Google Workspace FAQ for Alumni

• Beginning with the class of 2026 (students at all levels), Google Workspace accounts will be deleted approximately 300 days after graduation. All contents stored in Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos will be removed and no longer available. Class of 2026 accounts will be removed on Wednesday, March 31, 2027. 
• Students graduating in 2025 will lose access to Google Drive and Google Photos but may keep their Gmail account. Transition to an alumni email account is encouraged. Class of 2025 accounts will be removed on Thursday, October 1, 2026.
• Students graduating in 2024 will soon lose access to Google Drive and Google Photos but may keep their Gmail account. Transition to an alumni email account is encouraged.  
• Students graduating in 2023 and earlier will retain access to their Gmail accounts, but transition to an alumni email account is encouraged. Google Drive and Google Photos have already been removed from these accounts.  

For over 15 years, alumni have retained full access to the Google accounts issued to them as students, at no cost, including Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos with unlimited storage. However, Google no longer provides unlimited storage to its Google Workspace Education accounts. Therefore, the University will remove storage and access to Google Drive and Photos for all student @.u.northwestern.edu accounts. Beginning with the class of 2026, Gmail (@.u.northwestern.edu) access will be removed as well. Graduating students may establish a new alumni email account which accurately reflects their graduate status. 

Accounts will remain in place as long as they are being used. Accounts which are not being accessed/opened and which have no email forwarding rules enabled will be removed after two years of inactivity. Attempts will be made to notify owners prior to account removal.  

Please review this knowledge base article for answers to commonly asked questions. 

If you are the owner of an @u.northwestern.edu organizational account for a student group, you can transfer account ownership before leaving the University by emailing consultant@northwestern.edu.  

 After ownership has been transferred, make sure that the new account owner changes the organization account password by visiting the @u Organizational Account Password Reset page. 

Instructions may be found here.

Students with large amounts of data may need to purchase a Google One subscription if they choose to transfer their data to another Google account using Google Takeout. Please note that it will take longer to export data based on the amount of data you have (ranging from hours to days). In some cases, it may take multiple attempts, so please allow plenty of time to export. 

This error occurs when you are logged into your personal Gmail account instead of your Northwestern student account. To remedy this, open an incognito/private browser and log in using your @u.northwestern.edu credentials, then try to use the Takeout tool again. 

To move "Shared with Me" files in Google Drive, you can't directly move them from the "Shared with Me" area to "My Drive" or any folder within "My Drive" directly. However, you can make a copy of the files and then move the copies to your desired location. Here's the steps to do so: 

1. Navigate to the "Shared with Me" section in Google Drive. 

2. Right-click on the file you want to move and select "Make a copy." This will create a copy of the file in your "My Drive" that you now own. 

3. You can then organize the copy by moving it to any folder within your "My Drive." 

This method ensures that you keep a copy of the shared files in your own drive space, which can then be included in Google Takeout exports or moved to another service if needed. 

Note: For files you own in shared folders, use caution during Google Takeout migrations: while your owned files will be exported, the original folder structure will not be preserved.

This banner is set by Google across its student email services and is not controlled by Northwestern.

You can use the “Transfer” button to go through the Google transfer process. Simply click it and follow the prompts to move your content, or refer to the steps in the previous answer within this FAQ for using Google Takeout.

Log in with your username and your Google Workspace account password at http://www.gmail.com. Your username is your full email address (e.g., WillieWildcat2020@u.northwestern.edu), not an account nickname. 

If you forgot the password for your @u.northwestern.edu account, please call the Northwestern Service Desk at 847-491-4357 (1-HELP).