace. Shared entities in M365 and Google Workspace do not count towards individual storage limits, but they do count towards UD's institutional storage limit, have been assigned storage limits, and must be managed.

M365

Google Workspace

Exchange shared and resource mailboxes

Google shared drives

Team, SharePoint, and Bookings sites

Google sites

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Minimize your data storage in Google and M365

  • Media files take up lots of space. Avoid storing video, music, and image files in M365 or Google Workspace, including Google photos. 
  • When possible, zip up large numbers of files, both to reduce total storage size and the total number of files that will be stored.
  • Use compression utilities to reduce the size of large files.
  • Do not set up personally owned devices that require a Google account login (such as Chromebooks and Android phones) with your @udel.edu account as the sole account on the device. Do not allow your @udel.edu account to sync or as a backup account in any app.
  • On personal macOS and iOS devices, do not use your @udel.edu as the Apple ID used to set up your device, because doing so may increase data usage.
  • On personally owned Windows computers, do not set your @udel.edu as the sole account on your computer, because this may increase your data usage, and you will lose access to the device when you leave UD.
  • Do not use Google Drive for data backups.If you use the Google Drive desktop client, do not add additional files and folders on your computer to Google Drive. 
    • Check for 3rd party apps that may back up your device to UD Google Drive.
    • Use appropriate methods to back up your devices
      • UD owned computers
      • If you run a server that you currently backup to Google Workspace or M365, contact the IT Support Center for options. 
  • Stop apps that store personal information, or apps that are connected to personal accounts from synchronizing with your Google and M365 accounts.
  • In M365, use archiving solutions and retention policies when available, to help manage your storage usage.
  • Manage your mailbox size in GMail and Exchange email. 
    • Locate and delete large email messages.
    • Delete messages with attachments that have been saved to your computer.
    • Use online archives and retention policies in Exchange email, if applicable. You can also drag and drop messages to your online archive.
    • Use Microsoft and Google native mobile apps (Outlook and Gmail) to manage your email. Other apps are not supported and do no have the email management features as the native apps.

Store data appropriately

  • Only store work and class related data in your UD M365 and Google Workspace accounts. 
  • Store personal, non-UD data in non-UD accounts. Move personal data to external accounts. Free Microsoft and Google accounts are available.
  • Do not store shared data in individual accounts. Instead, store shared data in Google shared drives, Microsoft Team sites, and SharePoint sites.
    • If someone has shared data from their individual account and leaves UD, permissions to move the files must be obtained before the data can be transferred. Transfer of ownership is not guaranteed. 

Share your data the right way

Follow proper sharing practices to minimize data loss and loss of data access.
  • Store shared data in Shared drives (Google) or in Teams or SharePoint sites (M365).
  • Share files (presentations, spreadsheets, etc.) by storing them in a shared storage location and emailing the link. Emailing attachments makes multiple copies of the same file.
  • In a shared drive, do not add a shortcut to files that are in someone's individual Google account.
  • Do not share data to ‘anyone with this link’ (Microsoft) or ‘Anyone with the link’ (Google) unless you expect this information to be publicly available.
  • Do not allow external accounts to own or manage data that “belongs” to the University of Delaware.
  • UD data should only be shared from UD accounts. 
  • If someone has an @udel.edu email address and also has external email accounts, UD data should only be shared with that person's @udel.edu account.
  • Give people only the level of access that is needed. For example, do not assign manager permissions to someone who only needs to edit documents. Do not assign editor permissions to someone who only needs to view documents. Granting people more permissions than necessary can easily lead to unexpected and non-recoverable data loss.
  • Transfer ownership/management of shared data prior to leaving UD, or as appropriate when changing UD affiliation or job positions. 
  • When granting edit access to shared data, consider turning off that person’s ability to share the data. This will prevent your data from being inappropriately shared.
  • For individuals and groups collaborating with non-UD individuals and groups, the party that owns the data should store the data.

Continually monitor your data storage

  • Google
    • You can monitor your individual storage by going to http://gdocs.udel.edu. Click Storage from the navigation panel.
    • To monitor storage for a shared Google drive, click the shared drive icon. Then click view details (the circle with an i). The drive details will show in the right panel. 
Storage use indicator shows amount of available storage being used.

  • If you have a lot of data stored in GMail, we recommend that you delete large messages first:

    • Log in to your Gmail account on a computer.
    • In the search box at the top of the page, type "size: " (without the quotes) followed by a size in bytes, kilobytes, megabytes, or gigabytes. For example, to find all emails that are larger than 10 MB, type "size:10MB" (without the quotes) into the search box.
    • Click the "Search" button or press "Enter" on your keyboard. Gmail will display all emails that match your search criteria.
    • You can sort the results by clicking on the "Sort by" drop-down menu at the top of the page and selecting "Size."
    • You can then delete any large emails that you no longer need or download attachments to your computer and delete the emails to free up space in your Gmail account.
  • If you have data in Google photos:
    • The University of Delaware disabled Google Photos starting on October 1, 2024. Notifications were sent prior to this action. Photos that are in your account after Photos has been disabled continue to count against your storage even though you cannot access them. If you want to move and delete your photos, you can request that Google Photos be temporarily enabled by using the Data Storage Project Questions request form. 
    • If you have been granted temporary access to the photos app, you can use Google Partner Sharing to share and transfer your photos to a personal Google account. If you do this, make sure to copy the files to your personal account after you share them. If you're using your UD Google account to backup personal photos, export your photos and disable photo sync from your mobile device. Once you have exported your photos, delete all contents from the Photos app. We also recommend that you prevent Google photos from backing up to your UD Google account. 
    • We have found an extension called Photospurge, that makes photo deletion easy.  If you do use this tool, you do so at your own risk.
    • You will still need to empty the trash from Google photos to reclaim space in your account.
 
  • M365
    • To check your Exchange account storage, go to https://outlook.office.com. Click settings (wheel icon) then General, and then Storage.
    • To check storage for Teams and SharePoint sites, type this line in a web browser: https://udwinprod.sharepoint.com/sites/<TEAM NAME>/_layouts/15/storman.aspx. You must substitute the name of your Team or SharePoint site for <TEAM NAME> in the link. 
      • If your Team site name has a space, you may need to remove the spaces from the link before it will open. For example, if your Team site is called Team-Super Cool Site, change https://udwinprod.sharepoint.com/sites/Team-Super Cool Site/_layouts/15/storman.aspx to: 
        https://udwinprod.sharepoint.com/sites/Team-SuperCoolSite/_layouts/15/storman.aspx
    • To check OneDrive usage, type this line in a web browser: https://udwinprod-my.sharepoint.com/personal/<YOURALPHANAME>_udel_edu/_layouts/15/storman.aspx - you must substitute your username for YOURALPHANAME. For example, personab@udel.edu would type https://udwinprod-my.sharepoint.com/personal/personab_udel_edu/_layouts/15/storman.aspx.
      Alternatively, you can log in to https://office.com. Then click OneDrive from the waffle menu (dots icon). Select the OneDrive icon. Click on the gear icon. Then click OneDrive settings - More Settings - Storage Metrics.
 

Clean up your UD Google and M365 accounts

  • Delete data you no longer need.
  • Delete or move personal data from UD accounts.
  • If need be, empty your trash or recycle bin (available space does not increase unless account data is fully deleted).
    • Google - files in the trash count against your storage limit. They are automatically removed from the trash after 30 days. If you are over your storage limit, you may need to manually empty the trash to quickly retrieve space.
    • In M365 files and items in the Recycle Bin (OneDrive/Teams/SharePoint) and Deleted Items folders (Exchange) count against your storage limit. 
      • In Exchange email, items older than 30 days are removed from the deleted items folder each night. These items can still be recovered using the "Recover Deleted Items" option for another 14 days. If you are over your storage limit, you may need to manually empty the Deleted Items folder to recover space quickly.
      • In OneDrive, Teams, and SharePoint, items older than 93 days are automatically removed from the Recycle Bin . If you are over your storage limit, you may need to manually empty the Recycle Bin to recover space quickly.
  • Remove large files from your accounts.
  • In Google Drive, check for and consider deleting files that may be hidden from your view (lost files). You can locate these “lost” files by typing 'is:unorganized owner:me' in the Google drive filter.
  • Check for photos in your Google and M365 accounts. Move photos that are not associated with work or classes to a personal account. https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/9666875?hl=en. UD disabled the Google Photos app starting Oct 1, 2024, but you can request temporary access to photos so that you can move or delete photos.
  • Find and delete duplicate data.
  • Use this Microsoft article to help you clean your Exchange email account.
  • Third party apps that are connected to your Google account may store large of amounts of data in your account. Unfortunately, the amount of space that the third party apps use is not reported in the user interface. One scenario that indicates third party data usage is present is when the amount of "findable" data in Google drive is less than Google's reported data usage. For example, John Smith can see a total of 120 files and folders that add up to about 76GB of data in his Google drive.  Google shows that John Smith is using 1.4TB of data. John Smith should check to see whether third party apps may be storing data in his Google Workspace account. To disconnect an app from your Google account,
    • Use a web browser and navigate to Google Drive,
    • Select settings (wheel icon), and choose Manage apps.
    • Navigate to the third-party apps you would like to disconnect, select Options, and then Disconnect from Drive.
    • Once the steps are complete, wait up to 24 hours to account for any propagation delays.
 

Request deletion of Google and Microsoft accounts that are no longer needed.

Deleting accounts that are no longer needed reduces storage costs and helps keep you and UD secure. Depending on the account type you want to delete, UDIT may need to assist. Contact the UDIT Support Center for more information.
 
Individual M365 and Google Workspace accounts for active faculty, staff, and students cannot be deleted. 
 

Prepare for changes to your UD status

  • Student to alumnus
    • Google
      • If you don’t want to keep your individual Google account, you can request that it be removed.
        • Download any needed material using Google Takeout.
        • Move any account verifications that go to your UD email account to a non-UD account.
      • If you choose to keep your account, prepare for reduced storage by cleaning up your account. [link to clean-up section]
    • M365
      • Download your data before you lose access to your M365 account.
      • Access to M365 is generally disabled early in the next major semester.
  • Student or alumnus to faculty or staff
    • Recommended: Download or move your student data to an external account so that your Google and M365 accounts can be used for work data storage.
  • Staff to retiree
    • Google
      • The storage limit for faculty and staff accounts will be set to 50GB upon retirement. If necessary, steps should be taken to meet the new storage limit prior to retiring.
      • If you don’t want to keep your individual Google account, you can request that it be removed.
        • Download any needed material using Google Takeout.
        • Move any account verifications that go to your UD email account to a non-UD account.
      • If you share documents from My Drive, transfer them to a shared drive prior to retirement.
    • M365
      • Download any data you need prior to losing access to M365.
      • If you store documents in OneDrive that others need, move them to a Team or SharePoint site prior to retirement.
      • You can request your Exchange email be migrated to Google, however please consider requesting that your email simply be redirected to Google instead of migrating your email to Google. If you want to migrate, you will need to make sure that your UD Google account has enough available space to accommodate your migrated account.
  • Retiree to faculty, staff, or student
    • While you are working as faculty, staff, or student, your Google and M365 accounts and storage options will follow the limits for your active role. Be aware that when your faculty, staff, or student status ends, your accounts will again have the retirement storage limits.
  • Leaving UD without retiring or without graduating
    • If you are faculty or staff and also an alumnus, follow the steps under student to alumnus.
    • If you are a student, download data you need from your M365 and Google accounts prior to leaving.
    • Some termination processes may modify your ability to perform these steps.

Get help if you need it

  • Request a consultation to help you understand what’s taking up space in your accounts and how to reduce your storage usage.
  • Send a request to the IT Support Center for assistance in deleting large amounts of data or moving large amounts of data to a shared Google Drive.
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