Google Drive Storage for those over quota
For those with Google storage over quota in the College of Engineering, please check out the information and resources below to help you check and remediate your storage overage. If you have any questions, please reach out to eoshelp@ncsu.edu.
Steps You Can Take
Step 1: Review content and file sizes in your NC State Google account.
- Visit https://drive.google.com/settings/storage to see which services are consuming the most amount of storage in your account.
Step 2: If you are approaching or over your target quota, review the following services to reduce storage usage:
Photos
- If they are personal photos, copy/transfer them and then delete
- Options include:
Gmail
- Your NC State Gmail should not be used for personal correspondence. If you are receiving personal email to your NC State account:
- Visit each personal/consumer service and change your email address to a personal email address.
- Move any personal emails to trash.
- Find old/unnecessary emails and move to trash.
- Review the University Record Retention and Disposition Regulation.
- Search your NC State Gmail account for messages that can be deleted.
- Narrow your search in Gmail by using additional Search Operators. Examples include:
- Has attachment: attachment size > x query
- Date: Older than x query – maybe 7 years?
- Size: size > x query
- Review the emails listed in your search results and delete if they are no longer needed for retention.
Drive
- Your NC State Google Drive should not be used to store personal files.
- If there are personal, non-NCSU items in Drive, copy them and then delete
- Google Takeout may be able to assist in this process.
- Find old/unnecessary files and move them to the trash.
- Narrow your search in Drive by using additional Search Operators. Examples include:
- Date: Older than x query – maybe 7 years?
- Size: size > x query
- Owner = x
- Check when the item was last modified/opened.
- Highlight a file and look in right-side info panel to review when the file was last accessed.
- Narrow your search in Drive by using additional Search Operators. Examples include:
- Visit the Drive Quota page to view your largest files
- Determine if these are still needed
- If not, move them to trash.
- Identify items that are not collaborative in nature that still need to be kept, but do not belong in Google Drive.
- Examples:
- Research focused files
- Backups / archive storage
- Make note of the items, their purpose, and how often they need to be accessed. Then reach out to your local IT Staff to discuss alternative storage options..
- Examples:
- Use the Drive Inventory add-on
- Identify large folders and duplicated files
- Delete duplicates and replace them with shortcuts
- Identify large folders and duplicated files
Support Resources
If you have questions, please review the resources below or reach out to eoshelp@ncsu.edu.
Alternative Storage Locations at NC State
- NC State Storage Finder: Identify appropriate university-hosted storage locations for various types data
- Research Storage
Google Storage/Account Quotas Overview
End User Tools
- End User Storage Tools & Resources: A complete list of items that can assist in your review of current storage usage and determining what content can be deleted or migrated to a Shared Drive.
- IT Reporting Tool: Lookup IT and Google assets you own or manage
- Drive Labeling: Search by labels to locate files you are shared on that are owned by former employees and former students that are scheduled for deletion
- My Drive Inventory: Generates a list of all files/folders in My Drive and stores it in a Sheet
- Google Storage usage: provides a breakdown of storage consumption between Photos, Gmail and Drive
- Find files in Google Drive using filters
- Clear space in Drive, Gmail and Photos
- Advanced search operators with Gmail
- Advanced Search Operators in Drive
Google Best Practices
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