Google offers a service that allows you to transfer your email, Google Drive data and Google Photos 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.
- Sign up for a personal Google account/Gmail address, or use a personal Gmail account you already have.
- Transfer your CWRU email and documents to your personal Gmail address using Google Takeout transfer.
- This may take up to 2 weeks to complete.
- Review the information in the "My Drive files that aren't copied" section and the "Google Photos content that isn't copied" section of the above Google Help page for 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 to determine whether you will need to purchase additional storage before the migration. To find your current storage amount, sign in to your personal Google Drive account and it's located at the bottom of the left sidebar.
- 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.
Google offers a tool to download your university Google Workspace account data to a local storage area, such as your computer's hard drive.
- 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.
- This may take up to 2 weeks to complete. See UTech’s Google Takeout guide for more information.
- Google Photos
- POP with Gmail: This uses the POP function within Gmail to move the messages. Those instructions are located at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QCJjwfMvV0f5sVJvO35G9YYxtJM2BPXG9zdICLu2BRE/
- Email client Thunderbird: It's free software that you will need to install to transfer the emails, but you can uninstall it when it's complete. We have found this method works for most people. The instructions are located at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kRpCzC5FOWlpEIK7SshRCmwRb7Pkylwwq93SMQ1i290/
- Paid option VaultMe: VaultMe will complete the transfer of your email for you, and can include Google Drive, calendar and contacts.
Google Photos
- A method to transfer your Google Photos is to use Partner Sharing.
- 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.
- Approve the partner request from your personal Google account.
- 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.
- When the process has fully completed (this may take some time), remove the partner sharing from your CWRU account to verify that the photos persist in your personal Google account.
- Apple users can transfer Google Photos to Apple iCloud using the method described on Google's or Apple's web page.
Other data
Transfer other Google content as desired, such as Google Calendar, Contacts, Photos, etc. See information on the Google Help page in the "Download files that aren't copied" section for details.