Frequently Asked Questions

Berkeley currently allows alumni to opt-in to the active @berkeley.edu Google account they had as a former student, employee, or participant in a prior Alumni Email Service.  These accounts allow 5 GB of total storage (including all Gmail, Drive & Photos). More information about the limitations to the @berkeley.edu Google accounts provided to alumni can be found on the Alumni Email Service page.

1. Former students are eligible to opt-in during your grace period
2. If you are an alum and also a recently separated employee, you can opt-in during your employee grace period

1. Enter the email address provided in the To: field of this message to login to Google.
2. Enter your CalNet ID and Passphrase when presented with the CalNet Authentication Service page.
   1. The part before the @ symbol in the To: field of this message is your CalNet ID
   2. You can Reset Passphrase(link is external) if you can no longer remember it.
3. Check the Email(link is external) section of your Google profile to see all of your alternate email addresses.

No, but in order to keep your account active, Alumni will need to log in to their Google account in a web browser using their CalNet credentials every 6 months to meet the activity requirement. Using the Gmail app and third party email clients also count as activity, but that activity can only be tracked for 30 days. Other types of activity like forwarding email to another account or using auto-reply messages do not register as activity.

• Alumni will be notified at both their @berkeley.edu email and their listed recovery email after 4 months & 5 months of inactivity.
• If this requirement is not met, the email account will be deemed inactive and permanently disabled.
• The earliest date any account may be disabled is October 15, 2025.

No. Campus is committed to maintaining ways for alumni to stay engaged with Berkeley. We will continue to evaluate whether this service is an effective way of achieving that goal. The Alumni Email Service is provided as a privilege and is subject to additional changes.

No. Email services for alumni are currently funded by UC Berkeley as a privilege and limited benefit to alumni. There are no charges to alumni for using the alumni email service. All UC Berkeley Google accounts provided to alumni will be limited to 5 GB of total storage.

Alumni can not purchase additional storage or use storage purchased directly from Google with their UC Berkeley Google accounts.

This is a common error when you're already signed into a personal gmail account. Instead of logging out of your personal account, you can open an Incognito Window on Google Chrome or Private Window in Safari/Microsoft Edge/FireFox to access the form: https://sites.google.com/berkeley.edu/alumni-email/home

You should then be asked to login with a Google account in which you'll use your @berkeley.edu account (not @cal.berkeley.edu or any other alias). Then you should be prompted to authenticate with CalNet ID and passphrase to proceed to where you can submit your alumni email renewal form.

Alumni with active @berkeley.edu email accounts may continue use of that account provided they complete the following:

1. Log in to the account in a web browser at least once in a 6-month period (see restrictions below)
2. Keep their storage quota below 5GB
3. Adhere to all CalNet requirements.

If these requirements are not met, the email account will be deemed inactive and permanently disabled.

NOTE: Reading email via mobile and desktop apps (e.g. Gmail App, Apple Mail, Outlook) or forwarding email without accessing the account directly in a web browser does not fulfill the login requirement.

1. Control costs: Berkeley needs to manage the additional costs associated with the new storage pricing model offered to Google Workspace Education customers.

2. Manage risks and threats: Berkeley needs to manage the security and reputational risks and threats posed by unattended and possibly compromised alumni email accounts.

No. Only alumni with existing, active @berkeley.edu Google accounts are eligible to opt-in to their service. 

No. Only alumni with an active CalNet ID and passphrase can opt-in to an @berkeley.edu Google account.

Many alumni value continued access to their berkeley.edu email address as a way to identify themselves as Berkeley graduates. Communicating between alumni and using it for job searches are two common ways alumni use their accounts.

Things to avoid:

1. Sending unsolicited email (SPAM) - even in relatively small numbers, sending SPAM can get your account blocked by Google.  If your account is blocked, your account will be reviewed for abuse and can be subject to restrictions or revocation.

2. Using as a login to other services - Signing up for and using your @berkeley.edu address for other consumer services should be avoided.  These include, but are not limited to, personal banking/financial accounts and personal subscriptions like Amazon or Netflix.

Please refer to the Alumni Email Service Level Agreement for the exhaustive list of alumni responsibilities including adherence to policies and prohibited conduct

Yes.  If you already have CalNet 2-Step verification using DUO, you will be required to continue using it.  Alumni who don’t yet have CalNet 2-Step will be contacted in late summer 2024 or early Fall 2024 with instructions on how to set up CalNet 2-Step.

Please review Leaving UC Berkeley and Graduating? Prevent Google Drive Content Loss to take the necessary steps to ensure you have retained any personal information you require and that you have properly transferred any data to others as appropriate.  If you take no action, your account will be disabled and eventually deleted.

If you have deleted thousands of email and it seems like your Google Storage usage is not coming down, this could be due to a few things:

• First, confirm that email is where the majority of your storage usage is being used. As you are logged into your Berkeley Google account, click https://drive.google.com/settings/storage to check how much storage is being used by your email vs. your Google Drive files. 
• When you delete thousands of emails at one time, Google will warn you that it may not delete them all at once and that it will be done in stages and may take longer. Sometimes we see this process fail and folks have to delete these emails more than once. Look for this message pop-up as you are deleting:

• You also need to empty your Trash. It may take several attempts to permanently delete the data in your Trash. Note that deleting a large number of data may cause an error. It is recommended to permanently delete your data in smaller batches if you have a significant number of them in your Trash. To permanently delete individual data from Trash, click trash from the sidebar and click the link Empty Trash Now:

• Once emptied, storage usage should decrease in about 24 hours. However, if you have deleted a significant amount of data, it may take two or more days for Google to accurately report your new storage usage.
• Please see Quickly Clean Out Your Berkeley Email and Reduce Your Google Storage for detailed instructions.

Rarely, a connected app stores data in a “hidden” location within your Google Drive. You can check for these apps by visiting https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/settings . If you see anything that looks like it might be holding data you can use the dropdown “OPTIONS” menu on the right to “Delete hidden app data”. Make sure you don’t need the data before choosing this option. After doing so, you should see your storage decrease within a few hours.

Sometimes it can take up to 72 hours for Google to update your storage usage statistics. If it still hasn’t updated in a couple of days, please let us know and we will investigate.

Google can get confused when you’re logged into two accounts in the same browser profile. Try initiating the transfer using this URL instead - https://accounts.google.com/AccountChooser?continue=https%3A//takeout.go... which allows you to select your Berkeley account.

Please see Using Google Takeout and Google Transfer for more information.

Unfortunately, if you are moving more than a small amount of data, it has a higher chance of failure. Since Google doesn't directly support Takeout Transfer, we recommend using VaultMe instead. It is guaranteed to work and has a dedicated support team. You can learn more about VaultMe here - https://www.vaultme.com/edu/ucberkeley  

Please see Using Google Takeout and Google Transfer for more information.

If you want to try moving your content yourself, we recommend using Google Drive for Desktop. This video explains the process. Keep in mind that you will still need to download all native Google files (docs, sheets, slides, etc) manually via Google Drive in the browser so that they are converted to usable Microsoft Office documents. Native Google Drive files cannot be downloaded via Drive for Desktop.

You can also consider using VaultMe instead. It is guaranteed to work and has a dedicated support team. You can learn more about VaultMe here - https://www.vaultme.com/edu/ucberkeley(link is external)  

This is a limitation imposed by Google, so we cannot change this setting. Instead, you need to use Google Takeout, Google Takeout Transfer, or vaultme.com to transfer your content to your personal account. You can also manually download your content and then upload it to your personal account.

You can also refer to:

• Using Google Takeout and Google Transfer
• How much does VaultMe cost, and how do I get my discount?

You can transfer files/folder ownership between Box accounts by following these instructions. Scroll down to the section "In Box, how do I transfer ownership of content to an organizational or group Box account?" and follow those steps to transfer files in your individual Box account into either SPA accounts. The top level account will be the owner of all the folders and files that are nested below, where usage is calculated against the owner account’s quota.

In order to receive a storage limit increase you'll need to complete this form.

• Please ensure that you are storing departmental data in SPA accounts rather than your personal account so that the data is not subject to the account lifecycle process.
• Note: Box is only approved for active data, not backups or archives - this is restricted by the terms of our contract with Box. If you are using Box for inactive data (archive or backup purposes) please let us know. (link sends e-mail) so that we can refer you to Research IT and they can assist you with a more appropriate storage location.
• Note:  Box can't hold single files larger than 15GB. Please let us know. (link sends e-mail) if you have these as we'll need to work out a different solution with you. Box storage limit increases are given incrementally rather than all at once. In the future, if you need another increase, you can submit the form again.

For all Berkeley faculty, staff, and students, the following quotas apply:

• Individual Accounts: 50GB
• Special Purpose Accounts (SPAs): 500GB

To see the usage in your Box account, go to https://berkeley.app.box.com/account, then scroll down to "Account Details" and look for "Storage Used". To see the usage in a SPA, log into Google or Box as that SPA, and then follow the link above.

Box is approved for active files and content. Box should not be used for the purposes of backing up or archiving your data.

To create a SPA owned Box account, you will first need to create a SPA and then use that account to create the associated Box account. Create a SPA first, then create a Box account while logged in with the SPA.

Special Purpose Accounts(link is external), or SPAs, are CalNet IDs that can be shared by multiple users for collaborative purposes. To view a list of SPAs you belong to, visit https://spa.berkeley.edu/spa

If you visit https://www.vaultme.com/edu/ucberkeley and begin a migration, you will be able to go all the way through the migration settings and see the total cost, including your UC Berkeley-provided discount, before providing your payment details or completing starting your transfer. This is the most accurate way to get an estimate of your cost. Generally we estimate the cost around $33 per 100 GB.

• If there are several files, or you need to keep the URL or sharing settings, you should move them all into a Shared Drive

• If you only need to keep a small number of files and the URLs and sharing don’t matter, You can make a copy of the file then save the copy (e.g. on your MyDrive, a Shared Drive or your computer)

• No content will be deleted prior to September 2024

• More information

No. However, if the student is working on a group project with a Lab or other research group, the faculty member can create the Shared Drive and the team members, including the student, can use it.

UC Berkeley Box and Google Data Use Agreement

No, they are attributed to the owner’s account.

If your individual account is over the limit Autumn 2024, you will not be able to edit existing documents or upload new items in Google Drive. Email will work normally. No content will be deleted. Once you remove content so that you are below your limit your account will go back to operating normally. You can find more information about the various storage limit banners and notifications in the Knowledge Base. 

SPAs will need to reduce content in their My Drive space to be below 150 GB. Shared Drives that do not have a special arrangement in place will also need to be within 150 GB.

We are happy to consult with you. Please email us at google-storage-project@berkeley.eduto arrange a personal consultation.

If you are over quota, some services such as creating a new Google Doc may cease to function, however Gmail will continue to send and receive email normally.

In Gmail, when you attach something to an email, if that item is below 25 MB it stays in Gmail and applies to the Gmail portion of your overall usage. Larger attachments are saved in Google Drive and apply to the Drive portion of your overall usage. In both cases, the usage contributes to your overall quota.

Learn more about how Google stores email attachments and how you can manage storage.

On a day to day basis, we apply the model of privileged access, meaning we access the minimum of what is necessary in order to perform the requested or required task. We only access an account’s data without permission in very specific and rare cases such as legal holds. In those cases, we never look at the contents, but pull the requested information without further perusal.

We always make absolutely every effort to communicate when content is at risk of deletion. Sometimes content can be automatically deleted as part of the account lifecycle, where we deactivate and then delete accounts that were used by people no longer affiliated with the university. If an account holder repeatedly ignores our attempt to contact them in order to assist with lowering usage and no engagement or reduction has occurred, we may consider deleting content in that account. It is our goal to never have to delete content on your behalf!

Learn how to ensure content shared with you that you want to retain access is not deleted if the account is closed.

• To see the breakdown of usage in your Google account, go to https://drive.google.com/settings/storage.

• To see all the files in your Google MyDrive sorted by usage, go to https://drive.google.com/drive/quota.

• To find how much you are storing in your Shared Drive go to https://drive.google.com. Expand the “Shared drives” item in the left sidebar. Select the Shared Drive you’re interested in, and then Choose Info (small i in a circle) in the upper right hand corner. The Details information panel will open and you can scroll down to see the storage amount. Read More.

• To see the usage in a SPA, log into Google or Box as that SPA, and then follow the links above.

• Be sure you are logged into your Berkeley Google account, and not a personal Google account. To be sure, you can use a private or incognito browsing window.

The limit applies to Google Drive, Gmail (bMail), and Google Photos.

Storage limits are being applied in multiple phases.

• July 5, 2023
  • All newly created individual accounts had a 50 GB limit applied
  • All individual accounts with 35 GB of content or less had a 50 GB limit applied.
  • All individual accounts with 36 - 150 GB of content had a 150 GB extended limit applied.

• Autumn, 2024
  • All SPA My Drives should have been reduced to 150 GB.
  • All Shared Drives should have been reduced to 150 GB or have an Expanded Shared Drive or Pass Through Pay Option agreement in place.

• July 24, 2024
  • All Alumni accounts must be reduced to 5 GB.
  • See Alumni Email Accounts for more information.

• All individual accounts with more than 150 GB of content will maintain their current limit until further notice.

Only two percent of the campus population will see any impact based on the implementation of these new storage limits. For almost all accounts, you can continue to work normally with Google services.

No, Google cannot delete your data without your permission. Data stored within core apps are protected under the contract between UC Berkeley and Google, and will not be deleted unless the user requests it. However, under certain circumstances Google reserves the right to suspend a user’s account for violation of terms of service that rise to the level of an “emergency security issue”. If Google were to suspend a user’s account without warning, they would be required to provide UC Berkeley with an explanation in a timely manner.

Google, an established provider of web-based services has gone to great lengths to protect against threats. Google runs its data centers using custom hardware running a custom OS and file system. Each of these systems has been optimized for security and performance. The Google Security Team is working with external parties to constantly test and enhance security infrastructure to ensure it is impervious to external attackers. And because Google controls the entire stack running our systems, we are able to quickly respond to any threats or weaknesses that may emerge.

Google maintains a number of geographically distributed data centers. Google’s computing clusters are designed with resiliency and redundancy in mind, eliminating single points of failure and minimizing the impact of common equipment failures and environmental risks. Access to our data centers is restricted to authorized personnel.

Yes. Data is virtually protected as if it were on its own server. Unauthorized parties cannot access your data. Your competitors cannot access your data, and vice versa. In fact, all user accounts are protected via a virtual “lock and key” that ensures that one user cannot see another user's data. This is similar to how customer data is segmented in other shared infrastructures such as online banking applications.

Google has one of the best spam blockers in the business, and it's integrated into Google Workspace. Spam is purged every 30 days. Google has built in virus checking, and they enforce checking of documents before allowing a user to download any message. Most computer viruses are contained in executable files, so standard virus detectors scan messages for executable files that appear to be viruses. Google helps block viruses in the most direct possible way: by not allowing users to receive executable files (such as files ending in .exe) that could contain damaging executable code; even if they are sent in a compressed (.zip, .tar, .tgz, .taz, .z, .gz) format.

Google supplies Chrome™ and Firefox® users with constantly updated filters against phishing and malware.

By combining advanced algorithms with reports about misleading pages from a number of sources, Google downloads to your browser a list of information about sites that may engage in phishing or contain malicious software. Safe Browsing is often able to automatically warn you when you encounter a page that's trying to trick you into disclosing personal information.

Google believes that users should have control over their data. Google maintains multiple backup copies of users' content so that Google can recover data and restore accounts in case of errors or system failure. When you ask Google to delete messages and content, Google makes reasonable efforts to remove deleted information from our systems within a commercially reasonable amount of time. Learn more(link is external).

Simply put, Google does not own UC Berkeley users’ data. Google does not take a position on whether the data belongs to the institution signing up for Apps, or the individual user, but it knows it doesn't belong to Google.* This means three key things:

Google won't share your data with others except as noted in Google’s Privacy Policy(link is external)
Google will keep your data as long as you require Google to keep it
Finally, you should be able to take your data with you(link is external) if you choose to use external services in conjunction with Google Workspace or stop using Google’s services altogether
*For specific questions about UC's intellectual properties and copyright policies, please refer to UCOP’s Copyright Resources.

As a matter of campus practice, email is not accessed for security monitoring, however, UC Berkeley does monitor network traffic(link is external) in an attempt to ensure the security of all systems on the network.

By default, email messages sent to or from bConnected email accounts use encryption. When encrypted, sender and recipient information (To/From email addresses), subject lines, and message content are not visible, even if intercepted through monitoring. However, this level of email encryption can not be guaranteed throughout the Internet ecosystem, so email should not be considered a secure form of communication.

UC Berkeley’s information security monitoring practices are reviewed by a consultative campus governance(link is external) process, which balances security benefits with privacy concerns, enforces controls on the type of monitoring allowed, and limits how any data collected may be used. The UC Office of the President may mandate different monitoring practices under the Coordinated Monitoring and Threat Response Initiative(link is external).

Google complies with valid legal processes seeking account information, such as search warrants, court orders, or subpoenas. Google attempts to notify users before turning over their data whenever possible and legally permissible.  For more information, please see both the bConnected Transparency Report and the Google Transparency Report(link is external) for information regarding government requests for user data.

Google may only share information with third parties in conformity with Google’s Privacy Policy and Customer Agreement. Google does not share or reveal private user content such as email or personal information with third parties except as required by law (see the Google Transparency Report), on request by a user or system administrator, or to protect Google’s systems. These exceptions include requests by users that Google's support staff access their email messages in order to diagnose problems; when Google is required by law to do so; and when Google is compelled to disclose personal information because Google reasonably believes it's necessary in order to protect the rights, property or safety of Google, its users and the public.

The agreement that UC Berkeley utilizes for its Google Workspace for Education Service (including bMail, bCal, Drive, and others) does not allow Google use of our data for any purposes other than to fulfill its obligations to deliver the service to us under our agreement. UC Berkeley does not believe that scanning for the purpose of serving ads anywhere is an allowed use under our agreement.

No, Google’s scanning and indexing procedures are 100% automated and involve no human interaction. In order to provide some of the core features in Google Workspace, Google’s automated systems will scan and index some user content. Google scans or indexes user content in Google Apps in order to provide features that will either directly benefit users or help Google maintain the safety and security of their systems. For example:

Email is scanned so Google can perform spam filtering and virus detection
Priority Inbox, a Gmail feature, scans email message to identify which messages are considered important and which are considered not important
Note that there is no ad-related scanning or processing in Google Workspace for Education or Business with ads disabled
Some user data, such as documents and email messages, are scanned and indexed so users can privately search for information in their personal Google accounts
UC Berkeley Google data is not part of the general google.com index, except when you choose to publish information publicly.

Your UC Berkeley Google account is managed separately from your personal Google account(s), therefore the data and settings from these accounts will remain separate. Only data that you manually copy between the accounts will be shared (e.g. if you send a personal email to your bMail account). If you use a personal Gmail account, in order to avoid confusion, it is best to use a different web browser to toggle between the two accounts. Using an “incognito” browser in Chrome™, for instance, may also help avoid confusing the two accounts.

The University of California Office of the President (UCOP) negotiated a contract with Google, on behalf of the UC campuses. The contract UC Berkeley has in place with Google puts in place stronger protective measures around data stored and transmitted within the core apps: mail, calendar, contacts, drive, docs/sheets/slides/forms, and talk. Google consumer apps, such as Search, YouTube, Maps, etc., do not offer the same protections and are subject to Google’s standard terms of service. The main differences between services offered under UC Berkeley’s contract and Google include:

Data stored in core apps are not scanned for the purpose of displaying ads
Data stored in core apps are not accessed by non-core services
The same access restrictions to data in core apps applies to third party sites where Google is serving ads
An example of this protection would be if you sign into your bCal account, then proceed to Google Search to look for something. Ads displaying in Google Search results screen (a non-core service) will not be influenced by data in your calendar events (data in a core service).

If you were to use a personal Google consumer account, your data is not protected from sharing between any of the services offered, such as between Google Calendar and Google Search.

Google Workspace has received a satisfactory SSAE 16 and ISAE 3402 Type II audit, ISO 27018 Cloud Privacy Standard(link is external), and ISO 27001 certification(link is external). This means that an independent auditor has examined the controls protecting the data in Google Workspace (including logical security, privacy, Data Center security, etc) and provided reasonable assurance that these controls are in place and operating effectively.

For full text of UC Berkeley's contract with Google, please refer to UCOP Contract Database(link is external). Please note that to access UCOP Contract Database, your computer must be on UC Berkeley's network.

UC Berkeley Google accounts are designed for institutional use; however, incidental personal use is acceptable as long as it complies with the University of California’s Electronic Communication Policy. Learn more about the Personal Use policy within UCOP Electronic Communication Policy, Section III.D.8.

In general, UC Berkeley Google accounts which include “core” apps: bCal, bMail, bDrive, bConnected Lists (Google Groups), Chat, Meet, and Contacts, can be used to store and transmit general(link is external) and Protection Level 3 data(link is external), as defined in the Data Use Agreement(link is external). Any consumer apps you choose to use (YouTube, Maps, Blogger, etc.) are only suitable for general(link is external) data. Read more about keeping sensitive data safe.

None of the apps within Google Workspace are suitable for storing and transmitting Protection Level 4 data(link is external), such as notice triggering data, human subject research data and other actively regulated data. For additional details on what types of data might or might not be suitable for Google Workspace, please refer to Data Use Agreement(link is external).

There is a larger industry trend towards eliminating “unlimited” offerings for cloud-based services. This has its roots in the fact that, unlike 5-10 years ago, storage costs are no longer rapidly decreasing. In fact, they have leveled off or increased in recent years.

Google is eliminating the free and unlimited storage offering that they have provided to the K-12 and higher education community along with their rebranding from Google G Suite for Education to Google Workspace Education. We currently store 11.2 PB of data in our entire Google Workspace enterprise environment, and we will need to reduce our storage to below 2.6 PB or the university will be charged significant fees. We will have until November of 2024 to adjust our services accordingly.

Google

To see the breakdown of usage in your Google account, go to https://drive.google.com/settings/storage

To see all the files in your Google MyDrive sorted by usage, go to https://drive.google.com/drive/quota

Box

To see the usage in your Box account, go to https://berkeley.app.box.com/account, then scroll down to "Account Details" and look for "Storage Used"

Usage by SPAs

To see the usage in a SPA, log into Google or Box as that SPA, and then follow the links above.

Do

1. Clean up: Delete any files, folders or email that you are confident you no longer need from Google and Box. 

2. Empty your Box and Google Trash: Deleted files in Google and Box are moved to the trash in Google and Box

3.  Just like on your computer, you need to empty trash in order for the files to be fully deleted. If you don’t need the files in your Google or Box Trash, please empty it.