Managing Storage in Google Drive

For many years, IUSD accounts had unlimited storage in Google Drive, but as of July 2022, Google has begun limiting storage for its education customers.  Beginning in the 22/23 school year, IUSD will have to place limits on user storage in Google Drive as a result.  Once these limits are in place, if you have exceeded your allocated limit, you will need to remove items until you are back under your storage limit.  

Each user can check their individual Drive usage and clean up large items by following either the directions below or this info from Google:  Manage files in your Google Drive

IUSD Storage Quotas

The limits we put in place are intended to meet the needs of 99% of our users and ensure sustainability so that everyone can continue to utilize their Google Storage in IUSD.  If our organization exceeds our quota with Google, new file creation stops for everyone, so we all need to do our part to use our storage wisely.  We're tiering our storage limits based on grade level and role in our organization.

Check your used Storage

When you go into your Google Drive, there is a new Storage icon at the bottom of the left-hand navigation pane.  It will show you your current usage and take you to a dashboard to provide additional details.  Your storage is broken up into files in Drive, Gmail, and Photos, but most users will only have files in Drive.  Your files are automatically sorted by file size, with the largest items on top.

Deleting Large items

The fastest way to clear up space is to start with the largest items in your drive and remove unneeded files.  These large files are often video files and can take up a lot of storage space.  If you no longer need these, you can right-click on them and select "Remove" from the drop-down menu.  If you still need these files, consider another storage option like Microsoft OneDrive.  IUSD users have 1 TB (1000 GB) each in OneDrive.

Empty your Trash

Once you have removed an item, Google moves it to the Trash folder in your Google Drive.  Your storage won't be freed up until you Empty the trash.  You can do this on individual files or in bulk, but Google will automatically delete items that have been in your trash for 30 days.