Bundle Up and Tidy Up
Blankets snuggled tight, a cozy scene: Declutter, declutter, make it serene! Just like your own home, your VCU Google Workspace account may begin to accumulate extra items, such as mail and files in Drive, that you might not need anymore and can be trashed, or might be good to put away in an appropriate place to use later. In this post, we’ll detail what steps you can take to get your Gmail and Google Drive tidied up and some ways you can maintain that tidiness. To view more information about this project, visit: Storage and Retention – Collaboration Services.
Why now?
Google announced a new storage policy ending free unlimited storage for the academic community. VCU’s storage limits go into effect May 2024. Our goal is to maintain service quality, minimize disruption, and contain costs while addressing immediate needs and planning for the future. This may involve considering additional storage opportunities or other adjustments to accommodate this change.
The focus of this campaign is an initial clean-up of your Gmail and Google Drive storage for the short-term while instilling best practices of data stewardship for the long-term so that any future clean-ups can be completed more quickly and easily.
Where do I start?
If you’re a student, skip down to the Areas of Clean Up section for methods of how to start considering what to delete.
If you’re a faculty, staff, or affiliate, it is critical to first consider the Library of Virginia retention guidelines and VCU policies on record deletion and submitting for data removal where required before moving anything to Trash. For brevity, we will not go into specifics here, but the resources below will serve as the best guide:
- Contact the Records Management Office at recman@vcu.edu
- Self-Paced Records Management Training and Live Records Management Training
- Records Management Technology Services page – Records Management
- Records Management Policy
- Breakdown of Record Types & Retention Periods – VCU Records Ownership
Areas of Clean Up
Gmail and Google Drive files are the main areas of focus, contributing to nearly all used storage for a Google Workspace account.
On this page, we’ve outlined some of the approaches one can take to get started: Cleanup Your Google Workspace Account.
Questions?
Maintaining the VCU Google Workspace storage limit is all of our responsibility and we greatly appreciate your cooperation. Below, we’ve outlined the recommended resources and contact information for additional questions.
Online Resources:
- Storage and Retention
- Records Management
- Records Management Policy
- Self-Paced Records Management Training
- Breakdown of Record Types and Retention Periods – VCU Records Ownership
- IT Self-Service Portal
Contacts:
- IT Support Center
- Phone: (804) 828-2227
- Email: itsc@vcu.edu
- Departmental IT
- Records Management Office
- Collaboration Services