Google Photo Instructions

Google will no longer provide ISU with unlimited data storage as part of our education service agreement with them. As a result, access to Google Photos will be turned off for all students, faculty, and staff after April 15th. (Alumni and retirees are on a separate timeline.)

Please check your Data Storage to see if you have any photos saved to your ISU Google Account.  To check, go to Google Drive and click Storage at the bottom left.  This will show a breakdown of the various types of data you have stored in your ISU Google account.

If you have ANY PHOTOS AT ALL you need to move and delete them.  Google Photos will be turned off for all ISU accounts after April 15th.  

First, you may discover that your smartphone has been backing up its photos to Google Photo for you, perhaps without your knowledge. Turn that syncing function off before you do anything else. 

Multiple options exist for moving the rest of those photos, including transferring them to your personal Google Account; moving them to a separate, non-Google storage option (such as a jump or hard drive, a private cloud storage option, etc), or deleting them. 

We have clear, step-by-step instructions for each of these options, so that you can choose which makes the most sense for you.  For the first two options, it is critical that you return to your ISU Google Account and delete the photos after you are done moving them. Google actually retains a copy of the photos for you on your ISU Google Account even after you have moved them all to their new home. You must return back to Google Photos and delete those images, following the instructions for deleting photos.

For more information, we encourage you to visit our Google Data Limits web page, or go to the FAQ page we have assembled just for Google storage questions.  

 If you have concerns or questions not answered by these resources, please reach out to the Service Desk for assistance at help@isu.edu