Traditionally, Google has offered unlimited storage for Google Workspace services at no cost to qualifying educational institutions, including Google Mail, Google Shared Drive, content stored in Google Drive, and Google Photos.
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In February 2021, Google announced a new storage policy ending free unlimited storage for the academic community, effective January 1, 2023. At that time, education customers, including Maricopa, will be billed for storage consumption over a standard baseline Google calculates for each institution.
Impact on Maricopa Google Workspace Customers
District Information Technology Services (ITS) is aware of this change and the potential unplanned cost implications for the business. ITS is working with the colleges on plans to help customers transition to the new storage policy, including communication, education, outreach, best practices, tools, and resources.
How to Prepare
To prepare for this transition, we recommend that customers review current storage usage and delete any unnecessary files in Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos. Data is permitted for business, educational, research, service, operational, and management purposes.
Use the following steps to learn more about your consumption and best practices.
- See how much storage you’re using.
- Check your Google mail - review and delete unnecessary files or emails. Visit the manage files in your Google Drive storage for help. Follow the instructions for Gmail.
- Check your Google Photos - review and delete unnecessary files.
- Check your Google Shared Drive folders - review and delete unnecessary files.
- Use the Google Drive storage feature - review your files from largest to smallest and delete the unnecessary files.
- Move your personal files to your own storage (e.g., a personal Google account or another provider). Important reminder: Your Maricopa Community Colleges-provided account is only for Maricopa use (see Technology Resource Standards 4.4 Administrative Regulation for more information).
- Consider deleting Drive content that you may have copied to a shared drive. If a file resides in two locations, it may be consuming twice the storage space.
Important: Refer to the Retrieval, Disclosure, and Retention of Records 4.15 Administrative Regulation for more information.​
Frequently Asked Questions
This section contains answers to the most popular questions about the Google storage policy. Refer additional questions to your local help desk or IT team.
More About the Google Storage Change
Google has decided to change its storage policy after considering the vast amount of data uploaded to cloud storage daily.
Excerpt from Google, Inc’s official statement regarding the new storage policy:
“Google has traditionally offered unlimited storage to qualifying schools and universities for free. However, as we’ve [Google] grown to serve more schools and universities each year, storage consumption has also rapidly accelerated. Storage is not being consumed equitably across — nor within — institutions, and school leaders often don't have the tools they need to manage this. To support schools into the future and ensure fair distribution of this valuable resource, we [Google] will be implementing a new pooled storage model and helping admins and school leaders manage their storage. Nothing is changing today and we expect that more than 99% of institutions will be within the pooled storage provided by the new policy.” Source: Google, Inc.
Refer to Google’s complete announcement.
Although storage used by students or researchers is in-scope for this change in Google’s storage policy, sufficient storage is available for educational and research purposes without incurring extra costs to Maricopa at this time.
Follow storage and usage best practices and only store data for Maricopa use - remove unnecessary files stored under your Maricopa-issued account. See the Retrieval, Disclosure, and Retention of Records 4.15 Administrative Regulation for information on retention policies.
Schools and universities have a baseline of 100TB of pooled storage shared across users and accounts. Institutions with more than 20,000 students, faculty, and staff, or 20,000 monthly-active users that follow Google’s Acceptable Use Policy, receive an additional storage allocation in addition to the 100TB baseline.
Source: Google, Inc
Any “pooled storage” data stored in your Maricopa Community Colleges Google account is impacted. Pooled storage is shared across Maricopa users (students, faculty, staff) for everything in their accounts and shared drives.
Your storage amount includes Gmail, Google Drive (examples - documents, sheets, slides, forms, etc.), Google Shared Drives, and Google Photos.
Visit the Google Drive Storage page to see how much storage you’re using.
The total amount of storage you use in Google includes, but is not limited to, files from Google Drive, Gmail, Google Shared Drives, and Google Photos.
Google Drive (My Drive)
- Most files in your My Drive. For example:
- PDFs
- Images
- Videos
- Meet call recordings
- Items in your Trash. Learn how to empty your trash. Note that deleted files are removed automatically after 30 days. Deleted files are unrecoverable in most cases.
Google Shared Drive
- Most files in your Shared Drive. For example:
- PDFs
- Images
- Videos
- Meet call recordings
- Items in your Trash. Learn how to empty your trash. Note that deleted files are removed automatically after 30 days. Deleted files are unrecoverable in most cases.
Gmail
- Messages and attachments, like items in your Spam and Trash folders. Note that deleted files in Trash are removed automatically after 30 days. Deleted files are unrecoverable in most cases.
Google Photos
- Photos and videos backed up in original quality.
Note: Deleted messages and files retained by Google Vault don’t count against the user’s storage quota or the total pooled storage of your Google Workspace domain.
Source: Google, Inc.
Content in shared drives counts toward Maricopa’s storage baseline (cap).
According to Google, individual users can only upload 750GB each day between My Drive and all shared drives. Users who reach the 750GB limit or upload a file larger than 750GB cannot upload additional files that day. Uploads that are in progress will complete. The maximum individual file size that you can upload or synchronize is 5TB.
Source: Google, Inc.
Available Tools and Resources
Yes. To search for and delete unnecessary or large emails or other large files, use these Google instructions to manage files in your Google Drive storage.
Refer to these links to Google-recommended tools and techniques for more information.
- Delete files by size in Google Drive
- Permanently delete large emails in Gmail
- Permanently delete emails in your Spam folder
- Move photos & videos to Trash
- Delete and recover files using Google One Storage Manager
- Remove hidden data from apps in Google Drive
Source: Google, Inc.
Several different data types may consume large amounts of Google Workspace for Education storage space.
Refer to the following information from Google to learn more.
Source: Google, Inc.
Source: Google, Inc.
Yes, there are quick wins we can suggest to help.
For example, in email or Google Drive search fields, look for files ending in .iso, .mp4, .mov, and .wav to find significant storage utilization.
Other recommendations
- To perform a bulk deletion in email, select the square at the far left to “select all” and then choose the option below to select all conversations that match this search and select “delete” from the trash can item above. You will be asked to “Confirm Bulk Action” and choose OK.
- Empty the trash to free up space. Hint: Refer to Google’s instructions for assistance in deleting. Note that deleted files are removed automatically after 30 days. Deleted filed are unrecoverable in most cases.
Important: Follow all applicable records retention, administrative regulations, policies, standards, and directives when handling, viewing, storing, deleting, or copying Maricopa data. Please contact your local help desk or IT team with questions or concerns.
About the Email Data Purge (Inactive Accounts and Mailboxes)
The email data purge removes large amounts of unused data collected and stored over many years in the mailboxes of thousands of suspended accounts and unused mailboxes - suspended or inactive for 365 days or more.
This change helps control expensive ongoing storage costs in the future, which were previously free and “unlimited.” Google has changed its storage policy, and MCCCD will now have to pay for storage that exceeds a baseline allocation set by Google.
No. The purge targets the data stored in email only for thousands of suspended accounts and unused mailboxes - suspended or inactive for 365 days or more.
A series of countdown messages will be sent to active employees to (a) raise awareness that Google will no longer offer free storage beginning in January 2023; (b) provide links to suggestions and tools employees can use to manage their storage usage and FAQs better; (c) let them know that the email data purge does not affect them – and who it impacts; (d) advise of critical timelines in this process; and (e) clear up rumors or misunderstandings about the email data purge.
Yes. Although this activity does not impact active employees, many suggested best practices exist to help employees (a) identify storage consumption and (b) clean up email and Google drive usage if the content is no longer necessary. If there are questions about records retention, employees should refer to Administrative Regulation 4.15 - Retrieval, Disclosure, and Retention of Records. Please have a look at this Anywhere Computing site for tools and guidance, Google Workspace Storage Changes. These are good practices from a records retention perspective as well. We recommend sustained communication, education, awareness, and tools and techniques to help employees better manage their email and storage usage.
Separated faculty and staff, contractors, contingent workers, persons of interest, unused shared mailboxes, and dormant system administration accounts dating back 365 days or more are in-scope.
This cleanup process excludes retiree email accounts grandfathered under the former retiree email policy that remain active and email accounts for persons under a litigation hold.
No. The purge targets the data stored in email only for thousands of suspended accounts and unused mailboxes - suspended or inactive for 365 days or more. Accounts are not deleted.
No. The accounts in question remain suspended - not deleted. By taking this approach, the District retains Google Vault data for said accounts following Administrative Regulation 4.15 - Retrieval, Disclosure, and Retention of Records.
No. The email data purge targets the data stored in email only for thousands of suspended accounts and unused mailboxes - suspended or inactive for 365 days or more.
Requests for email data retrieval will be handled on a case-by-case basis. Customers should contact their local help desk or District Information Technology Services with questions or for assistance in those cases.
The email purge applies to thousands of suspended accounts and unused mailboxes. These accounts fall into these categories.
- Separated faculty and staff
- Separated contingent workers (contractors, persons of interest
- Unused shared mailboxes
- Unused accounts generated for system administrative purposes
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The following criteria determine the in-scope accounts and mailboxes for the email data purge.
- Email data for separated faculty and staff, including contingent workers, contractors, and persons of interest (365 days or more)
- Email data for unused mailboxes (365 days or more)
- Email data for unused administrative accounts (365 days or more)
The email data purge excludes retiree email accounts grandfathered under the former retiree email policy that remain active (for example, access their mailbox).
If a retiree has not accessed their Maricopa-provided Google email mailbox for 365 days or more, their email data will be deleted during this cleanup process.
The Office of General Counsel maintains a list of employees under a litigation hold. The email data purge excludes accounts (active or suspended status) under a litigation hold.
The criteria involve a combination of HCM job status for employees and other factors, such as usage/activity status for mailboxes or accounts that have been unused or inactive - 365 days or more of inactivity for suspended accounts, unused mailboxes, unused accounts.