Please see the DoIT Cloud Storage Changes site for additional information.

Storage Quotas:

• Existing users have a quota that allows them 5GB+ headroom:

  • If you are a student with less than 3GB, you are in the 5GB quota group. Faculty and staff are provided a minimum of 25GB.

  • If you currently have 3 – 15GB, you are in a 25GB quota group.

  • If you have 15 – 90GB, you are in a 100GB quota group.

  • If you have 90 – 900GB, you are in a 100TB quota group.
    If you are a member of the 100TB group, you may be contacted by DoIT to determine if Google Drive is the most appropriate place for your data.

• New Users:

  • New faculty and staff members will receive 25GB of storage.

  • New students will receive 5GB of storage.

• Alumni:

  • Alumni receive 5GB of storage.

  • Alumni with Google storage above the 5GB allowed have been granted a temporary increased quota to accommodate their current usage.
    We aim to help all alumni accounts get below 5GB by the summer of 2025. Please stay tuned for tips and resources coming in early 2025 from DoIT.

Please Note: Quotas and Amounts are subject to change based on our Google storage as a university.

Last Updated: November 13, 2024

I am an alumnus. How much university provided storage will I have?

Alumni will be provided 5GB of space as a default. Alumni with additional data in Google Services prior to September 2024 have been given sufficient quota to continue account access. Please take some time to remove any content you would like to keep. Alumni with over 5GB will be contacted by DoIT in early 2025 with additional information on reducing your Google storage usage to 5GB.

If I am returning for a graduate degree from UMBC after completing my undergraduate degree, will my cloud data be deleted?

No, however, if there is a gap period between your undergraduate and graduate studies that extends beyond the following semester, your data will be subject to removal. It is always a good idea to back up your data. Read more here: How long will my account remain active after leaving UMBC?

I am both a UMBC alumnus and a current staff/faculty/student. How does my storage allocation work?

If you have an active affiliation with UMBC as a staff, faculty, or student, your storage allocation follows your active faculty, staff, or student guidelines first, before it follows your alumni affiliation. Your access and storage will align with active policies. You will receive notifications about changes to your account, but these policies may shift once you retire, separate, or graduate UMBC.

If I am an alumnus, will I keep my UMBC email after this change?

Access to your UMBC email address has not changed, however, the Google storage allotted by the university will be limited.

How do I know if I have an alumni account?

UMBC Alumni may have retained access to their UMBC email and Google Drive storage as part of their alumni benefits. If you do not know your password, reset your password here.
If your account has been deactivated due to lack of access, you can request reactivation here.

Can I pay the university to continue to save my data and allow me to access it once I become an alumni?

UMBC is not currently planning to allow alumni to purchase additional storage. If the current 5GB quota does not meet your needs, we recommend exploring private cloud storage solutions. While we continue to support alumni accounts, we cannot allow alumni to have large amounts of storage in their UMBC account, as our first focus is to meet the needs of active faculty, staff, and current students. Please note that storage limits are subject to change, and updates will be communicated as needed.

What other storage services does the University recommend that I transfer my data to if I wish to keep it?

We do not endorse a specific service, but we recommend that when evaluating services, you ensure your data is stored securely and that the service provides enough space to house all the data you wish to move from UMBC services. A free personal Google account comes with 15GB of storage with options to purchase additional storage.

Does Shared Drive storage count against my individual storage quota?

No, Shared Drives have their own storage quota of 10GB and storage used by a Shared Drive does not count towards an individual’s storage quota. Storage used by Shared Drives does, however, count towards our Google domain’s total pooled storage limit.

What happens if I exceed my Google storage quota?

If you exceed your quota, you will still be able to sign in, send and receive emails with attachments smaller than 25MB, and view and download files stored on Google Drive or Google Photos.
You will not be able to edit or upload new files to Google Drive, including Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms. Until you reduce your storage usage, you will not be able to edit or copy affected files or submit forms. You will not be able to record new meetings in Google Meet. Once you have downloaded and deleted content from Google services, you will regain full access to Google services.
How do I clean up my trash, spam, and large documents in Google Drive?

I deleted emails, files, or photos but my storage use has not decreased. Am I doing something wrong?

When you first delete an email, file, or photo it will be moved to the trash. Gmail, Drive, and Photos all have their own trash, which still counts against your storage use. Storage in use by items in trash will be reclaimed once the items are permanently deleted. Items in trash are automatically and permanently deleted after 30 days. While in your trash, items can be recovered before the 30-day time window. You can also choose to manually and permanently delete items in your trash at any time by navigating to the “trash” folder and clicking either “Empty Trash” to remove all items in trash or by selecting individual items and selecting “Delete Forever”.

1. Navigate to https://www.google.com/

2. Click the search bar and type "google drive"

3. Click "Sign-in"

4. To check if you have received files that were marked as spam and were hidden in the spam folder, click "Spam"

5. Select "Trash". While items in your trash do not count towards your storage capacity, keeping on top of what you have in your trash bin is important, especially because items in trash delete after 30 days.

6. To see the files in your storage, click "Storage"

7. Click here to adjust the way the list is sorted, either from largest file to smallest file, or smallest file to largest file.

Please remember to delete your data from your account once you have exported the data to another location.

Tip: This information is provided as an example method of how to export data using Google's Takeout service. Depending on the size or amount of data you are exporting, the service may not work as expected, and you may need to break up the exports by different services.

More information about Google Takeout can be found at Google's support pages

1. Log into the Google Takeout site using your UMBC email addres: https://takeout.google.com
If you're already logged into another account you may need to log out first or use a private/incognito window.

2. Click Next

3. Login with your UMBC credentials

4. If Duo is enabled, you'll need to proceed through 2FA.

5. From the main screen, you can select individual parts of your google data to export or you can export all by selecting "Select All"

6. Once you've selected the data you'd like to export, click "Next step"

7. There are multiple options of where to send data to. If you select the download link via email, you will need to download the data within a week of the export being created.

8. Click ".zip" as this is one of the more easily accessible file formats available to open.

9. You can select the size of the zip file up to 50GB for the purposes of consolidation.

10. Once you're ready, and all options are selected, click "Create export"

11. To view status of an export you've started, click "Manage exports"

Please see the DoIT Cloud Storage Changes webpage for recent announcements.

Check your Storage

To see how much storage you’re using, click here: Check my Google Storage Usage. Make sure you’re logged into your UMBC Google account.

Where does my storage number come from?

• Storage is comprised of data in Google Drive, Gmail, and Google Photos. This includes items in your Spam and Trash!

• Google Photos is being deprecated for all UMBC accounts. If you have photos stored here, please migrate them as soon as possible.

Please Note: When you first delete an email, file, or photo it will be moved to the trash. Gmail, Drive, and Photos all have their own trash, which still counts against your storage use. Storage in use by items in trash will be reclaimed once the items are permanently deleted. Items in trash are automatically and permanently deleted after 30 days. While in your trash, items can be recovered before the 30-day time window. You can also choose to manually and permanently delete items in your trash at any time by navigating to the “trash” folder and clicking either “Empty Trash” to remove all items in trash or by selecting individual items and selecting “Delete Forever”.

Recommended Articles: 

• How do I clean up my trash, spam, and large documents in Google Drive?

• How do I use Google Takeout?

• How do I copy content from my UMBC account to a personal account?

How can I reduce my Google storage?

• Review your Data:
  Review and delete any large or unnecessary files in Google Drive and clean up emails with attachments. Take some time to organize your Gmail, Google Drive, and export your Google Photos.
  Recommended article: How do I clean up my trash, spam, and large documents in Google Drive?

• Transfer Non-UMBC Data to a Personal Account:
  Google Takeout can be used to export your data from your UMBC account and download your data in a compressed format. Consider setting up a personal cloud storage space using services like Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, or any other preferred platform. Ensure you have enough storage space for your data. Please remember to delete your data from your UMBC account once you have migrated the data.

I deleted emails, files, or photos but my storage use has not decreased. Am I doing something wrong?

When you first delete an email, file, or photo it will be moved to the trash. Gmail, Drive, and Photos all have their own trash, which still counts against your storage use. Storage in use by items in trash will be reclaimed once the items are permanently deleted. Items in trash are automatically and permanently deleted after 30 days. While in your trash, items can be recovered before the 30-day time window. You can also choose to manually and permanently delete items in your trash at any time by navigating to the “trash” folder and clicking either “Empty Trash” to remove all items in trash or by selecting individual items and selecting “Delete Forever”.

Recommended Articles: 

• How do I clean up my trash, spam, and large documents in Google Drive?

• How do I use Google Takeout?

• How do I copy content from my UMBC account to a personal account?

• How long will my account remain active after leaving UMBC?

• How do I request my account remain active or be reactivated?

• I have forgotten my UMBC password. How do I reset it?