Storage Limits for Alumni Google Accounts
Brown's Google Workspace service is important to our alumni, and Brown is committed to maintaining it as a service offering. Due to limits in the way Google provides storage space to educational institutions, Brown must place limits on Google Workspace storage services for the entire Brown community, including alumni.
As a result of extensive analysis and conversations with advisory groups, Brown’s Office of Information Technology (OIT) implemented a 15GB file storage quota on all alumni accounts effective on March 2024.
Alumni using more than 15GB of storage will need to move your data to an alternative service or personal account to get to a 15GB quota.
If your storage is not under the quota, you will receive communications with a deadline to remove data. Any accounts with more than 15GB of mail, files, photos, and other data will be purged of all content if the deadline passes.
For alumni awarded degrees between June 2024 and May 2025, the effective deadline is October 24th, 2025.
FAQs
How do I know if I'm impacted?
- While signed into your Brown Gmail account, go to this link to see your utilization.
How is my storage calculated?
- Your storage usage is the total size of all of your email, Google Drive documents, and Google Photos.
- Documents or Photos that have been shared with you will not count towards your storage.
- You can go to the Storage section of your Google Drive to see a breakdown of what's using your storage.
- Although emails typically don't use a lot of space, emails with images or attachments can add up quickly.
How can I clean up space?
- You can review this Google Article on how to find and remove data from your account: Manage files in your Google Drive storage
Will my email stop working?
- No, your email will not stop working even if you've hit your limit. However, you will no longer be able to make or modify any Google Drive content until you have reduced your storage usage below the quota.
Can I pay for more storage directly?
- Unfortunately, Google does not provide a process to allow for the individual resale of Google Workspace storage, so Brown is unable to offer a method to pay directly for a larger personal quota on your @alumni.brown.edu account.
Can I move my data to another service/account?
- Yes. There are many commercial services available to store your data, and we have a dedicated support article to help you learn how to migrate your data to an alternative service.
What happens if I'm still over the limit by the cut-off date?
- A majority of accounts will be unaffected by this change but those who are above the limit will be communicated to directly.
How do I clean up Google Drive?
- To reduce your current utilization, you can refer to this article that has some tips on how to clean up your Drive to reduce your footprint.
How do I consolidate my alumni and personal accounts?
- If you use a personal Gmail account, you can set up your alumni account so that you can send and receive emails in one place without the need to switch accounts. Please check out this article.
How can I get additional help?
- Contact google-storage-help@brown.edu for any questions regarding Google Storage.
How can I change the owner of my files?
- You can refer to this KB article to change ownership of the Google Drive data to someone else at brown: