Alumni Google Workspace FAQ

Google recently announced the end of unlimited storage in Google Workspace (Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Google Drive, Photos) for all its customers. This change will impact research universities such as Case Western Reserve particularly hard. Currently, CWRU has about four times the storage in Google Workspace as will be allowed after limits are put in place in the summer of 2024. As a result, the university needs to make significant changes in how it administers Google Workspace.

The university will phase out Google Workspace as a service available to alumni in summer 2023. Alumni will retain their CWRU email addresses. UTech provides a redirecting service so they can have their CWRU email delivered to the personal email address of their choice. However, alumni will no longer have access to a Gmail mailbox, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drive, Photos, or any other Google service through their CWRU account.

Update April 10, 2023: The Email Routing tool is now available for use. See question 1 for more information.

  1. Update your preferred non-CWRU email address by emailing uris-data@case.edu (provide your CWRU email address and preferred personal email address) or by filling out this Google Form. CWRU login is required.
  2. Use the Email Routing tool to redirect your CWRU email to your personal, external email address. Note: If you completed step 1 above, you must still use the Routing Tool to set your external email address.
  3. By June 30, 2023, download or transfer any Google Workspace data you would like to retain. See questions 2 or 3 on this page.

Google does offer a service that allows you to transfer your email and Google Drive documents to a personal Google account. You can transfer other Google content and do additional setup that essentially moves your CWRU Google Account to another Google account. The setup process would work like this:

  1. Sign up for a personal Google account/Gmail address, or use a personal Gmail account you already have.
  2. Sign in to the Routing Tool to have your CWRU email sent to that personal Gmail address to have your CWRU email sent to that personal Gmail address
  3. Transfer your CWRU email to your personal Gmail address. See items 1 and 2 in question 3 on that web page for details and important considerations. It's best to use an Incognito window in your browser before beginning the transfer. It may be helpful to watch a video about the transfer process.

    Be aware of your storage
    • You will want to check your storage in Google to determine whether you will need to purchase additional storage before the migration.
    • It also can help to empty the trash for Google Drive and Gmail before the transfer.
    • You can purchase additional Google storage if you need storage beyond the free 15 GB provided with a free account.
  4. Transfer other Google content as desired, such as Google Calendar, Contacts, Photos, etc. See items 3 and 4 in question 3 on the Google Help page for details.
  5. Set up your personal email to send email using your CWRU email address. See question 5 on this FAQ page for details. Note: you can make the default sending address your CWRU address.

Once those steps are done, you will have all of your CWRU email in the mailbox of the personal Gmail account and you will be able to receive email sent to your CWRU email address from that account and even send email as your CWRU email address from that account.

  1. Google makes it very easy to transfer your university email and Drive documents to a free personal Google account. See Google’s guide for detailed instructions. You can also export your CWRU Google Calendars and Contacts and import them into your personal Google account.

    Note: this process will transfer all of your email and Google Drive documents, including trash and files shared with you. You want to check your storage in Google to determine whether you will need to purchase additional storage before the migration. (See below how to purchase more storage for a personal Google account.)

    It also can help to empty the trash for Google Drive and Gmail before the transfer.

    Finally, if you do not want to transfer all of your Google Drive Documents, see the Google Takeout option below, which allows you to pick which folders you would like to back up.
  2. You can purchase additional Google storage if you need storage beyond the free 15 GB provided with a free account.
  3. You can also use Google Takeout to download all or selected portions of your Google Workspace data (Contacts, Calendar, Chat, etc.) to a local hard drive or a personal cloud storage service you may already be using, such as Dropbox or Microsoft OneDrive. See UTech’s Google Takeout guide for more information.
  4. If you are using Google Photos with your CWRU Google account, follow these steps to move your albums to a personal Gmail account
    1. Follow Google's instructions to set up partner sharing, enabling partner sharing from your CWRU account and selecting your personal Google account as your CWRU account's partner.
    2. Approve the partner request from your personal Google account.
    3. From your personal Google account, follow Google's instructions in the "Save your partner's photos" expandable section to add the photos in your CWRU account to your personal account.
    4. When the process has fully completed (this may take some time), delete the photos in your CWRU account.

Email sent to the following list will all work with the redirecting service.

  • username@case.edu
  • firstname.lastname@case.edu
  • username@cwru.edu
  • firstname.lastname@cwru.edu
  • username@alumni.case.edu
  • firstname.lastname@alumni.case.edu
  • username@alumni.cwru.edu
  • firtsname.lastname@alumni.cwru.edu

Existing personal email aliases will also continue to work. However, alumni are not able to change, delete or add personal email aliases.

Yes, if sending an email as or on behalf of another account is supported by your mail application. If you are using a personal Gmail account, see these instructions from Google, using these settings:

  • For email address in Step 1, number 5, use your preferred version of your CWRU email address (first.last@case.edu, username@case.edu, etc.)
  • For the SMTP settings in Step 1, number 7, use these settings:
    • SMTP Server: smtp.case.edu
    • Username: [your CWRU username without @case.edu]
    • Password: [your CWRU passphrase]
    • Port: 587
    • Secured connection using TLS

Yes. Alumni must still use the Routing Tool to redirect email to another email account. Gmail's forwarding feature, which alumni may have set previously to forward emails to a personal email address, requires an active account. As for July 1, 2023 alumni will not have active Gmail accounts so the Routing Tool is necessary to continue to receive email from their CWRU address.

It depends on the nature of the site’s or application's log in type. If you signed up for a site using your CWRU email address as the login, but set a password specific to that site, it will continue to work with the redirecting service.

However, if the site or application allowed you to log in directly using Google's authentication, i.e. if the Google login directed you to CWRU's Single Sign-On log in page to use your CWRU username and password, you will need to transfer the login to another address or Gmail account.

CWRU's Single Sign On (SSO) page

CWRU's Single Sign-On (SSO) page

Shared Drives are owned by the institution, not by individual CWRU user accounts. As a result, any Shared Drive you are a member of will not be deleted on June 30. However, since your CWRU account will be disabled on June 30, you and any other alumni with access to the drives will lose access.

If you need to copy data out of the drives, you could:

  • Move the data to your CWRU My Drive and then use one of the migration tools provided by Google to copy the data to a personal Google account or download the data. See the section "How can alumni download or transfer their CWRU Google Data" on this page for details.
  • Or, if you are a manager of the Shared Drive, you could add a personal Google account to the Shared Drive and copy the data directly to the personal Google account.

Per policy, Shared Drives are only for institutional storage, i.e. data that supports the academic, research, or administrative missions of the university. As a result, if you have personal data in Shared Drives, we ask that it be moved to personal storage before June 30, 2023.

If there is institutional data in a Shared Drive you manage, we ask that you make sure that a current faculty, staff, or student member of CWRU has access to the drive to ensure there is data continuity. See our Shared Drive FAQ for more details on new relevant policies and procedures.

Yes. Although access to Google Workspace is being decommissioned, alumni will continue to have a CWRU account for such uses as logging into SIS, ordering transcripts, accessing some university library services, and sending email with their university email addresses.

If you are leaving the university before June 24, 2023, you will lose access to your CWRU Google account on July 1, 2023. Anyone who leaves the University after June 24, 2023, will retain access for 7 days after departure from the university. The CWRU Email Routing tool does not become available until after you leave the university.

If you would like to continue to receive emails sent to your CWRU email account, you will need to set your routing after you leave the university. If you would like to retain any data from your CWRU Google account, you will need to copy it to a personal account before your CWRU Google account is deactivated within 7 days of leaving.