Due to licensing changes imposed by Google, UTmail accounts will no longer offer unlimited storage beginning in late 2022.  

The following changes to storage limits will take effect no later than Nov. 1, 2022: 

• Faculty, and staff will be limited to 20GB of storage for their Gmail and Google Workspace accounts.  
  
  
• Students will be limited to 5GB of storage for their Gmail and Google Workspace accounts.   
  
  
• Alumni, former students, and retirees will be limited to 1GB of email storage and will have access to Gmail only. Accounts that have been inactive for 12 months or longer will be deleted.  
  
  
• Shared Drives are no longer permitted. The ability to create new Shared Drives in UTmail has been disabled organization-wide and all content must be exported. Shared Drives hosted by organizations outside UT Austin are not impacted. 

The new storage limits will be put into place on or before Nov. 1, 2022 to prevent unexpected loss of data and UTmail service outages when Google’s maximum storage limits take effect Jan. 1, 2023. UTmail users must act to preserve any content that exceeds the above limits before Nov. 1, 2022.  

The UTmail team has developed recommendations and documentation (including this online guide) to assist you with taking any necessary actions. The UTmail team will also be communicating with UTmail account holders throughout the 2022 calendar year regarding these changes. For further information and background on this project, please visit: https://it.utexas.edu/projects/utmail_storage_reduction 

For all users:  

• You must check your storage usage to ensure that you are below the limit for your user type (refer to What Storage Quotas and Services Will I Have?).  
  
  
• For more information on managing your storage on Google Drive, visit Manage Files in Your Google Drive Storage. 

For current faculty, staff, and students: 

• If you have more than 20 GB stored in Google, you will be required to migrate your email and/or files to a new location to bring you under the 20 GB limit.  

For students: 

• If you have more than 5 GB stored in Google, you will be required to migrate your email and/or files to a new location to bring you under the 5 GB limit.  

For former students and retirees: 

• If you have more than 1 GB stored in Gmail and/or if you have any files stored in Google Drive, you must reduce your Gmail storage below 1 GB and remove all files stored in Drive.
  

Note:

• You must log in to your UTmail account at least once every 365 days. If you do not log in to your UTmail account for 365 days, it will deleted.
  
  
• You will receive alerts prior to your account being deleted.
  
  
• Only signing in to your UTmail account via a web browser will keep your account active.
   
• Checking your storage usage counts as logging in.
  
  
• Forwarding does not count as logging in. 
  
  

For Faculty, Staff, and Retirees:    

• Yes. University faculty and staff must manage emails and files in their UTmail business accounts as official university records. Retirees should ensure that they do not have any university records in their accounts.
     
• For further guidance, please review the information below in As an Employee, What are my Obligations When Reducing Files and Email in My UTmail Business Account?  

• No. University retention rules do not apply to student, former student, or alumnus UTmail accounts. Contents of those accounts may be deleted or managed at the discretion of the account owners.  
  
  
• NOTE: The retention rules do apply to information created by any student employee while conducting university business, including students in both academic and non-academic student job titles. Speak with your hiring department about getting a work email account to keep your work and personal emails separate. 
  
  

The University Records Management Officer has authorized the deletion of inactive university records dated prior to Dec. 31, 2017. If there are records from that period pertaining to active business issues, they should be transferred to another university storage account such as UTBox, OneDrive, or SharePoint.    

University business records dated after Dec. 31, 2017, are not authorized for deletion. They may be transferred to another university storage account for retention, or you must submit a request for authorization to dispose or consult with Records and Information Management Services (RIMS) before deleting.   

You may dispose of all records and emails not conducting university business up to the present day, including:   

• Personal use emails, photographs, and other personal files  
   
• Department social emails e.g., “cookies at the front desk” or “Join us for Ben’s retirement party”   
  
  
• Memos from other university departments   
  
  
• Unsolicited advertisements   

Please refer to RIMS' guidance regarding the reduction in size of your UTmail account for more detailed information. 

Alumni, Former Students, and Retirees: 

• For alumni, former students and retirees, the university is unable to provide recommendations for third-party commercial services, although many users choose a personal Google account.   

• Instructions for moving personal data to a personal Google account 
  
  
• Instruction for staff/faculty to switch to Office 365  
  
  
• School of Information Microsoft 365 Guides

External Resources  

Google  

• Download data (one thing or everything). Follow Google’s documentation to move your email, calendar, and other data associated with your UTmail account using Google Takeout. 

Gmail  

• Automatically forward Gmail messages to another account 
  
  
  • You can forward your work UTmail account to Office 365, but you cannot forward it to a personal account.  
    
    
  • You can forward a student, retiree, or alumni account to any personal account (do not forward it to a work account).  
    
    
  • CAUTION: If you automatically forward or sync UTmail data with another account, you must log into your UTmail account at least once a year to keep its status active or your account will be deleted. 
    
     
• Download emails using Google Takeout 
  
  
  • Deselect all options except Mail to create JSON and MBOX files; your emails are in the MBOX file.  
    
    
  • You will have to use a desktop email client to open the MBOX file, e.g., Thunderbird, Apple Mail. 
    
    
  • You cannot open MBOX files directly in Outlook. To import into Outlook, first open in another email client, then export to an Outlook PST format. Please view our documentation here: (Move My Email Messages from UTmail to Office365)
    
    
    
• Send emails as attachments  
  
  
  • You can attach emails to other emails without downloading them first. When you attach an email, it becomes an .eml file. You can attach as many emails as you’d like.  
    
    
  • Most email programs can open .eml files, including Outlook.  
    
    
  • NOTE: You CANNOT check UTmail email from other accounts (including following Microsoft’s Import Gmail to Outlook instructions) because Google has disabled this for school accounts, including UTmail.
     
    
  • You can use our instructions to add a business account to Office 365.
     

Google Calendar  

• Export your Google calendar
  
  
  • Creates a ZIP file of individual ICS files that you can open in most calendar applications.  
    
    
• Import events to a personal Google account
  
  
  • Follow step 2 to import the export you just created. 
    
    
• Import UTmail google calendar events into Outlook 

• Export, back up, or restore contacts  
  
  
  • Use these instructions to export from UTmail and import/restore in a personal account. 
    
    
• Import Gmail Contacts to Outlook 

• Download your Drive data using Google Takeout 
  
  
  • If you only want to export Drive files, you can deselect all options except Drive files.  
    
    
  • Once you download the files, you can upload your work files into UTBox, OneDrive, or SharePoint, or you can upload your personal files into a storage solution of your choice, e.g., a personal Google account.   
    
    
  • You can open Google-specific file types (Sheets, Docs, Presentations) in Microsoft Office with the default download file types.   
    
    

How Do I Keep My UTmail Account Active?  

You must log into your UTmail account at least once a year to keep its status active.  

Back to Top

You cannot delete a UTmail account by yourself, although it will be deleted automatically if you do not log in for more than a year.  

If you would like to permanently delete your UTmail account, please contact the UT Service Desk at (512) 475-9400 or help@its.utexas.edu.

Provide your name, your UTmail email address, and your EID, if known.