Google Storage FAQs

Google announced the elimination of free, unlimited storage in Gmail, Drive, and Google Photos for its higher education clients. This will require storage allocations to be placed on every active account. We aim to maintain service quality, minimize disruption, and contain costs while addressing immediate storage needs and planning for the future.

The storage limitations depend on your role at the university:

You will receive 10GB in your student account and 40GB in your employee account.

If you are over your allotment (not applicable to alumni):

• You cannot upload new files or images to Google Drive.
• You cannot create files in collaborative content creation applications like Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings, or Forms. Until you reduce your storage usage, you cannot edit or copy affected files or submit forms.
• You cannot back up any photos or videos to Google Photos.
• You cannot record new meetings in Google Meet.
• You cannot create assignments with new files, export grades to Google Sheets, or make copies of Assignments in Google Classroom.

The following services will still be available to you:

• You can still sign in.
• You can still view emails.
• You can still view and download files stored in Google Drive.
• You can still view and download photos stored in Google Photos.

Your storage is shared across all Google Workspace applications, including Gmail, Google Photos & Google Drive. Files that are shared with you and shared drives created in Drive do not count towards your storage limit.

No. Shared Drives are separate from MyDrive, shared drives will have a 20 GB default storage quota. Owners of existing Shared Drives should start to limit their storage levels accordingly, additional notifications will be sent out to about time table for clearing these accounts.

Yes, archived mail counts toward your storage allotment.

You can view a summary of your Google storage consumption by selecting storage on the bottom of the left hand menu in your Google Drive. Here you will be able to see the consumption being used by Drive, Gmail, and Photos. You can edit your Drive files from this location but you will need to log into Gmail and Photos individually to start removing files.

Individuals cannot purchase additional storage for their Fordham Google Account. You can free up Google storage space by removing emails, files, photos, and documents from your Fordham Google account through deletion or transferring them to an alternative storage method.

Purchasing more Google storage is not a sustainable option for the University. The costs increase significantly with usage, and the unpredictability of these expenses makes it challenging to manage long-term. To address the demand for additional storage, we have implemented alternative solutions that are more scalable and cost-effective, such as shared storage options and other platforms. These alternatives allow us to manage resources efficiently while still meeting the community needs. If you need assistance in exploring or accessing these options, we're happy to guide you through the process.

You can download copies of emails, files, and photos. Once copies are stored on your local computer, external storage media, or another storage method, you can delete the emails, files, or photos from your Fordham account to free up storage space. 

Google Drive for Desktop will allow you to choose folders in your Google Drive content and save them directly to your PC or Mac. You can copy/paste or drag/drop files to your local computer, external storage media, or another cloud storage account but you will not be able to keep the files within Google Drive for Desktop to reduce storage without removing them permanently.

If you're still over your quota after deleting files, please ensure you've emptied all of your trash bins across different Google applications (e.g., Drive, Gmail, and Photos), and then refresh your browser. Storage won’t be freed up until files are permanently deleted from each of these applications. Please note that it may take Google up to 24 hours to reflect any changes in your storage usage.

The University provides guidance in this area. Email sent or received via Fordham’s Gmail servers is retained for a period of eight years. Any messages that are over eight years old will be automatically deleted.

When you delete or back up Google Workspace content, it can take a long time to process and be reflected in your storage consumption summary, please be patient. 

It is important to note that University data cannot be transferred from your University Google account to any personal account. This policy is in place to safeguard the integrity and confidentiality of sensitive information. Transferring ownership of files from a secured University system to a personal system introduces significant risks. As a compliance requirement, we allow the transfer of ownership of files within Fordham but not to any outside domains. Please review our Acceptable Use Policy and our Data Classification and Protection Policies and make sure you're storing data according to our policies.