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Prepare Your Google Account for Deactivation or New Storage Limitations

Last updated on Apr 10, 2024

Before you begin

Google’s New Storage Limits

Google recently imposed strict storage limits for colleges using Google Workspace for things like email and digital file storage.

Alumni Google Account Deactivation

In order to prioritize storage for current students, faculty, and staff, CCA has begun deactivating most alumni Google accounts. Once deactivated, an alum no longer has access to their CCA Gmail and data stored in other Google tools, such as Drive, Calendar, and Photos.

Some alumni who have actively used their CCA emails will be permitted to retain them but with a strict limit on file storage.

Recent graduates (starting with Spring 2023) will also lose access to their CCA Google accounts according to the schedule outlined in Technical Offboarding for Departing Students.

Alumni Will Retain Access to Some CCA Systems

Although most alumni will no longer have a CCA email, they will retain access to their CCA login credentials, so they can still sign in to use CCA systems such as Portal and the CCA library site. You can read more about alumni access and benefits here.

1. Check your current CCA account storage

You can see a breakdown of your Google Drive, Photos, and Gmail storage here.

These tools account for the majority of users’ data, and represents your storage that counts against CCA’s total storage limit.

2. Prepare your personal storage solution

You have a few options for how you can store your CCA data after your Google account is deactivated:

Personal Google Account

If you don't already have a personal Google account, you can create one for free. Google provides 15GB of free storage with these accounts, or you can purchase additional account storage for a monthly fee.

Third-Party Cloud Storage

Other cloud storage providers, like Dropbox, OneDrive, and Box, also offer limited storage for free accounts, and additional storage may be purchased for a subscription fee. Many such providers exist, though Google Takeout can export directly to the three platforms listed above.

External Hard Drive

Digital files may also be stored on an external hard drive or another physical device. External drives come in a variety of types and storage capacities (check out a few here). Remember to always back up your files on at least one other device (or–even better–with a cloud storage solution).

3. Download or transfer the files you wish to retain

Google offers a few options for exporting your account data. Depending on what kind of data you want to keep and how much data you have, do one or more of the following:

Transfer Gmail and Drive data to a personal Google account

You can transfer data directly from your CCA account to a personal Google account without having to configure files for export. This is a great option if:

  • You only wish to keep basic Gmail and/or Drive files
  • The total data from your CCA Gmail and Drive is less than the available storage in your personal Google account

Please note that some users have reported issues with the Gmail and Drive transfer process, including:

  • Missing files, messages, and attachments
  • Lack of organization of copied files and/or messages (folder structure not being retained)

These issues seem more prevalent when transferring larger-sized Drives and Gmail files. If you encounter these issues, please consider exporting your files using Google Takeout instead.

Transfer photos to a personal Google account

Provided you have enough storage on your personal Google account, transferring Photos from your CCA account to a personal account is generally preferable to downloading photos via Google Takeout. However, the transfer method above is "all or none," and there's an alternative method for transferring specific photo data. Use this if:

Download your Google account data

Using Google Takeout, you can download account data from any Google tool or service–Drive, Gmail, Photos, Calendar, Chrome, and more–selecting exactly what data you wish to download. This is a great option if:

  • You don't want to transfer your data to a personal Google account
  • You want to retain all data associated with your CCA account (not just Gmail, Drive, and Photos)
  • You want to choose exactly which CCA account data to retain
  • Your data totals more than 15GB (the free storage allotted for personal Google accounts)

YouTube Content Export/Transfer Restrictions

Google does not provide a method to easily transfer ownership of certain content, such as YouTube channels/videos. Please be advised that you may lose access to video uploads, including metadata and viewership data, and you are always encouraged to retain a local copy of any video files you wish to retain.

Alternative File Export Options

You can also use certain third-party tools, like VaultMe, to transfer certain your CCA Google data (such as Drive files, Contacts, Gmail messages, and Calendars) to a personal web account. Note that VaultMe is not free to use.


You can also use Google Drive for desktop to sync files from your CCA Google Drive to your local hard drive or an external drive. Note that local sync typically works best for exporting Google-agnostic file formats, like PDFs or mp4s, but not for things like Google docs, sheets, slides, forms, etc. Additionally, note that this method may experience some of the same throttling issues as Google Takeout when attempting to sync large sets of files.

4. Update your accounts and contact info

You may be using your CCA email as your primary contact information or username associated with various accounts or services, which you'll need to consider updating. Here are a few suggested steps:

Transfer your Adobe Creative Cloud assets:

Update your information on file:

Update your username/contact for popular subscription services:

  • Amazon Prime
  • Amazon Music
  • Netflix
  • Hulu
  • Spotify
  • YouTube Premium