IT Services

Google has eliminated the free unlimited storage offering that they have provided to the K-12 and higher education community along with their rebranding from Google G Suite for Education to Google Workspace Education. UCLA currently uses more than six times our storage allocation in our entire Google Workspace for Education environment based on our current contract, and we need to reduce our storage to below our allocation, or the university will be charged significant fees. We have until November 1, 2024, to complete the adjustment to our services, reduce our overall storage usage, and implement quotas to all UCLA Google individual accounts and Shared Drives accordingly. 

• Check your current storage usage relative to your Permanent Baseline Quota.
• Find your largest files. Watch the How to Find My Largest File in Google Drive video to learn how to find the largest files in your storage.
• Remove or transfer your data. Visit Tips for Storage Hygiene and watch the How to Transfer Google Mail and Drive to a Personal Google Account
  and How to Verify Your Content is Being Migrated videos for instructions.
• Explore alternate storage options. Depending on your needs and affiliation, UCLA offers several storage options to safely store your data. Visit the Purchasing and Alternate Storage Options page to identify the best-fitting solution for your data needs.
• Visit the Training and Support page. Watch training videos on the Training and Support page to learn more.
• Schedule time with an IT professional. Email help@it.ucla.edu to request personalized assistance. 

Containment ceilings were temporary storage limits set slightly above the current usage of accounts on December 15, 2023. The purpose of these containment ceilings was to contain any further growth in the data storage usage before implementing the Permanent Baseline Quotas.​

Permanent Baseline Quotas are the storage limits set for each account based on primary affiliation, that were implemented on June 27, 2024. As of June 27, 2024, accounts exceeding their Permanent Baseline Quotas are experiencing service interruptions. For these accounts, UCLA Google services have become read-only until they are reduced to under quota. Additional measures may include daily logouts of Google Workspace accounts and services, disablement and ultimately, DELETION OF ACCOUNT if storage is not reduced by October 1. After October 1, over-quota accounts are at risk of deletion to ensure campuswide compliance by November 1. Please take immediate action to reduce your Google Storage usage to under your quota. 

If the collective UCLA Google services storage usage is not under compliance by November 1, 2024, UCLA will face broad and immediate service disruption across accounts that are over-quota. If everyone in the Bruin community complies with their respective Permanent Baseline Quota, our collective UCLA Google services storage usage will be under compliance and service disruption will be avoided. From June 27, 2024, to November 1, 2024, our project team will be focused on all outstanding reductions and ensuring our environment is in compliance to avoid all service disruptions.

The new Permanent Baseline Quotas were enforced on June 27, 2024. UCLA Google accounts that exceed their Permanent Baseline Quota on or after June 27, 2024, WILL experience service interruptions, which will escalate in severity leading up to November 1, 2024, the deadline for campus compliance. Service interruptions may include measures such as read-only access to Google Drive, daily logouts of Google Workspace accounts and services, disablement and ultimately, DELETION OF YOUR ACCOUNT if storage is not reduced by October 1. Details regarding the specific service interruptions will be communicated soon. In the meantime, please take immediate action to reduce your Google Storage usage to under your Permanent Baseline Quota.

Permanent Baseline Quotas were implemented on all UCLA related Google personal accounts and shared drives starting June 27, 2024. Visit the Permanent Baseline Quotas page to see the Permanent Baseline Quota assigned to each affiliation/account type. ​

You can check your overall Google storage usage and breakdown of usage in Google Drive, Gmail, and Photos by following the directions at Personal Drives: How to check your current storage usage and capacity .

As of June 27, 2024, accounts exceeding their Permanent Baseline Quotas are experiencing service interruptions. For these accounts, UCLA Google services have become read-only until they are reduced to under quota. 

As of August 1, 2024, accounts exceeding their Permanent Baseline Quotas are receiving all inbound emails with subject line tags to remind them they are over quota; and these accounts will be logged out daily. 

As of September 5, 2024, accounts exceeding their Permanent Baseline Quotas are being disabled and need to access this form to request a temporary, two-week re-enablement of their Google Workspace account. 

If you are under your Permanent Baseline Quota, there is no further action to take unless you receive an email explaining how you are otherwise affected. Keep your Google Workspace Storage usage under your Permanent Baseline Quota and you will not experience service interruptions.

As of September 5, 2024, accounts exceeding their Permanent Baseline Quotas are being disabled. If your account exceeds you Permanent Baseline Quota and becomes disabled, you need to access this form to request a temporary, two-week re-enablement of their Google Workspace account. 

Once you've regained access, you must reduce your storage use to below your Permanent Baseline Quota before October 1, 2024. On this date, accounts exceeding their Permanent Baseline Quotas will start being deleted, resulting in loss of all files and emails. Deleted accounts will be recreated with no data in them.

Options to obtain additional storage include the following:​

• Explore alternate storage options. Depending on your needs and affiliation, UCLA offers several storage options to safely store your data with options that may offer more storage than your assigned Permanent Baseline Quota for UCLA Google accounts. Visit the Alternate Storage Options page of this site and reference the featured Campuswide Alternate Storage options table to identify the best-fitting solution for your data needs.​
• Purchase additional storage. Depending on your primary affiliation, your UCLA Google account may be eligible to purchase additional storage. Visit the Purchasing and Alternate Storage Options page for details on eligibility and instructions. Options for storage purchase will be presented in the coming months, at a cost of $144 per TB per year.

UCLA Gmail will continue to send and receive email if your account is active, regardless of your storage consumption. Please note that if your Google account is over quota after June 27, 2024, your account services including email will be at risk of service disruption.

No, they are attributed to the owner’s account. 

If your affiliation changes, your UCLA Google account permanent baseline quota will be adjusted to the baseline quota assigned to your new primary affiliation. Note that community members with multiple affiliations will be assigned their permanent baseline quota based on their primary affiliation, which is set in the following order: faculty (including emeriti), staff, students, retirees, alumni.

For example, if your affiliation changes from faculty to retiree, the change will be processed when the subsequent quarterly affiliation audit is complete. Once your new affiliation is made official, you will receive a message from ITS confirming your new permanent baseline quota. You will have approximately 4 weeks to reduce your storage usage until it is under your new permanent baseline quota.

A containment ceiling was applied to all current faculty, staff, and students’ UCLA Google accounts — inclusive of individual Drives, Gmail and Photos, and Shared Drives — based on their current usage on December 15, 2023.

A containment ceiling was applied to all alumni UCLA Google accounts. Note that alumni and retirees’ Google accounts were reduced to Google Mail only on June 27, 2024.​

The containment ceilings were set just above the account’s current usage on December 15, 2023, to inhibit large storage growth. These ceilings were intentionally crafted to allow the community to continue to use Google Workspace without interruption.​

Containment ceilings were enforced until June 27, 2024, when Permanent Baseline Quotas were implemented and enforced.​

Containment Ceilings  

Storage is a combination of Shared and Personal Drives, Gmail, and Photos. 

Containment ceilings were announced on November 29, 2023, and were applied to all current faculty, staff, and students’ UCLA Google accounts — inclusive of individual Drives, Gmail and Photos, and Shared Drives — based on their current usage on December 15, 2023, through June 27, 2024. The containment ceiling was set above the account’s current usage as of December 15 to inhibit large storage growth. These ceilings were intentionally crafted as a temporary measure providing a grace period before applying the Permanent Baseline Quotas.

The following containment ceilings were implemented: 

Containment Ceilings  

Storage is a combination of Shared and Personal Drives, Gmail, and Photos. 

The containment quota was applied to the combined data in Google Drive, Gmail, and Google Photos within a UCLA Google account to minimize the impact to processes reliant on Google storage.

Shared Drive Managers were asked on December 7, 2023, to check the size of their Shared Drives and clean up the data stored in them if the storage usage went over the containment ceilings. Similar to Personal Drives, the containment ceiling for Shared Drives were set slightly above the current usage was on December 15, 2023. 

Shared Drives will also be provided with a way to increase their storage. Visit the Purchasing and Alternate Storage Options page for the latest information regarding options to purchase additional storage.

Containment ceilings were designed to offer flexibility and were set above what was your current usage on December 15, 2023. Requests for temporary increases to storage during the contain phase were accepted at googleworkspace@ucla.edu. ​

Permanent Baseline Quotas were implemented on June 27, 2024. If your storage usage exceeds your Permanent Baseline Quota, you will be at risk of disruption to your UCLA Google account and its services – regardless of whether or not you were granted a containment ceiling increase.​

Familiarize yourself and comply with the UC records management program by: (1) knowing the content of records; (2) confirming the retention period based on content per the UC Records Retention Schedule (3) securely disposing of records when the retention period ends. 

Do not dispose of any records that are subject to a legal action/legal hold; such records must be retained for as long as pending legal process is active.  

Behind the scenes, there is a substantial difference. The University of California negotiated a system-wide agreement that gives the university administrative and legal ownership of the data within, and ensures UC security requirements are upheld. This means that UC’s Electronic Communications Policy protects your account. Also, UCLA Google Workspace accounts are branded with our ucla.edu domain and users are not presented with advertising. 

The current process documentation outlines what happens when you leave UCLA or graduate. The project team is currently evaluating this process, given the changes that Google has announced.

Exceeding the Google Mail quota of 20GB will impact your ability to send and/or receive emails. You can still log in to your Google Mail account, view email, and download files. Once you remove emails so that you are below the 20GB quota for email your account will go back to operating normally. 

Note that if your primary affiliation is alumni or retiree your Google Mail quota will be set at your Permanent Baseline Quota – 5GB. Hence, exceeding the Google Mail quota of 5GB will impact your ability to send and/or receive emails. You can still log in to your Google Mail account, view email, and download files. Once you remove emails so that you are below the 5GB quota for email your account will go back to operating normally.