Introduction

In this blog, you will learn about how to Remove the storage limit as a Google Workspace Admin? As a Gmail Admin (Google Workspace Admin Console), you should know about how to manage your Google Workspace storage. To manage your storage, you can set the limit for your users’ Google Workspace storage consumption. If you don’t set any storage limit for your users, they can’t see the storage usage indicators in Google Workspace products. You can set or remove this limit for Google Workspace editions like Business, Education, Enterprise, and Essential.

Learn about Google Workspace storage usage

You can use reports, logs, and instructions from the Admin Console to manage your Google Workspace storage. For example –

  • You can create account reports to know the storage utilization by your users and identify the issues on storage (if any). You can learn it from User reports: Accounts in detail.
  • You can also analyze the storage logs using BigQuery. You can export report data from BigQuery to see the storage usage. Also, you can export Google Workspace usage reports and logs to Google BigQuery. You can get the usage reports of all users in your domain, irrespective of their licenses. But you need the Google Workspace for Education Plus, Education Standard, Enterprise Essential Plus, Enterprise Plus, or Frontline Standard to use logs of BigQuery. Know more from - About reporting logs and BigQuery.
  • You can review the storage usage by the users, Google.
  • Workspace products and shared drives from the Storage option of Google Admin Console.
  • You can manage storage usage by handling shared drive usage and activities. 

Set the storage limit for your users

To apply this configuration, you should put your user account within an organizational unit or within a configuration group. Also, you can use filters on users’ groups if a group member causes the storage limit overload. Now, follow these steps to set storage limit for your users –

  1. Sign in to your Admin Console and go to Menu.
  2. Then, go to Storage.
  3. Click Manage from the Storage settings section.
  4. Click the entity for which you want to apply the storage limit - Organizational unit or Groups
  5. Click User storage limit to open, if it has not opened yet.
  6. Select On. Enter the quantity of allowed storage limit for each user.
  7. Finally click Save. Also, you can use the Override or Inherit feature for your child organization unit. If you have set the storage limit for your child OU previously and you want to inherit the limit from its parent OU then click Inherit. If you already inherited the storage limit from parent OU to your child OU then click Override.

Note: It can take up to 24 hours for Gmail and Photos to become the storage limit configuration applied on them.

Set the storage for shared drives

  1. Click Manage from the Storage Settings section of the Admin Console.
  2. Then, click Shared drive storage limit.
  3. After that, select On. Then, enter the storage quantity for your shared drive. 
  4. Finally, click Save. Also, you can set either Override or Inherit feature for your child organization here. Already, we have discussed it previously.

Some common examples of settings storage limits

  • By setting up a default storage limit for your OU, you provide everyone with the same storage space. For example, you can set up 12 GB as your default storage. It means all the users in your OU can use up to 12 GB of storage individually. 
  • Setting up different storage limits for different organizational units is also available. For this, you need to set a default storage for your OU. Then, you can set different limits for the OU. Say you have selected 5 GB as the default storage limit for the parent OU. Then, you can set a 10 GB storage limit for your ‘Sales’ OU. That means every user in this OU will gain 10 GB of storage. The 10 GB storage limit overrides the default storage limit of 5GB.
  • If you want to set a storage limit for an individual user, then put the user within an OU or a configuration group. Then, set storage for that OU or group.
  • You can set a default storage limit for individual members of a group. For example, you can create a group of software testers under the ‘IT’ organizational unit and set a 550 GB storage limit for individual users. Every member, including the new members, can use 550 GB storage.
  • Moreover, you can set different storage limits for different OUs. You may want to set a different storage limit for your parent and child OU. Suppose you have set 700 GB storage for your parent unit. Also, you want to set 100 GB storage for ‘IT’ organizational units. Then, set a 100 GB limit for the shared drive of the parent OU and set 700 GB for your ‘IT’ OU.

Manage more storage for Google Workspace

You can accumulate extra storage for your users by these ways –

Upgrade your Google Workspace edition

  1. Go to the Billing option of your Admin Console.
  2. Then, click Add or upgrade a subscription.
  3. Finally, click Switch. It will navigate you to a page that shows comparison between your current and upgraded Google Workspace edition. Then you can find a plan to continue upgrading.

Buy additional storage

You can buy Workspace Additional Storage add-on subscriptions to avail more storage. You can learn more about it from here.

Some storage limit warning messages and their solutions

  • You can find that some users of your group or OU have exceeded their storage limit. In that case, you can alert them on how much storage they are consuming or low storage space.
  • Sometimes, users don’t get available storage because of the Google Workspace license. This license restricts available storage. As a result, they get less storage than the actual storage limit.  
  • Also, there will be a problem of exceeding the storage limit for the shared drive. In that case, you can filter and sort the shared drives for the particular OU. Then, you can set a limit on how much they can use.

Some useful tips for setting storage limits

  • Setting a default storage for your parent OU first and ensuring all the users get this storage limit. Then, set the limit for your child OU.
  • By default, users can't create a shared drive for your organization. However, you can allow users to create a shared drive after setting a storage limit for the shared drives.
  • You can create a configuration group for your users if they need to expand their Google Workspace storage limit temporarily. In this case, you need to remove them from their OU's storage limit and add them to the configuration group. 
  • You can set different storage limits for different groups or organizational units.

Get workflow management guidance from Foresight

With its cutting-edge automation power, Foresight helps to streamline your business procedures and Google Workspace workflows. As a result, you can manage your complicated manual tasks without any workload and manage them within the deadline. In this way, Foresight rejuvenates your business productivity and growth. 

So, learn the use cases of Foresight and choose the automated workflows for your regular operations. You may like - Export mobile Devices in Google Workspace, etc.

Conclusion

Setting storage limits for your Google Workspace users is a significant task. It helps to provide sufficient storage for every user in your Google Workspace. Also, use an automation tool like Foresight to manage other tasks in Google Workspace. Try a 14 day free trial of it. Additionally, learn other topics related to the Storage limit of G Suite Admin, such as - Get ready for pooled storage, etc.