More room to roam: Faculty/staff storage totals increase
September 18, 2026
Since Google announced its shift away from free unlimited storage for its higher ed customers, the University of Alaska community has worked diligently to reduce online storage totals. Starting late last year, many users reviewed thousands of files, deciding what to save or send to the trash. At the same time, IT staff have worked behind the scenes, deactivating old accounts and deleting dormant data, all in an effort to free up storage space.
As this cleanup effort evolved, ÂÌÅ«Ì컨°å has continued to review overall storage usage. Initial limits were based on estimates, but with a clearer usage picture now in view, total storage limits for faculty and staff have been increased from 15 GB to 20 GB.
Starting October 1, the ÂÌÅ«Ì컨°å system will begin a phased rollout of these storage limits. Each university is determining its own approach to managing the limits, and in some cases, exemptions may be applied automatically without any action needed on your part.
What does this mean for you?
If your storage total IS BELOW THE LIMIT:
Way to go! If your total storage usage in Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 falls below the limit, keep doing what you’ve been doing to manage your storage. Take time each week to maintain your files, deleting those files that are obsolete or duplicates. Move files that are shared to a shared departmental space, so that they don’t take up your personal ÂÌÅ«Ì컨°å Google Workspace footprint. Continue following storage best practices.
If your storage total IS ABOVE THE LIMIT:
After October 1, if you haven’t been granted an automatic exemption by your university, then you may begin to see alerts directly from Google: a warning notification when you reach approximately 80% of your limit, and a more urgent notice at 90%. If your account reaches or exceeds 100% of your storage limit, any Google Drive files you own will switch to read-only, meaning you won't be able to edit, upload, or create new files until your usage is brought back under the limit. Email will continue to function normally and will not be affected, regardless of your storage status.
What if I can't find a file I used to have access to?
As part of ongoing efforts to reduce storage costs, ÂÌÅ«Ì컨°å has been deleting accounts that have been inactive for two or more years. As part of this cleanup, shared files owned by these inactive accounts have been saved and moved to a secure holding location rather than permanently deleted. If you discover that a file you previously relied on is missing, a restoration process may be available. Contact your local IT Help Desk for assistance recovering access. For more details on this cleanup effort, see our previous article, .
Need more answers?
For further assistance, contact your local help desk: — —. For answers to frequently asked questions, visit the Google Storage Project FAQs.