Nour Tantush, Contributing Photographer

With the Sept. 30 deadline approaching, some students at Yale are feeling the pressure to clean out their Google Drive accounts to avoid losing access to their files. Google’s new policy places a cap on free storage available to educational institutions, including Yale’s EliApps accounts. 

Google no longer offers unlimited free storage for institutions of higher education. In response, Yale limited new EliApps accounts created after Aug. 15, 2023, to five gigabytes. Starting Sept. 30, all accounts will face strict storage quotas: faculty will have 100 gigabytes and other pre-Aug. 15 accounts will have 20 gigabytes. 

Students who exceed the limit will be unable to access Google Drive and Photos until they reduce their storage or purchase additional space. According to Yale ITS, while email functionality will remain intact, all other Google Workspace features will be locked for students who surpass the quota.

“We’re working to ensure no data is lost,” said Oswaldo Portillo, an IT Help Desk representative. “If students go over the limit, we’ll help them reduce their data and save what they need. They can also purchase additional storage.”

Portillo emphasized that students who are locked out should contact the IT Help Desk for support. He said that the IT Help Desk is “here to work with them.”

However, despite the available resources, many students told the News they were unaware of the upcoming change.

 “I was not aware of this change. It needs to be broadcasted widely because a lot of people are going to lose information that they store,” said Norbu Dorji ’25.

Jessie Hwang ’25 told the News that the storage limit will affect her because she relied on the university’s Google Drive storage to store most of her data, especially Yale-related documents. She said that she had to cut down from 200 gigabytes to 20 gigabytes by manually downloading and moving 90 percent of her data into OneDrive via Google Takeout. 

Other students who spoke with the News expressed concern that many may not realize they are over the storage limit until they lose access to their files.

“We’ve been getting calls and tickets from students asking about the limits and how they can avoid losing access,” said Alex Malacea, another IT Help Desk representative. “We point them to our knowledge base and internal articles, but ultimately, they need to make sure their data falls under the quota by September 30.”

In addition to providing individual support, Yale ITS is reminding students of shared Google Drives available through the Yale Center for Research Computing, which offers collaborative storage solutions for larger projects.

For students who find themselves over the storage limit on Sept. 30, the message from ITS is clear: “Take action now to avoid losing access. Once locked out, students will need to contact ITS to regain access, but only after reducing their data usage.”

“We will work with students to help them save their important files,” Malacea assured, “but they need to be proactive in managing their storage now, not later.”

Google Drive was launched in 2012.

Julia Levy contributed reporting.