Google moved our Drew “Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals” accounts to a pooled storage policy effective July 22, 2022; as of that date, we no longer had unlimited storage. 

It is everyone's role to clean up data they no longer need stored, so we wanted to offer some quick tips for determining what digital clutter you may have (some of which you will want to save, and some of which can most likely be deleted).

This information was first shared in the UT Chronicles issue sent out to campus in March 2021.

• Start out by logging into only the account you want to take a look at (if logged in to multiple accounts, you may see data for the wrong one!).
• Review your Drive storage at https://drive.google.com/drive/quota.
• Review your Photos storage at https://photos.google.com/quotamanagement.
  • PLEASE NOTE: Google Photos will become inaccessible to Drew accounts on Tuesday, December 23, 2025. 
• Reviewing your Gmail storage can take a bit more effort. 
  • This article has a nice list of steps you can take, even though it was published in 2021.
  • Search for something like "size:30mb has:attachment" (any email threads over 30mb in size with an attachment) and see if you can delete some of those.

Where can I save my files?

For personal files:

• Use Google Takeout. 
  • Go to takeout.google.com.
  • Select only Google Photos from the list of products.
  • Choose your desired file type, file size, and destination (e.g., download link via email). DO NOT select “Add to Drive” as a destination.
  • Then delete unneeded files, messages, and attachments and empty your trash to free up storage space.
• Consider Google’s One storage plans, on a personal account for personal data.
• Check to see if you have OneDrive or iCloud storage available.

For University files:

• Please reach out to University Technology after you've identified what is essential to store based on the University's retention policy.