Overview of Changes and Impacts
- Ashley Mattingly
- A.J. Newman
- Megan Clark
The transition from Google Workspace to Microsoft 365 involves changes to email services and file storage and impacts members of the community differently. Select your role at the University below to learn more about upcoming changes.
 If you have used your UConn Google account username and password to log into other systems, like Spotify, you will need to make changes to those accounts before Google is discontinued at UConn.
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Email Service: All student data has been moved from Google Workspace to Microsoft 365. You should have received communications from ITS on the date of your account’s migration. Any data owned by your Google Workspace account should have been migrated into your Microsoft 365 account.
File Storage: Two main milestones impact your storage:
As of 2023, you have a 15GB storage limit on your Google Workspace account. The majority of students are well below this limit. If you go over the limit, you will be able to send and receive emails and view your files; you will not be able to edit existing files or create new ones.
Along with your email service, your files will be moved to OneDrive in Microsoft 365 in the spring/summer of 2024. OneDrive, which is similar to Google Drive, will be your new storage location for files.
ITS will migrate your data for you if you are under 15GB. Students who are over this limit will be notified through email. They may reduce their storage or manually migrate their data themselves.
Files that are stored in services outside of your Google Drive storage, like Google Photos, will not migrate and some features, such as links and sharing permissions, will not persist. Learn what will, and won’t, migrate by reading this knowledge base guide.
You may want to create a record of the files that have been shared with you in Google. To do so, please follow this guide: Create Record of Files Shared with me in Google
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Email Service: Students whose accounts are created after January 1, 2024 will be created in Microsoft 365 (please note: this does not include undergraduates who were admitted for the spring 2024 semester; their accounts were created before January 1.)
Undergraduate students who are starting their first year at UConn in the Fall 2024 semester will have their email and other communication and collaboration services in Microsoft 365.
Storage: You will use Microsoft OneDrive for your file storage and Microsoft Outlook for email.
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Email Service: You will have access to your UConn Gmail for 60 days after you graduate and are no longer enrolled at the university. ITS will notify you via email when your 60-day period begins. As an alumnus, you may choose to keep your UConn email address by opting into the Alumni Forwarding Service. This service lets you point your University of Connecticut email address to a personal, non-UConn email account. Â Email sent to your University of Connecticut address will be automatically forwarded to your designated, personal mailbox. UConn will not hold a copy of these emails; emails are simply redirected to your personal mailbox without resting in a UConn hosted mailbox.
File Storage: You will have access to your Google Workspace account for 60 days after you graduate and are no longer enrolled. Files stored on your UConn Google Workspace account (e.g., data in Drive, emails in Gmail, pictures in Photos) need to be moved if you wish to keep your data. Â The Google Takeout tool lets you download a copy, or you may transfer the data to a personal Google account using the transfer tool. Â Takeout will generate a .zip
file that you can move to a personal storage solution (e.g., a local disk or your non-UConn Google account), while a transfer moves your data directly into another Google account.
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Email Service: Your email service is not affected. You will continue to use Outlook.
File Storage: Work-related files must be stored in Microsoft 365 (OneDrive or SharePoint). If you have files stored in Google Workspace, ITS will migrate files to OneDrive in Microsoft 365 in the spring/summer of 2024. Google Drive specific files will be converted so that you can use them in Microsoft (For example, a .gdoc will convert to the Word format, .docx).
Files that are stored in services outside of your Drive storage, like Google Photos, will not migrate and some features, such as links and sharing permissions, will not persist. Learn what will, and won’t, migrate by reading this knowledge base guide.
For more information about the transition for faculty, visit Google to 365 - Faculty
You may want to create a record of the files that have been shared with you in Google. To do so, please follow this guide: Create Record of Files Shared with me in Google
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Email service: UConn will no longer be able to host a mailbox for former students. As an alumnus, you may choose to keep your UConn email address by opting into the Alumni Forwarding Service. This service lets you point your University of Connecticut email address to a personal, non-UConn email account. Â Email sent to your University of Connecticut address will be automatically forwarded to your designated, personal mailbox. UConn will not hold a copy of these emails; emails are simply redirected to your personal mailbox without resting in a UConn hosted mailbox.
File Storage: Files stored on your UConn Google Workspace account (e.g., data in Drive, emails in Gmail) need to be exported if you wish to keep your data. The Google Takeout tool lets you download a copy, or you may transfer the data to a personal Google account using the transfer tool. Â Takeout will generate a .zip
file that you can move to a personal storage solution (e.g., a local disk or your non-UConn Google account), while a transfer moves your data directly into another Google account.
Students who graduated before the Spring 2024 no longer have recoverable access to their former Google accounts.
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New to the apps in Microsoft 365? Most of the apps in Google have a counterpart in Microsoft 365. Learn more about how they compare.
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