Just got the following email and figured I would pass along so everyone can see. If you are an alum and have been utilizing things like unlimited storage through your Google Drive or Photos account, you're going to want to pay attention because of you do nothing, you will lose everything a year from now...
Access to Google apps will end by June 2024. Learn more and prepare.
Dear user, changes are coming to the Google apps you may currently access through your Virginia Tech account. Alumni Google services will end by June 2024 and alumni email will migrate to Microsoft 365. This announcement was shared with the campus community today.
Here's a look at what this means for you, why it's happening, how to prepare, and where to get help.
What's the impact: Your Virginia Tech email and calendar will move to Microsoft. Your email address will change from user@vt.edu to user@alumni.vt.edu. You will receive a 50 GB Exchange Online mailbox. You will no longer have access to Google services through your vt.edu account.
Why now: Google's licensing model is changing and Virginia Tech's costs will be based on the amount of storage consumed. Continuing to provide unlimited storage is no longer feasible.
How to prepare: If you have files in your Virginia Tech Google Drive and Google Photos that you want to keep, begin transferring them to a new location. They need to be moved by June 2024. If you use your email address or Google account to access or receive correspondence from other accounts (for example, subscription services, bill pay sites, etc.) they will need to eventually be updated to your new user@alumni.vt.edu or another personal email address.
Getting help: Additional resources can be found online and you can expect regular updates with a more detailed timeline and guidance.
We know these changes may present a challenge for you. We've created the best plan given the changes in Google's licensing model and will continue to share updates and guidance. If you need immediate assistance or want to speak with someone directly, please call 540-231-6285 and select option four.
Comments
Thankfully, I am so old that email really didn't exist when I was in school, so I don't have to worry about this.
E-mail, what is that? Why I'm so old that I remember when Al Gore invented the internet.
Dang, I been using the @vt.edu address for 22 years now. Guess I gotta start updating subscriptions
Yeah I should have specifically called that out a little more clearly. If you are an alum and currently using a @vt.edu email address for any subscriptions, that email address will be eliminated in June, 2024 and will convert to an @alumni.vt.edu address.
This alone might have the most impact to everyone, moreso than the online storage
LOL-won't affect me in the least - email was a dream when I was a student-and they were just introducing "portable" computers...basically carrying around the equivalent of a desktop tower with a 4 inch amber monitor!
I missed having to use IBM punch-cards by one year!
You had "the curl bar" is my guess. Around the late 80s, right?
Was there from 1983-88 yes. I was lucky-started in engineering(cause I didn't then -and still don't lol- know what I wanted to do when I grew up) then to accounting briefly and graduated with management degree. i missed being REQUIRED to have a PC by one year. Used the then brand new PC labs to do my Fortran, the COBOL, then BASIC computer work. Acquired/stole 5 1/4 inch true floppy disk copies of thee compilers. Had an engineering prof who taught us how to change the white on gray screen 'colors' to true colors (my go to was gold on blue background) ;(btw he got a minor reprimand for showing us that lol). Usually did my programming assignments that were due for an 8 am class by going to the PC lab at 3am that morning and writing them from scratch as /i was and am a procrastinator and do my best work under tight time deadline.
Side note- (As we have these beautiful spring weekends)-God, I miss Stonegate and Bargerfest parties !! (And late night 2 for 1 kamikaze happy hours at Bogens.
Yep, we overlapped. 1987-1991 in Biochemistry and Nutrition. Then worked for a year as a lab tech before going off to grad school. Ostensibly, that year was to get more practical lab experience. The truth was, I liked it in Blacksburg so much that I just did not want to leave. My freshmen year roommate in Pritchard (on the bit) was in Mechanical Engineering. At least I think he was mechanical. And he had the curl bar with the tiny screen. I did not even get a computer until something like junior or senior year. Just went to the computer lab with my floppy disks.
Wait. So there's no magical computer wizardry that will automatically point all old @vt.edu related materials to the new @alumni.vt.edu address and we have to physically change it ourselves? Fucking hell. That's gonna be a pain in the ass searching thru all the shit I still have with my vt.edu account. I don't really use it for email and anything that gets sent there is forwarded, but I got a quite a few subscriptions and mailing lists attached to it. FML.Come on VT, just pay to keep this going. I know you've got the cash. I've seen how you live!
Yea they're really fucking us here
Not surprised. we've been operating on split platform between Google and Microsoft for a while and I think it was inevitable that they made the full migration to Microsoft/Azure.
Especially when google went from free to wanting more money than Microsoft was going to charge. Not a big decision for Tech.
And all state agencies have been switching over from Google to Microsoft.
Been a pain in my ass at work for the last month and a half, trying to help fix everything that IT has messed up.
Here is the site they're providing for support. I tweeted at them early this morning and they've been pretty responsive.
https://it.vt.edu/projects/google-changes.html
So, reading through it, it sounds like there will have to be some period of time where both the @vt.edu and @alumni.vt.edu are active in order to change logins, subscriptions, etc, right?
That I'm not exactly sure of. You'd think there would HAVE to be a couple months of overlap. I haven't read through everything yet but I would just assume move everything over to another gmail account. We're all going to have to adjust accounts with this email anyway which will be the brunt of the work so might as well just start to move it out now.
Daaaaang. I didn't know that I had unlimited Goog cloud storage on my VT account until I read this. Oh well. Looks like I will have to start updating all my sign-ins that use my PID. Thanks for the heads up.
I did and i have been taking advantage of it.
Big adjustment coming my way
My vt.edu email address has been my primary personal email address since I graduated and is associated with all of my subscriptions. This is going to be a painful transition 😅
I've had an auto forward set up from my vt.edu email to my current gmail that's worked pretty well. Wonder if this could be set up for the new alumni one also? Could help see which subscriptions use the expired email?
I did the auto forward as well last time they changed the e-mail accounts. I feel like I screwed something up with my account back then, though.
I'm in the same boat and was planning on setting up forwarding from the new alumni.vt.edu one as well. But if I don't give it out, or use it, will it get any real mail to forward?
I'm wondering how hard the transition is going to be for me. Like, if I see an account using the vt.edu email I should just go ahead and change it to my gmail. Other than that, where's the pain?
I'm glad I'm not the only one who still uses my @vt.edu gmail account. I just set up a new gmail three weeks ago. I didn't know storage was limited for anybody since my only experience with Google Suite is through VT. Not sure how this transition will affect my phone.
As someone who has a bunch of stuff saved on Google Drive.. What's the best move from there? Just start paying for Drive under a different account?
As I understand it, if your data is saved under your @vt.edu account you need to migrate/copy it to a different account.
Changing from Google to Microsoft, fine, great even.
Getting rid of my @vt.edu address is the dumbest of dumb in all of this. Wtf
From the FAQ:
I've had this address before Google was a thing, well Google mail anyways, why can't I keep it!
This brings up a good point. I get they need to move from Google to Microsoft, but the vt.edu domain was there before it was tied to Google and they migrated it TO gmail. Stands to reason they could migrate the domain AWAY FROM Google to the Microsoft platform. It's not like there's anything Google-related in the vt.edu domain name. So, Google shouldn't be able to raise a stink about keeping it.
I think there's two things going on here. My feeling is that we were getting shifted over to the alumni domain anyway, and VT timed that transition to just roll into the Google/Microsoft migration.
Domain name has nothing to do with email provider.
That's my point.
Is there a place for us to provide feedback, specially keeping the vt.edu domain name? This is shifting hours and hours of work into thousands of alumni.
This has been coming for about two years now. Task forces worked on the issue and studied the impact of making a change while the administration negotiated with Google. We got an extra year reprieve but it's a done deal because the price tag was just astronomical to retain the status quo. You can email whomever you like, but no amount of feedback is going to change anything. Trust me, it's not popular among employees and current students, either.
Alumni storage requirements were one of the biggest burdens on our current system. People who graduated just left stuff behind or overused what they were given. One single alum had 4 PB (not a typo, that is petabytes) of data stored on their VT-affiliated Google Drive. Changes and restrictions were coming, no matter what. I think there could have been easier things done, like just setting limits on alumni usage and otherwise leaving everything in place, but we were told that was also too expensive.
When this MS contract expires, wait till you see the new one. Some of the MS licensing quotes I have seen over the last few years have been nuts. Try and get someone from MS to explain exactly what all is included in a E5 vs E3 license.
This - 100%. As one responsible for the O365 contract for our organization, just wait until the first MS contract expires. Microsoft hates status quo renewals, so unless you buy more services at a higher cost, your status quo renewal price goes through the roof.
And if you think the E3 - E5 licensing is confusing, wait until the next tier gets released sometime in the near future.
LOL this was prescient
The price that they listed on their 'why did we do this' site was $990k per year. While that sounds like a lot, just admit 20 more out of state students per year (tuition is now over $50k per year OOS) and you cover those costs.
I'm not saying there weren't some alumni abusing the system, and maybe crack down on the fringe ones that are clearly running some online DB off their VT Google Drive, but the stated costs that they are putting on their site really aren't the end of the world when you consider the whole picture.
What I heard was Google wanted about 1.5 to keep the system running as is.
ok so 30 more OOS students
Tell me you don't understand the difference between profit and revenue without telling me you don't understand the difference between profit and revenue...
If they don't increase the staff or facilities, wouldn't revenue from 30 more students pretty much directly translate to profit?
This is post of the week type stuff here. I used to deal with that logic hole all the time 3 jobs ago.
Similar logic holes combined with what basically boils down to conspiracy theories in housing policy advocacy
Was it porn?
Must have been storing the entire Brazzers network.
If so... I think I know that guy
Yeah, it's your "brother", hokiejim02.
What extra costs are being incurred by keeping the domain names the same?
From a technical perspective: none.
No domain registration cost, it's a subdomain of vt.edu. Just requires a DNS entry.
TBH I'm not torqued about losing storage. I had used it for about half a T of secondary desktop storage backup, but I was absolutely freeloading. Now I gotta pay. Life goes on.
Losing the email address we were promised we would keep, though? That sucks. That sucks a lot, and I wasn't even using mine that much anymore. I have friends who have used theirs consistently for their entire online identity for over 25 years. VT wants to keep begging us for money? Put in a damn forward for existing PIDs and aliases.
From a technical or fiscal point of view I don't understand why they are doing this. The only thing I can think of is they want some sort distinction between students and employees with alumni. But without knowing more, it doesn't make sense.
I'm going to try to find out more. I queried campus IT about my status as both an alum and a current employee, because that's an important distinction for several features. The short answer was, I'm going to be given two accounts, one @alumni.vt.edu and the other @vt.edu. I feel like that makes even less sense, but I need to talk with them more.
Actually having separate accounts from student vs employee makes a lot of sense to me, my work account is solely for work, and while not every email matters to me probably 95% of them need my attention, the stuff I get on my VT email is insane. I could easily lose important work things in that account.
But I am curious how this works in the future, when student graduate do they lose their accounts? do they have a 1 year grace period for it to forward? what happens if they work a few years and come back for grad school? What if I go back to grad school after 20 years?
I thought that they might need to start reusing IDs but that's terrible security practice and again what if I come back after years and some one has my old pid? it makes no sense.
I dont understand this change and it's my first "I'm a grumpy old man" thing so I don't like it even more.
The reddit peeps are pissed too. I'm affected by this change, will have to change 50+ accounts (I made a list yesterday), migrate my folders/documentation, and I think it absolutely BLOWS, but my god does it always make me feel better seeing some of the crazies on Reddit lose it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/VirginiaTech/comments/12zxuwa/vt_alumni_should_...
Reddit is interpreting things the way it wants to. VT promised mail for life. Not Google mail for life.
I can see getting upset about the domain change, but even that can handled in the background so that people still get their emails even if they are sent to an @vt.edu address instead of the new @alumni.vt.edu. But this is also a lesson in personal IT hygiene and not relying on services from a public institution.
Another thing to consider is if you aren't paying for the service, you are the product. Google reads and mines EVERY e-mail that is sent through its system. All of that personal data is how Google makes its money. Relying on these "free" service comes at a cost that most people don't realize until something like this hits them in the face. NEVER rely on a "free" service for anything important!
This is the best advice I've seen on this site in a long time. +1.
Same goes for apps and locations. Any app that uses location services is selling that location to another party. Usually it's used for directed advertising at you, but it's also compiled into Big Data databases. Outside of targeted ads, the parties they sell it to are looking at trends rather than stalking you.
Just an FYI for those of you that use Google Photo that are losing access to that: if you are an Amazon Prime member, you get free access to Amazon Photo with unlimited storage for photos. I've used it for years and have no complaints. Just in case you need other options!
For now.....
Feels like we're rapidly approaching a point where the end consumer is going to be nickel and dimed for everything that used to be free, most of which paying for things that have a negligible price for the entities introducing the charges. Everything is going subscription based, including basic functionality in your cars.
I feel like there was some end game with these free services where they get you so entrenched in them that when they go subscription based lots of people are practically forced to pay.
Photos are free, there's a cap on videos.
Wow thanks
I wonder if it's worth the effort (or even possible) to recover my old @vt.edu email. I haven't used it since I left school, and it was issued around the Blacksburg Electronic Village era. I'm not even sure it still exists.
G-suite has a setting that Admins can and should be using. If the account hasn't been logged in to for a set time period, it is made inactive or even deleted.
I was the same 93-97 and Tech terminated my account years ago.
I was able to recover mine when I applied to grad school. The account was old enough, my recovery email was @juno.com
I ended up having to call for support, but they got it done.
ALL HAIL THE BEV!!!!
That brought back memories. Leg.
Have (had) 25G in vt.edu G Drive. Loaded edu and. gmail drives and photo storage in Multcloud (no I) to cloud transfer between accounts. Really smooth but data is limited per month in free version so have to wait til May to finish. Just paid $20 for a year to upgrade Gmail Google Drive to 100G. Any thoughts appreciated
Not ideal.
Ha, I didn't even know my vt.edu account was still active. I changed email addresses almost as soon as I graduated. I wonder if I can get back into it...
the e-mail domain wont be too bad a transition for me and maybe it will help get rid of some the junk mail. Now the 400GB of photos i have on there is going to be a pain. I now have to download and figure out if i'm going to pay for the personal google cloud storage, and re upload or some other cloud service or just leave them local storage but then i won't have access to them on my phone anymore. My wife has even more photos on there than i do so we might just get the top tier google cloud and share it. Regardless the transition of all the photos will be a pain whatever we decide to do. If we don't do the google cloud i will miss the auto generated collages and memories but oh well.
Edit: oh i forgot about the digital photo frames and google home that are linked to the photos on the account to display random pictures need to migrate all that as well somehow.
PSA - if you have an amazon account you get unlimited free photo storage
ok real question time, will Joe auto update our emails for TKP or do we have to do it individually?
I don't really want to get in the business of automatically updating account details, so I'd ask for people to update their own emails. If you need help doing this, please reach out and let me know!
The correct answer is ONLY for TKPC members.
Shit, that would make TKPC worth paying for (THIS IS SUPER TONGUE-IN-CHEEK DON'T @ ME)
'On my website, I'll @ people whenever I want.'
hmm, that reminds me, I have a custom alias @vt.edu for my TKP account, to match my username. I wonder if that feature is going away or staying
Lol, I just got another email that essentially boils down to, "hey so... Remember all that stuff we said earlier, Microsoft just changed their pricing model, so nevermind. Hope we can still be besties!"
All access for alumni on Google Drive and Photos will be terminated and your email storage will be limited to 5GB, but everything else is remaining the same
see my reply above, LOL.
https://news.vt.edu/notices/it-license-changes.html
I just saw this, but couldn't find this email in my inbox, what was the subject line?
subject: NEW: Important update to Virginia Tech Google services
from Virginia Tech Division of Information Technology
Procrastination pays off! I still hadn't gone thru all my services to see which ones were still using a vt.edu account and switched them over to something else. Now I don't have to! #StayWinning
So are we losing all our Docs, Sheets, Earth?
You will have to transfer it based on my understanding of this https://it.vt.edu/projects/license-changes/alumni.html that says only gmail access
Welp.... I've already started the transition to my new email address. Looks better on a resume anyway. You told me you didn't want to be together so I moved on...
Wait, so am I NOT supposed to use my xxxSlusherSluts69xxx@vt.edu email on my resume?!?
Dang it.
Depends on the job you're going for.
This 👆 (and honestly in the right scenario, listing that email could be an alpha power move)
Looks great for Southern Exposure
I'm not sure I look great for Southern Exposure, but hey how hard can it be... or maybe that's the problem.
So now that VT has turned off the calendar and Google drive functionality, I have a stupid question.
How do I get my phone (android) to stop trying to sign in to those apps? The error alert is irritating and I didn't see an obvious way to do it without deleting the entire Google account which would include the email I still use.
There are sync settings under accounts that you can deselect calendar
Settings> Accounts and backups > Managae accounts > @vt.edu > Sync Accounts
It was draining my battery all day and I didn't even think about it being an issue until my battery was gone.
EDIT: You want to clear the cache to those apps too, so settings > apps > storage and then press delete cache, do this after stopping the sync.
Any other tips? I've tried this and Google keep is still doing this to me.
Not right now, this got me down to just drive, being a pain, which I've never used so I am still trying things.
Did you figure anything out? I'm currently in a similar position. Even tried removing my vt account completely and tried to add it back just for email, but I'm still getting the google drive sign in request.
With you. The sign in request for the calendar has gone away but Google drive keeps popping up.
I think I got it on my phone.
Settings> Passwords & Accounts > Select the @vt.edu account > Account Sync > Uncheck at least everything with the little double arrow sync symbol next to it possibly all if you won't use it
how does this affect email?
Looks like it knocked out sync there too, but when I opened the app it took me to a menu of options that let me turn on sync for Gmail, I will report back in a bit if the notifications return or if this has sync'd only email
okie dokes, thanks. i logged out of the account on my phone entirely because i was traveling and didnt want to take the time to figure it out. but now i logged back in and unsynced everything but email so we'll see
Nope, just had a notification for Gmail. Seems everything has to be taken off sync.
I logged out of vt google account, restarted phone, logged into vt google account, desynced everything, restarted phone, immediately opened gmail app, turned on sync via the in-app notification and settings, and have yet to get a notification since (~6 hours).
If i go to settings> accounts and passwords etc, i can see that my vt google account has sync on for 1 of 10 services.
We'll see what i wake up to in the morning!
So over the first day, i got one push notification about every 8-10 hours. Then this morning I've gotten two push notifications at a time three times in the last two hours 🤦